CURMUDGUCATION: I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

CURMUDGUCATION: I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;-- "The Arrow and the Song" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Rick Hess recently wrote an EdWeek post offering four insights about education policymaking, and as if often the case with Hess, I started to write a reply in the comments section and then it got too long and so here I am. Here's a quick recap of his four ideas--

This might end badly

Media has fostered a funhouse-mirror sense of policy. The journalistic (and internet) tendency to reduce everything to good guys and bad guys has obscured the degree to which many sides are occupied by decent people with honorable intent. Hess perhaps underestimates the degree to which politicians in this age have fed this beast with their scorched earth devotion to winning, no matter what the cost.

Policy is driven by the brokers and bridge-builders. Bomb throwers have their place, observes Hess, but they aren't the ones who Get Stuff Done. It's a fair observation-- Betsy DeVos's general ineffectiveness as a Secretary of Education could well be explained by notting that she is a bomb-thrower in a bridge-builder's job. On the other hand, her boss is the quintessential bomb-thrower, and it hasn't slowed him down much. And there's another huge caveat here-- where are you building those bridges? Because ab bridge between two differing ideas that are both wrong is not a helpful bridge.

Effective change-makers listen more than they talk. Hess's explanation, coming after a few CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: I Shot An Arrow Into The Air