The Underachievement School District | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

The Underachievement School District | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:

The Underachievement School District

by Gary Rubinstein

If you’re a parent, a student, or a teacher, the last thing you want to hear is that the state you live in has been commended by Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, as a ‘reform’ leader.  This has been occurring recently in the state of Tennessee.

The state education commissioner of Tennessee is former TFA VP of public affairs, and long time casual acquaintance of mine from the time were were in TFA together in Houston in the early 1990s, Kevin Huffman.  Huffman is also a member of the ‘Chiefs For Change,’ a group of education ‘leaders’ who blindly support the corporate reform agenda.

One experiment going in in Tennessee is the creation of The Achievement School District (ASD) which has on its website the slogan “We are the ASD: Proving the Possible by moving the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee to the top 25% within five years.”  Notice that the way this is phrased, it implies that they are having success.  They are not “trying to prove” but actually “proving” that they have the secret to doing what nobody has ever done, or even come close to doing.

The superintendent of The Achievement District is someone who is more than a long time casual acquaintance from my Houston days, but a bona fide friend from those days.  We share an unusual bond as in his first year he taught the sixth graders who had been left back that I had taught the previous year, my first year.  Though he wasn’t one of my best friends, I did hang out with him a good amount, from what I remember.  I like Chris, and he actually still answers my tweets on twitter, which is more than I can say for some other ‘reformers.’  When I saw he was chosen for this job, it gave me some hope since I have known him for over twenty years and