Pia Lopez: Can we find common ground on schools?
plopez@sacbee.com
PUBLISHED SATURDAY, JAN. 28, 2012
As a historian who takes the long view, Diane Ravitch, author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," is rightly skeptical of "easy solutions" to the problems of American education. In her visit to The Bee's offices on Jan. 20, she showed she has little tolerance for quick fixes, panaceas or miracle cures.
In education, she says, "there are no shortcuts, no utopias and no silver bullets" – and recalling Dumbo, "no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly."
What most draws her historian's ire is boasting and hyperbole – charter schools (or school choice or testing) are the solution, teachers unions (or ineffective teachers) are theproblem, Teach for America teachers are the best, poverty is not a problem. On and on.
She's right that we should question those who think they have all the answers and demonize anyone who thinks otherwise.
But Ravitch herself is not immune from exaggeration or "black and white" categorization. She lumps education reformers in one basket – which she labels as "corporate reformers" dominated by a "billionaire boys' club" (Bill Gates, Eli Broad and others) – and claims they are in the thrall of free markets and seek to privatize public education.
Where do Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller fit in? Or civil rights leaders trying to improve their communities and public schools?
As a nation, it seems to me we've got to find a way to stop talking past each other and get to some common ground. We all have an interest in seeing that public schools are enginies