Diane Ravitch's Modest Proposal for Klein, Duncan, Sharpton

by Clay Burell · 2009-05-20 00:44:00 UTC
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Something that stands out about Ed Sec Arne Duncan and his inner circle - Klein, Sharpton, and, lord help us, Newt Gingrich at the *cough* "progressive" Education Equality Project; Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Mayor Bloomberg, and the whole Billionaire Boys' Club gang; Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, and the "give us a rookie idealist and a five week crash course, and we'll give you a competent, expert teacher" gang at Teach for America - and their whole "reform" discourse is how much talk and proposed action we hear about teachers, and how little about teaching.

An obvious cause is that Duncan and most of his gang have more background in management (or, lord help us, politics) than in education. And the frightening thing is, when we listen to them, there's little evidence they're aware of the difference between an MBA and a Ph.D. in education. It's like the hospital comptroller thinking he should have the right to dictate surgical techniques in the O.R.

Even if Duncan, Klein, Rhee, Kopp, Gates, Broad, et. al. really do have deep knowledge of education research and classroom (and broader) realities, they need to win credibility in the education sector by demonstrating that knowledge.

Diane Ravitch hits on a way for them to do this with the following modest proposal:

I think our society is in dangerous territory on this subject of accountability. The so-called "reformers," the guys (yes, guys) who call themselves the Education Equality Project, would have the world believe that accountability is the key to improving American education. They think it can be done fast, not incrementally. They think the key to improvement is punishing the bad students, the bad teachers, and the bad schools. Their latest formula, as enunciated by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is to close down 5,000 schools and re-open them. I wonder where he plans to find 5,000 new principals and thousands of new teachers, or does he just intend to reshuffle the deck?

This approach rests squarely on the high-stakes use of testing. One only wishes that the proponents of this mean-spirited approach might themselves be subjected to a high-stakes test about their understanding of children and education! I predict that every one of them would fail and be severely punished. (read all)

Clay Burell
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