A Declaration To Reset The Education Debate
by Isaiah J. Poole
You may have seen stories about the poor quality of Washington, D.C.’s public schools. You probably have also heard about how Michelle Rhee was brought from near-obscurity to take over the city’s schools, overnight becoming a national symbol of dramatic education “reform.”
What you may not have heard is that after years of high-stakes testing and mass teacher firings along with school closings and reorganizations by Rhee and her successor and protégé, Kaya Henderson, many D.C. public schools are no better. In some cases, they’re worse.
That should give us all pause as we jump to change local and national education policies based on catchphrases that mask decisions that will do lasting harm to our children.
The Washington Post reported in June that test scores declined at 10 of the 18 schools that were reorganized under Rhee and Henderson between 2008 and 2010. Test scores are up in only six of those schools — two others have since closed. That’s a pretty poor record. As even Henderson conceded: “We have not always done reconstitution well.”
Track records like this one are fueling rising anger around the country over so-called reforms that offer lofty promises to justify the disruption of neighborhood schools, upended curriculums driven by standardized tests, widespread privatization, reduced budgets, and personnel policies that leave teachers feeling under siege, demoralized, and
