“Two roads diverged in a wood,” begins one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems.

In 2011, Arthur Camins described the fateful choice confronting American education. In 2011, he wrote:

“U.S. education is at a transformational moment. The choices we make will determine whether our schools become collaborative and democratic or prescriptive and authoritarian. The policies proposed by the federal government for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will create some good schools for some students while hurting many more and will do little to improve teaching or learning.”

Now, in 2013, he writes that our leaders are taking us down the wrong road:

“We have traveled much further down the latter road than I imagined even in my most pessimistic moments. Charter schools and school closings, value-added, metrics-based teacher evaluation and pay systems and prescriptive turnaround models have all gained momentum, while so-called reform–minded billionaires have influenced elections and administrative hiring around the nation. Perhaps, most disturbing is that this has proceeded despite persistent credible evidentiary challenges, while scholars from around the world have pointed out that no country has made accelerated improvement by relying on market-based policies.”