It’s silly season again, and I’m not referring to the Republican primaries. No, I’m thinking about the all-out battle for proponents and opponents of “reform” to stick a nasty label on the other side and claim the mantle of truth and goodness for themselves. This is nothing new, of course (Sean Cavanagh had a smart piece in Ed Week about this in March). But the battle continues apace.
I just learned from Whitney Tilson that Steven Brill, for example, calls Randi, Diane, et. al “school reform deniers” (akin to those who once denied that smoking was the cause of lung cancer). I see what he’s going for but I’m sorry Steve, that one needs a little more work. (It makes me think of Holocaust deniers. Are the unions denying that reform is happening? Or that it needs to happen? Or are they trying to deny victories to the reformers? It’s all a little unclear.)
On the other side, of course, is the push by the Save our Schools crowd to make the “corporate reformers” slander stick. Boy does that one burn me up. Not just because it’s inaccurate. (Trust me, if we relied on the reform ideas pushed by corporations, we’d just be singing kumbaya about the need for professional development, the imperative for better results in STEM, etc. Corporations hate controversy; real reform is controversial; ergo, “corporate reform” is an oxymoron.)
No, what gets my goat is that those of us in the think tank industry are totally getting shafted. Where’s our props? There was a time when the unions and others would blast us think tankers as crazy right-wingers and “enemies of public education.” Then President Obama, DFER, and other lefties had to complicate things by embracing reform too. Hey guys, we were here first!
Moreover, we used to be able to paint the reactionaries as “defenders of the status quo.” Now Diane lobs that one against US–and she’s sorta right in that standardized testing, a competitive marketplace, and a greater focus on teacher performance IS the new status quo–at least in some locales. (Victory!)
But let’s be honest, there’s no easy way around this conundrum. But I will try to do my part. When expressing my opinion on a particular policy idea, I will refer to others as either PEOPLE WITH WHOM I AGREE ON THIS ISSUE or PEOPLE WITH WHOM I DISAGREE ON THIS ISSUE. Wait, that’s clumsy.
Never mind. Go reformers go!
-Mike Petrilli
I think calling you corporate reformers is apropos, as you are trying to impose a business model on education (incentive pay, competition, outsourcing management of schools to private corporations, accountability for “results” , only using test scores instead of revenue data). Not to mention the huge profit potential for the private sector in the Common Core, all the new assessments, managing charter schools, and especially expanding online learning. (note Murdoch’s speech re $500B market in US alone.)
But I also coined “privateers” a while back, which I think describes the same goals pretty well and also suggests how the hostile takeover of pubic schools is being aided and abetted by the govt. I also now call you the “faux reformers” as opposed to the real reformers.
Your point about the status quo is correct; Chicago is entering its 17th year w/ these policies (!) , NYC its 9th or 10th year, and they clearly haven’t worked. In the words of Rita Solnet, how long are you going to insist that taxpayer money be thrown away on failed policies?
I have to disagree with the claim that “corporate reform” is somehow an oxymoron and/or not a valid charge.
Corporate interests and paradigms are at the core of Duncan, Gates, Rhee, et al., as they attempt to create schools for a compliant workforce, and call for raising the mechanistic approaches to schooling through authoritarian accountability and measurement.
My justification for this stance: http://dailycensored.com/2011/08/08/poverty-and-testing-in-education-%E2%80%9Cthe-present-scientifico-legal-complex%E2%80%9D/
These days I tend to use “so-called reformers,” but I’m cool with “enemies of public education” — it’s accurate and reasonably succinct. And yes, “defenders of the failed status quo” — you forgot the “failed” — as coined by the so-called reformers to use against public education advocates — now fits the so-called reformers.
“Deniers” is quite obviously intended to evoke “Holocaust deniers,” by the way. Aside from being cheap, it also triggers Godwin’s Law, so you defenders of the failed status quo lose and the discussion ends.
I would agree with your point about the slings and arrows except that it is largely corporate funded foundations that support think tanks that produce the opinions that re & de-formers rally around. Even “good” think tanks, whatever that means, are supported through corporate funding. As a collaborator with the Center for Teaching Quality, a think tank made up largely of former and current teachers to support teacher voice in education reform, I have seen that money that talks. But, you are one of the PEOPLE WITH WHOM I AGREE ON THIS ISSUE. Stop name calling and pointing fingers and become solution oriented. We can’t all be right, but we can’t all be wrong either.
I enoyed the combined silliness and seriousness of this post.
On the serious side, why assume that change is inherently good, and stasis not? Doesn’t it matter what is being changed?
For instance, one might teach at a school with a longstanding, excellent science curriculum and a lacking English curriculum. Wouldn’t it be reasonable, in that case, to defend the status quo in one instance and not in the other?
Or let’s say a school has gone haywire with test prep (strategies, insipid practice tests) but has a longstanding tradition of first-rate writing instruction. Wouldn’t it make sense to keep the best aspects of the writing instruction and tone down the test prep frenzy?
Why should “status quo” and “reform” have any inherent value? Why not consider what does and does not need changing? If there is inherent value in change and stasis, why not consider what stasis might hold? Why privilege change off the bat?
I recommend Baudelaire’s poem “Les hiboux” (“The Owls”)–scroll down for several translations:
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/156
Maybe over there in your think tank you’re not so in touch with what it is to be corporate these days. Business is all about “disruption” and “interruption” and that is controversial by design. Business believes that union politics are holding schools back and that it is corportate ruthlessness and private sector behavior that will reform public education.
Leonie Haimson’s list of business models driving reform are right on the money.
Speaking of money…where is the big money for reform? Oh, it’s coming from…corporation funds.
Whatever words work for whomever may need them is fine, because we need them all. Clearly no one can make sense of any of it, certainly not parents.
This “movement”, this period of time in education is challenging for everyone…the best way to describe it is the way a parent at a phased out school did, “unbearable.” “Unbearable” because on the ground looks nothing like any word any one person uses.
Responsible. That’s my favorite word. The decision makers at the top, who ever they are, are responsible for each and every child their decisions affect. There is a direct line from the top to each consumer who’s been ignored at a phased out High School in New York City.
While I disagree with almost everything Leonie writes, “privateers” is pretty good.
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