Zombie Ideas and Conventional Wisdom: Why NYC’s School “Reform” Matters to the Rest of Us
Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist and NY Times columnist, wrote a columnearlier this week about myths in economics. He calls them “zombie ideas.” Here is how Krugman defines a zombie idea: “one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true.” Back in 1958 in a famous book, The Affluent Society, another economist John Kenneth Galbraith called such ideas “the conventional wisdom” —”the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability.” Galbraith continued: “The conventional wisdom is not the property of any political group…. the consensus is exceedingly broad. Nothing much divides those who are liberals by common political designation from those who are conservatives.”
Zombie ideas. The conventional wisdom. Bipartisan consensus based on not much evidence and maybe even contrary to the evidence. Sounds like today’s wave of so-called public education “reform.”
Gene V. Glass, one of the authors of a fine new book on the facts and the evidence about what’s needed to improve public schools, 50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools,recently commented on the conventional wisdom–zombie ideas that dominate today’s theories of school “reform”:
“One narrative prominent these days — the Crisis Narrative — holds that our nation is at risk because our children are dumber than Finland, because our teachers are tools of greedy unions, because incompetent ‘ed-school’ trained administrators are incapable of delivering first-rate education. And — this narrative goes on — what public education needs is total reform: higher standards, more tests, brighter teachers uncorrupted by the wishy washy