Education Reform: Too Big to Succeed
I'm a devoted follower of Diane Ravitch's blog. She is a tireless aggregator and a commentator on the various aspects of the misguided attempt, through law, to "reform" American education. She posts 7-10 times a day every day, good news and bad, what is happening on the ground as a result of national politicians and state legislators dictating policy and funding for public educational institutions from pre-k through higher ed. It seems to me that the reformers, who are successful businessmen first, want to apply their principles for success in the free market to education. Here are their guiding principles as I understand them and why I believe they are failing:
Disruption Is Good
It is no surprise that Bill Gates, who made his fortune through "disruptive" technological change, supports disruption on established institutions. His outsize influence comes from all the funding he has poured into backing programs that have proven to be destructive. This includes slash and burn closings of public schools that have been deemed failures to be replace by charter upstarts. So how's that working for us? In the all-charter Recovery School District of New Orleans the new schools have now been shown to be largely ineffective. The chickens are also coming home to roost in Chicago. Just read these posts enumerating one failed program after another.
It is no surprise that Bill Gates, who made his fortune through "disruptive" technological change, supports disruption on established institutions. His outsize influence comes from all the funding he has poured into backing programs that have proven to be destructive. This includes slash and burn closings of public schools that have been deemed failures to be replace by charter upstarts. So how's that working for us? In the all-charter Recovery School District of New Orleans the new schools have now been shown to be largely ineffective. The chickens are also coming home to roost in Chicago. Just read these posts enumerating one failed program after another.
Bear in mind that disruption for children is damaging. Children thrive in secure environments and closing schools willy, nilly and opening new replacements creates a lot collateral damage for students.
Business people believe that disruption opens up opportunities for entrepreneurs and everyone gains from innovation and new enterprises--fodder for the business equivalent of natural selection. I am an example of this. Seven years ago, when I learned that the Common Core Standards require that students read an increased amount of nonfiction, I saw an opening for the genre I've been working in for many years. Children's nonfiction literature has long been considered a stepchild by the children's book industry. So I six years ago I started an organization of award-winning children's nonfiction authors to promote our genre in the classroom, thinking that people would pay more attention to a group of us rather than to any one singular successful author. Our mission is to introduce the educational community to a largely overlooked and underutilized resource of excellent material. Indeed, we are starting to gain traction. However, since I am not a business person, I have failed to figure out how to make money from this enterprise so we have recently reorganized to become a nonprofit. Meanwhile, I watched with (a tinge of envious) dismay as some established education companies took advantage of the disruption to make out like bandits.
Business people believe that disruption opens up opportunities for entrepreneurs and everyone gains from innovation and new enterprises--fodder for the business equivalent of natural selection. I am an example of this. Seven years ago, when I learned that the Common Core Standards require that students read an increased amount of nonfiction, I saw an opening for the genre I've been working in for many years. Children's nonfiction literature has long been considered a stepchild by the children's book industry. So I six years ago I started an organization of award-winning children's nonfiction authors to promote our genre in the classroom, thinking that people would pay more attention to a group of us rather than to any one singular successful author. Our mission is to introduce the educational community to a largely overlooked and underutilized resource of excellent material. Indeed, we are starting to gain traction. However, since I am not a business person, I have failed to figure out how to make money from this enterprise so we have recently reorganized to become a nonprofit. Meanwhile, I watched with (a tinge of envious) dismay as some established education companies took advantage of the disruption to make out like bandits.
Accountability Is Essential
If you read the CCSS, they describe the behavior of an educated person who can read, write, speak, listen and compute. It is important to note that there is no curriculum, i.e. no content, attached to the standards. The focus is on skills, not learning anythinEducation Reform: Too Big to Succeed | Vicki Cobb: