CURMUDGUCATION: Embracing Education Productivity?

CURMUDGUCATION: Embracing Education Productivity?:

Embracing Education Productivity?

Rick Hess recently posted a piece that makes a couple of discussion-worthy points while neatly sliding right past a couple of other ones.

In "Why You Should Learn to Love Educational Productivity," Hess argues for an embrace of "productivity," but I'm not sure that word means exactly what he thinks it means.

We get to the "productivity" issue by sliding past a different one. Hess opens by noting that there have been many attacks on charter schooling lately, and he expresses not-so-much surprise:

At one level, this isn't shocking. Education has long been rife with suspicion of ideas that seem too "businesslike." The very term "productivity" can set teeth on edge. 

But here Hess makes two large leaps. First, we leap from charter opposition to ideas that seem too businesslike. But charter opposition is based on far more than any opposition to a businesslike approach to school. For instance, my objections to modern charters include the destruction of democratic and transparent process as well as the charter refusal to serve all students instead of just a chosen few. Second, Hess leaps from "businesslike" to "productivity." But many folks object to a businesslike approach to school because it usually values dollars over students.

So the whole opening of this piece is rather a cheat. However, I'm just going to pretend that Hess wrote, "I'd like to talk about productivity in education now," and move forward.

Hess argues that we should not resist "productivity" because it's just an attempt to make best use of resources. "... CURMUDGUCATION: Embracing Education Productivity?: