Interview With Paul Thomas
Paul Thomas is a professor of teacher education at Furman University in South Carolina. I just heard a fantastic interview with Paul by Bob Maxfield and Linda Tyson of Leaderful Schools. Leaderful Schools does a wonderful job of interviewing a variety of people who are doing excellent work in education. (And, as a self-serving plug, you can hear their interview with yours truly in Episode 4.) In this interview, Paul touches on a number of concerns he has with the effects of the corporate education reform movement on children.
The “No Excuses” approach to school reform vs. the “Social Context” approach to school reform. Paul explains that the No Excusers are led by those who are outside of the school community- they tend to be business leaders and politicians- no educational experience at all, while the Social Contexters tend to be educators and researchers. Because they lack the
