Why False Compromises Won’t Resolve The Education Debate
Legend has, political disputes are supposed to be resolvable only when parties “meet in the middle” and shake hands on points of agreement that are possible.
But in the much-contested issue of “education reform,” only one of the disputing parties in the debate tends to be implored to seek compromise.
The latest example of this came from conservative commentator Juan Williams. Writing for The Hill, Williams claimed differing opinions of how to improve the nation’s schools are “stuck in partisan paralysis.” He beseeched “two of the nation’s most politically powerful black men,” President Obama and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to make a “deal” on “hotly debated education reforms” and embrace the cause of charter schools.
Such a “grand bargain,” Williams assured, would “deliver on the promise of equal opportunity and solve this generation’s top civil rights problem.”
Similarly, in the same week, liberal columnist Jonathan Chait wrote forNew York Magazine that the fate of the nation’s schools was caught up in a “weird ideological divide” between people who promote charter schools as a solution for the nation’s education problems and those who have doubts about that.
Chait blamed that “divide” on education historian Diane Ravitch who, according to Chait, “portrays charter schools as a corporate plot.” What’s necessary, Chait maintained, is the “Ravitch and union view of the world” to give up “a nostalgic embrace of the old-fashioned organization of public school” and accepts “attempts to apply empirical metrics” that apparently characterize charter schools.
First, set aside how each of these popular columnists jumps to sweeping conclusions without citing any evidence.
(Williams claimed schools are “failing to do their part” to address under achievement of black and Latino students. Yet, results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that these students have madegreat strides in improving performance. Chait claimed neighborhood schools in Washington DC and New York City “are open to children who live close by and restricted to everybody else” – which is not true – and “charter schools are more aggressive about creating accountability
2/11/2014 – False Compromises In The Education Debate
2/11/2014 – False Compromises In The Education Debate
February 11, 2014 Subscribe THIS WEEK: School Funding Is Unfair … Republicans Play The Charter School Card … Millennial Unemployment Climbs … Skills Gap Myth … Warren Blasts Billion-Dollar Student Loan Profits TOP STORY Why False Compromises Won’t Resolve The Education Debate By Jeff Bryant “In the much-contested issue of ‘education reform,’ only one of the disputing parties in the debate tend
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