All I Really Need to Know about Corporate Education Reform (and why we should fight it) I Learned in Kindergarten
By: Dr. Yohuru Williams
Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best ones. Robert Fulghum’s hugely popular All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten offers the basis for a brief but illuminating mediation on Corporate Education Reform and why teachers and parents everywhere have united to fight it. Fulghum identified 16 lessons—centered on the golden rule—that he argued remain valuable beyond the days of A is for apple. I have combined a few and eliminated a few others for the sake of brevity to reduce 16 to seven—but the larger point is the same. So without further ado:- Share everything. (Presumably, this was the impetus for Corporate Education Reform but the evidence suggests otherwise). The barter for charter system, for example has done little to eliminate the barriers to equal education posed by poverty and racism. In addition, few familiar enough with the Common Core to speak honestly about it would argue that it has democratized access to education. I suggest that you ask the so-called reformers themselves, if you can get them to “share” the podium. The problem is that they are more adept at dictating than collaborating. The heavy-handed manner in which they have attempted to stifle opposing viewpoints—see Chris Christie, John King, and Michelle Rhee - clearly reveals the need for some remedial education in the area of share and share alike.
- Play fair. (Of course, this is impossible when the ultimate measure of a student’s success is reduced to how well they perform on standardized tests). Recent cheating scandals, involving some of the luminaries of Corporate Education Reform, illustrate the danger of a hyper-
