John Dewey said it more than a century ago, and it is still true: What the best and wisest parent wants for his child is what we should want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely and, unchecked, destroys our democracy. (Forgive the paraphrase, but that is close to exactly right from memory.)
Here Leonie Haimson, New York City’s leading parent advocate, gives the same advice to President Obama. She calls on him to get rid of the test-driven policies of Race to the Top, which are ruining the public schools, and stop the privatizing.
What a terrible legacy is would be for President Obama if he left the presidency four years from now with a record of having used federal funds to disestablish public education in city after city, state after state.
She says:
Instead of pauperizing, standardizing, digitizing and privatizing education, we know what works to increase opportunities for children. Just witness the sort of education Obama’s own daughters receive: small classes with plenty of personal attention from experienced teachers, a well-rounded education with art, science and music, and little or no standardized testing. By instituting these reforms in the 1970s, Finland was able to turn around its school system and now outranks nearly all other nations in student achievement. If it’s good enough for Malia and Sasha, it should be good enough for inner-city public school students in New York City or Chicago.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We need a paradigm shift from education existing to produce good worker bees to educating people to be whole and capable of adapting to the many changes ahead.
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Re: Dewey by DR below: Precisely… so parenting is a key, and on this I must say the right-wing Romney folks are insistent… OK, there is racism there too perhaps… but see my Facebook page and Kyle Herndon… (my page is Nealhugh Hurwitz there…)…
It is not PC among some to emphasize that parenting is THE key… but it is!
And Peter Shrage (sp?) among others also said that a community gets the schools it “wants” so we do need to see how some folks are NOT able to effect that outcome, and resources are very important…
Poverty and lack of education among parents themselves hurts… but we know that that is not the main issue since poor folks have done well in schools before…
I would like to see the resurrection of Paul Goodman and Edgar Z. Friedenberg… and where is the new generation of the Deb Maiers?
Meanwhile, as I have been writing, Obama seems unimaginative and sorta clueless, so who can get near him on this? I would call Eric Holder but he has other fish to fry these days… maybe time to get to David Axelrod… he is very bright.
Best, Neal
John Dewey said it more than a century ago, and it is still true: What the best and wisest parent wants for his child is what we should want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely and, unchecked, destroys our democracy. (Forgive the paraphrase, but that is close to exactly right from memory.)
Neal H. Hurwitz NY, NY
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Thank you, Diane!
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So “the best and wisest parent wants” children attending a school with a good “record of sending graduates to elite universities and colleges”? (And the alma mater of half the Leopold and Loeb duo…)
Here’s the Dewey quote in more context. some of Dewey’s description (“All that society has accomplished…”) sounds more like Great Hearts Academy than the Chicago Lab School.
The School and Social Progress, John Dewey:
What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy. All that society has accomplished for itself is put, through the agency of the school, at the disposal of its future members. All its better thoughts of itself it hopes to realize through the new possibilities thus opened to its future self. Here individualism and socialism are at one. Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself.
cf Pierce v. Society of Sisters:
“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
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It’s so hard to reconcile all that I respect about President Obama with his RTTT initiative. As the Assistant Superintendent of a small Westchester County district, I often hear myself saying, “let’s remember our important work.” Teachers know I mean we’ll do what we need to do for APPR purposes, and we’ll also remember that we’re teaching children.
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