CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part 2)

CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part 2):

Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part 2)

I've worked my way slowly through two panel discussions held at the American Enterprise Institute a couple of weeks ago. They're interesting and mostly thoughtful discussions among reformsters about how reformsterism (by which, mostly, they mean the charter movement) can navigate this new era and the fissures that it has opened up in reformland. You can read about the first panel here, but I'm going to walk you through the second one now.

This conversation is a bit broader than the first one, and I'm going to give you broad strokes of broad strokes. If you want to watch yourself, the second panel starts around the 1:10:00 mark on the video below.

Who's here?

The panel moderator is Stacy Childress (New Schools Venture Fund), and participants are Andy Smarick and his winter beard (AEI, Bellwether), Chris Stewart (EdPost), Marilyn Rhames (Teachers Who Pray, EdPost), Jason Crye (Hispanics for School Choice) and Derrell Bradford (NYCAN). Interesting assortment.

So, we can't assume that we can do the work of school reform without discussing race equity etc. Our charge is to stay in dialogue even across our disagreements. Childress is saying that the goal here is to hash out differences without "permanently alienating potential allies" There was apparently a conversation about all this earlier, so Childress is asking for a sort of reflection-recap of that.

Note: There's a lot of discussion in this panel about disagreements and dialogue. They mean disagreements and dialogue within the reformy community. Nobody here is going to talk about how to achieve dialogue with their "opponents" or the "enemy" or, as someone will put it later, the "bad guys." This is about dealing with internal discord.

What was one thing you heard today from a colleague that helped you have a clearer CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part 2):