Focusing on Curriculum
Robert Pandiscio is annoyed that everyone in the education debate is ignoring curriculum:
If you had a time machine and put a team of leading ed reformers in charge of the Edsel at Ford Motor Company 50 years ago, they would set to work energetically measuring the productivity of assembly workers (because we know—we know—that great assembly workers are the most important contributor to success in manufacturing). They would put a bonus plan in place to reward them when sales improved. And when that failed, they would shut down plants turning out Edsels that sold poorly and build brand new plants.
To make more Edsels.
Meanwhile, across town, critics point to wages and working conditions and ask how assembly workers can build better Edsels when they can’t feed their families or afford better health care? You can’t possibly fix the Edsel unless you fix that first.
[...]
The long view may be slowly, quietly emerging–as it should and must–as the question in education reform. To their great credit, KIPP recently released a remarkable report on the college completion