Chris Lehmann, Zac Chase, and the Game of Inches
The change we seek in education too often seems like a game of inches.
If we truly believe in two sides of education reform (I don’t, but let’s go with that for now), one side seems to get most of the big players, complex plays, the largest stadiums, and folks to fix the rules for them. The other side relies mainly on running plays and, when united, can get a few points here and there. The common person (that’s us) is that latter team. Sadly, every inch towards progress seems to detonate another mass offensive against us. Want to close the funding gap between poor and rich districts? Create private schools so rich folks can pay for only rich kids to go and keep the funding gap disparate. Want to desegregate schools? Undercut funding for those programs and create false narratives through the media. Want to opt out of over-standardized testing? Pretend to care and launch bills that assure only the more wealthy districts can opt out of those tests.
Divide. Conquer. Win-win-win, except only the winning team keeps winning.
Which reminds me. Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase, friends to the program, came out with a book recently that I’ve endorsed entitled Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need. You should know how long this stew took to brew, and you should also know how much I admire their thinking, even when we disagree. And we disagree like 2% of the time. Zac is more a bow tie Chris Lehmann, Zac Chase, and the Game of Inches | The Jose Vilson:
