Brilliant Summary of Corporate Education Reform
A commenter at the invaluable New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie's Pay Freeze sums up pretty much the entire corporate education reform movement:
When a big, soggy mess is gushing all over the floor, don't blame us. We warned you.
Can not see how it would improve any student outcome! What would happen if you used a whole roll of toilet paper every time you used the toilet. Now you know why this does not work!!We are putting all of our focus and all of our resources into the one area that has never been proved to be a serious problem: teacher quality. And we are so obsessed with this one area that we are ignoring every other issue in the lives of children.
When a big, soggy mess is gushing all over the floor, don't blame us. We warned you.
Cerf's Down
Oh, dear (and big congrats to Blue Jersey for breaking the story):
Acting NJ Education Commissioner Chris Cerf's hearing before the NJ Senate Judiciary Committee has just been canceled, I am told by a member of the Committee.
The Judiciary Committee has determined that Cerf - widely reported to have moved out of Essex County to the more GOP-friendly location of Somerset County, still lives at the same address in Montclair, where he has lived since 1999.
That move might have removed him from the jurisdiction of Essex Senator Ronald Rice, who has blocked his nomination for months on the basis of questions about his history and financial
Great Moments in Reformy Fawning
Apparently, Chris Cerf, the ACTING NJ DOE Commish, was born in a log cabin he helped his father build:I didn’t know what exit we were passing, but Christopher Cerf, the six-foot New Jersey commissioner of education, curled yogi-like in the backseat of a small state-issued Chevy Impala, didn’t seem to be paying attention to the 18-wheelers roaring by as we flew along the New Jersey Turnpike. “I’ve worked for a president, and I’ve worked for a mayor, and I’ve worked for a governor, and the mayor ran a city as big as most states,” he was saying. “What draws me to this work is the same thing that draws me, I have to say, to wilderness canoeing. When you go to the head of a rapid and you’re trying to go downstream—it’s the rocks that make it fun.”This is a guy who has an astute appreciation for the challenges of education reform, and relishes them.
A Big Idea that came out of my EduCon 2.4 experience was creating conditions in which failure is acceptable, useful, and fast. Students failing at something should be viewed as something instructive to both learner and educator. A classroom without risk damns those who don’t “get it” the first time. I really took to this idea and thought it related well to the kind of writing instruction I do with my 2nd grade classes.
