Can We Talk?
Lately you can't open a link to a pro-education reform blog without finding another reformster pleading for a civil conversation on education. My colleague and fellow founding member of the Guys with Beards and Blogs Foundation, Peter Greene, of the Curmudgucation blog, has analyzed the pleas of the Thomas Fordham Foundation's, Andy Smarick here and those of Mike Petrilli, also from Fordham and Neil McClusky of Cato, here and here. Now jumping into the conversation in a post in Education Week, is Patrick Riccards, aka Eduflak, who pleads for reformers and educators to work together for the good of the (wait for it) children. You can read his post here.
Riccards gets off to a good start with the title of his piece: It's time for reformers, educators to work together. I welcome what is implied in this title: reformers are not educators. That's a good start. Even though this acknowledgement filled me with a warm glow, a sudden chill returned when the question popped into my head, "I have been here all along, where have you been?"
Then I recalled where the reformers have been. They have been out spreading the word that teachers are the problem, that tenure hurts children, that we need to close public schools and replace them with charter schools, that parents need choice. They have been out designing the Russ on Reading: Can We Talk?: