[Vision2020] Education Reform

[Ron Force]

>From Diane Ravitch (sounds like Sue Hovey, or anyone who's occupied a classroom). Excerpts below, read the whole thing at: 

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/05/what_works_best_help_or_punish.html#comments
What Works Best: Help or Punishment?
By Diane Ravitch on May 17, 2011 9:56 AM | 22 Comments | 1 Recommendation

Dear Deborah,

Your last column reminded me of fruitless debates that I have had with education "reformers" who are extremely certain about their views. They are convinced that they have exactly the right solutions for fixing schools—firing teachers and closing schools—and that anyone who disagrees with them is a "defender of the status quo." I have heard exactly this charge, again and again...

What do I conclude from these disparate thoughts? I think we are dealing with two very different mind-sets. One sees the school as a community, a place of learning where there is an ethical obligation to support both staff and students, helping both to succeed. The other sees schools as one part of a free-market economy, where quality may be judged by data; if the results aren't good enough, then fire part or all of the people and close the store, I mean, the school and pick a new location. The former looks to teamwork and mutual support as guiding principles; the other prizes competition, leading either to rewards or punishments.

What's scary is that we now see the advance of the free-market ideology across many states—Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, for example. We see strong support for the market basis of schooling in both No Child Left Behind and in Race to the Top. We see it with the advance of charters, for-profit online corporations, virtual charters, merit pay, and the proliferation of charters as a panacea. We see a continuing campaign to dismantle public education, privatize it, and turn it over to entrepreneurs of various stripes...

The debates don't seem to change their views. Neither does evidence that their "solutions" don't work. Neither does the fact that the top nations in the world are not pursuing privatization and de-professionalization as cures for education. Perhaps someday they will recognize that their ideas don't work. Or they will get bored and move on to some other pastime...
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