Bennett-gate And The Politics Of Grading Schools
Last week’s midair disintegration of a high-flying apparatchik in the movement known as education “reform” is still making headlines in local press and the national media.
Tony Bennett was a hero of the national movement bent on reshaping public education along the lines of consumerism and marketing imperatives. The state where he burnished his reputation, Indiana, was dubbed by a Beltway conservative belief tank as an “Ed Reform Idol”. His policy of grading schools A-F based on an algorithm of test score data was embraced by political leaders in the Republican and Democratic parties.
Now revelations of a cheating incident in Indiana, where Bennett and his team altered a school grading scheme so a charter school run by a campaign donor changed from a “C” grade to an “A,” have prompted him to resign from leading the public school system in Florida, where he landed after losing a reelection bid in Indiana the previous year.
People who like the idea of evaluating schools and educators on simplistic grading systems in the name of “accountability” were quick to label Bennett’s transgression as “not that big of a deal” or excusable because of his “legacy.” Bennett himself attributed revelations of his transgressions to “political enemies.”
But anyone who has given support to failed school reformers like Bennett