CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Reformster Drive By

CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Reformster Drive By:

ME: Reformster Drive By

One of the basic premises of reformsterism is that nobody who actually lives in your state or district already knows what your community needs to do about education-- you must bring in an expert. So a whole cottage industry of traveling education consultants/experts/talking heads has sprung up, despite the lumps of cognitive dissonance floating in this ideological soup (when the phone rings at Fordham, and someone is looking for a reformy expert on how the states should have more power over ed reform, do the Fordham folks ever say, "Hey, you have the know-how and wisdom to operate your district without help from DC, so we aren't going to go there"?)

Examples of the smaller fish can be as instructive as the whales of the consulting expert industry. And so, let's travel to Maine and meet Vicki E. (Murray) Alger.

Alger will be in Maine to present on Friedman Legacy Day, a totally not-made-up holiday that will be celebrated by the Maine Heritage Policy Center in Portland. On July 31, Alger will be talking about The Future of School Choice in Maine. Admission to the luncheon meeting is a mere $25 for non-members. The event starts with the usual blurbly excesses:

Allowing parents to choose which school their children attend is a common-sense measure that has been shown to promote educational growth and achievement, and foster healthy competition among schools. 

None of those things is true. Heck, even the adjectives (common-sense, healthy) are not true. But it lets us know which brand of baloney is being served right up front. Why is Dr. Alger (because, of course, she's a PhD) here in Maine? She's not only going to sing the praises of choice, but she is going to let these Mainesters know how their state is doing, choice-wise.

So who is Vicki E. (Murray) Alger? Is she some sort of Mainey expert on school choice? Well, of course not. Why would you call on someone local to explain your local issues? Alger lives in Phoenix, Arizona. But her reformy credentials are impeccable.

In 2003, Alger received her PhD in political philosophy from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Reformster Drive By: