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Heilig: Feds Want to Reduce Collection of Data That Affect Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2013 //
14

This is an astonishing post by Julian Vasquez Heilig. He has a passion for equity, and he bridles when reformers lower the standards for becoming a teacher and claim they are doing it “for the kids.”

He asks, Would you rather fly with an experienced pilot or fly with one who had only five weeks’ training? Or how about one with 30 hours of training? If the answer seems obvious, and if you prefer that your children have teachers who are well prepared and highly qualified, wait until you see the chart in the middle of his post, showing the explosive growth in teachers with alternate certification.

Then consider that the U.S. Department of Education wants to STOP collecting this data. And that’s not all. In the Department’s single-minded commitment to something-or-other (not equity), this is what they propose to stop reporting:

“That brings us to the federal governments request to no longer keep track of this huge influx of teachers with a modicum of training to “pilot” our classrooms. The Department of Education is seeking public comments on the Civil Rights Data Collection process for 2013-2016. The feds have decided that it is no longer necessary to keep track of the FTE of teachers meeting all state licensing/certification requirements. The feds have also decided these data points are also no longer important for Civil Rights:

“Number of students awaiting special education evaluation (LEA)

“Whether students are ability grouped for English/Math

“Harassment and bullying policies (LEA)

“Number of students enrolled in AP foreign language(disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who took AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP)

“Number of students who passed AP exams for all AP courses enrolled in (disaggregated by race, sex, disability, LEP

“Total personnel salaries”

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Race to the Top, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching, U.S. Department of Education

A Shocking Display of Common Sense in Syracuse

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2013 //
22

Michael Gilbert, a school psychologist at Meachem Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, offers words of wisdom to his fellow citizens.

Please read and share them.

He writes:

….Much of what is happening in public education “reform” is not about what is in the best interest of students and schools. It is about politics, power, special interests and money.

All children in public schools are riding in the back of this proverbial bus in some way or another. Parents have a right to be outraged, but I doubt that most of them fully understand the current state of affairs. When it comes to public education, we can no longer assume that our children’s best interests are being served. This will continue to be the case so long as state and federal mandates are issued by individuals lacking basic knowledge of child development and education.

Lately there have been a lot of attacks directed against teachers for the failure of our schools as measured by standardized test scores, and against parents for behavioral issues in their children. While teachers and parents certainly own some of the accountability, these issues are much more complicated than they seem. Due to recent education reform policies, the passion and creativity for teaching is being destroyed, and I fear the best and brightest teachers are either leaving the field or will never enter it in the first place.

There is an over-fixation on testing, the results of which are being used — unfairly, according to researchers at the Economic Policy Institute and National Research Council — to evaluate teachers. While class size continues to increase, there has been a decrease in time allotted for movement (recess, physical education) and for the arts and humanities….

Data clearly show that children in low-achieving districts experience a great deal of stress related to factors such as trauma, poverty and violence. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated how stress interferes with the skills required for school success — for example, with the ability to attend to and concentrate on instruction; with flexibility and perseverance in problem-solving; and with the maintenance of self-control.

Instead of addressing this in a meaningful way, we simply assume that students will be able to leave their struggles at the entrance to the school. To make matters worse, we have increased the level of stress on these children by implementing policies that are getting us nowhere and are leaving a large number of students behind.

Parents and concerned citizens need to lead the charge in taking back the schools which ultimately belong to them.

There are no quick fixes for meaningful education reform and it will require a great deal of hard work and commitment. However, the “reorganization” of “failing” schools is another process void of logic. Why do we wait for schools to consistently not make yearly adequate progress before we decide to do something new and creative? Should all schools not be given this opportunity? Or is this school transformation process really just an illusion of change?

Schools are not a “business” and students are not products to be measured through high-stakes testing. There needs to be a fundamental shift in the underlying framework of public education. Here are a few things that we could perhaps start with.

Teachers need to be truly valued in our communities. Let’s not minimize the dedication and heart teachers put into their profession or the role they play in the development of the whole child.

Teachers also need to be given the opportunity to teach a meaningful and enriched curriculum. There needs to be a return to unstructured play opportunities in kindergarten to cultivate necessary social-emotional skills.

Learning is about quality of instruction, not quantity. It is dependent on teachers and students developing meaningful relationships, not the administration of what State Education has termed “instructional dosages.” Students need to learn how to think, not what to think.

We need to put resources back into classrooms and school buildings, even if that means eliminating staff from central offices. There needs to be a reduction in unnecessary meetings and an elimination of ineffective programs. Otherwise, a great deal of valuable time will continue to be wasted throughout each school year.

Building administrators need to spend more time in their buildings working as instructional leaders to teachers and supports to children. Currently, they have much less time for what really matters, due to all that is required with state-mandated testing and teacher evaluation protocols.

Leaders in education need to inspire and unite – not dictate, demoralize, and divide. It is not about image, photos ops, rhetoric and catch phrases. It is about leading by example, with actions, not just words. With the current mantra of no bullying, why is it OK for our leaders to engage in exactly that type of behavior?

“College and career ready” makes a great sound bite, but in reality the concerns are much more complex and urgent. Can we agree to first make a commitment to equip children with skills for life, such as being responsible, persistent, cooperative, empathic and resourceful? Our children must be, above all else, effective communicators able to manage strong emotions. Once we are successful with that goal, then “college and career ready” will take care of itself.

Districts need a strong and well-informed school board — one that serves the students and families in their community. Many school boards across the state have passed clear resolutions against high-stakes testing and teacher evaluation systems. Unfortunately, a local school board recently passed a resolution that was, while well-intended, weak and off target. They should not only be more aggressively defending the teachers they employ, but also the children that their district serves.

A school board works for the public that elects them. The superintendent works for the board that hires them. Some districts seem to have this hierarchy upside down. Of course, the accountability doesn’t stop here. The commissioner of education, state Education Department, state Legislature, and governor all need to answer to parents specifically and taxpayers in general.

Ultimately, control of public schools should be returned to the local level. But until then we all need to be defending what is right and in the best interest of our children. Parents and concerned citizens need to lead the charge in taking back the schools which ultimately belong to them. A grassroots education revolution may be our only hope.

 
 The article is right on. It would not surprise you that some of the letters that followed attack the writer, question why there is a school psychologist, and raise other attack-dog questions.
Thanks for stating simple truths clearly and succinctly, Michael Gilbert!
Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

A Teacher in Huffman World

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2013 //
26

Tennessee state superintendent Kevin Huffman expects to get great teachers by cutting the salaries of those with advanced degrees and experience. Wonder where he learned that formula? And of course, he will evaluate teachers by test scores, aka junk science. This is supposed to improve education because the top graduates of the nation’s universities will rush to teach in a state where advanced degrees and experience don’t matter. They will, won’t they?

Here is a comment by a Tennessee teacher, who teaches Spanish:

“I’m another teacher in TN…. I love to teach, and I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life, but it’s getting harder and harder to pay the bills. Many of us, including me, have to work multiple jobs at this point, despite our degrees, training, and professional expertise.

“Among other ludicrous things, in my evaluations, I have been critiqued for my students speaking Spanish during class because “it wasn’t listed on the board as an objective” (yes, for a Spanish CLASS), and I’ve been told to “speak less Spanish when I teach” during evaluations, because my evaluators do not know Spanish. In other words, I’m supposed to teach less, so that people who do not know my content area can evaluate the quality of my teaching.

“It’s very difficult to hang in there right now.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Tennessee

“Declaration of Independence” by United Opt Out

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2013 //
24

United Opt Out has consistently spoken against the abuses of testing and high stakes for students and teachers.

Here is a link to their Declaration of Independence and to other important information about them.

And here is their Declaration of Independence from corporate education reform.

 

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

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IN OPPOSITION, July 4, 2013
The unanimous Declaration of the national United Opt Out,
When in the course of educating a nation, it becomes necessary for its people to restrain the political and private powers which have obfuscated the fundamental mission of a public system of education to, among other points, compensate for the proclivities of the Laws of Nature to separate and exclude swaths of humankind into those that have and those without.

That to secure this broad mission of a public education, Governments are commissioned by its people to serve unequivocally the explicit needs of those to be educated. It is not to relinquish control of the purposes of education to incorporated powers which deign the will of a free People to determine the means and ends of their cultural developments.

Whenever any Government or Agent of the State abrogates the responsibility to defend the general preparations of its future citizens from untoward profit-making, it is the Right of the Educated to alter or to refuse impositions, and to institute a new Education, laying its foundation on principles and powers to most likely effect their Autonomy, Freedom, and Happiness.

Love, indeed, will resolve that a public system of Education long established should not be upended for fickle and makeshift designs, and accordingly all experience has shown, that an aspirational People are disposed to trust, as certain evils are trustworthy, when impossible oaths are expressed as guarantees of accomplishment. That such promises are made by representatives of the Education State, to whom its People have become accustomed, is the most perverse injury of all.

But when a long record of exploitations and failures, in pursuit of objectives that evince a design to reduce the Educated to absolute Quantification, in effect leading to total economic Exploitation, it is their right, it is their obligation, to refuse such Education, and to provide new Custodians for their future achievement. Such has been the persistent sufferance of the Educated, particular to Inhabitants of the most meager of circumstances; and such is now the requisition which prohibits them from amending their rightful System of Education.

The history of the present Secretary of Education, of his maids of State, and sycophants in unelected offices, is a history of recurring ignorance and ineptitude, all having in ultimate purpose the reduction of the Educated to singularly objective values that are inherently valueless. It is with this Ignorance and Ineptitude that the current Government wields an inseparable Autocratic alliance between Incorporated and State interests against the wishes of the People.

To prove this, let United Opt Out submit these Facts to a candid world:

• He has refused to reduce inequality and segregation, the most unwholesome and unnecessary for a public Education.

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

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  • He has constrained the role of professional Educators and contributed to their egregious humiliation in the face of unreasonable scrutiny from the State.
  • He has ignored significant corrective actions necessary to diminish disparities in opportunities, resources, and human capital in Education as sanctioned by the Fiscal Fairness Act.
  • For refusal to recommend other Laws or Regulations for the Rightful accommodation of large groups of students, principally second language, impoverished, and students of color, unless Schools relinquish the autonomy of Educators and control of their Curriculum, needs inestimable to them and formidable to ideologues only.
  • He condones through inadequate and narrow investigations a professional culture of Lying, Cheating, and Exploitation within School communities.
  • He has endeavored to prevent School populations from selecting refusal of specific Federal impositions that hinder local needs from an erroneous Competition for funds, such that these limited monies could not possibly repair previous and egregious breaches in support, that otherwise bind Schools and Districts to compliance.
  • For taking away our traditional public Schools in favor of Charters, altering our most valuable laws to hasten dissolutions, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Local Boards to enact control of Mayors as opposed to the People expressly.
  • For Accommodating large bodies of untrained Educators among us:
    • For protecting them, by granting certain exceptions, from qualification for any

      Educator position which they hold in the most challenging Schools;

    • For imposing Subsidies on public School systems to sponsor amateurs;
    • For shielding open Educator positions, that should otherwise be available to

      qualified candidates, for provisional Recruits.

  • He has excited insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the

    inhabitants of our cities against each other, setting as rivals the poor against the poor, to become executioners of their own friends and Brethren, to fall themselves by their Hands, to enable the affluent in escaping responsibility.

  • He has affected to render Corporations independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  • He has exacerbated the conditions dissolving elected Boards repeatedly, for opposing with effete vacillation his encroachment on the rights of the people.
  • He has denied sufficient protections to confidential information gathered by private entities in the process of public Education; ignored the apprehensions expressed by the caregivers of the students of our public Schools therein; and perseveres in implementation of diffuse collection methods in defiance of personal Privacy.
  • For conscripting the publicly Educated into labour on behalf of Private entities to refine the instruments of our own Oppression; not for the re-investment of knowledge and resources acquired, but to enrich the remunerative coffers of speculators.
  • He has abdicated Government in the defense of public Education by declaring Accountability greater to Preservation, and waging Wars of Attrition against us.

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

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In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Secretary of Education whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Profiteer, is unfit to be the warden of a Public lavatory let alone a free system of Public Education.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Private brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their Board members to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of our Allegiance to the public in Education. We have appealed to their assumed senses of innate justice and fairness, and we have summoned them by the ties of our common citizenship to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our cooperation and camaraderie. They too have been deaf to the voices of equality and solidarity. We must, therefore, submit to this necessity, which denounces our Disobedience, and hold them, as we hold us all, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Administrators of the national United Opt Out, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the free people of this Nation for the integrity of our intentions, do, in the Name and our Authority, defiantly publish and declare, That our public systems of Education are, and of Right ought to be, Absolved from any and all Obligations, Oppressions, and Exploitations set forth only by Private and Unelected Associations; that we assert the abilities to Choose and Refuse certain Acts and Things that violate the interminable conscientiousness of professional Educators; and that as Discerning and Intellectual personnel, charged with labors few are wont or capable to do, we have full Power to secure our own professional identities, determine to Whom and under what conditions for which we are Accountable, and succeed with significant voice to govern the Laws of our work.

And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Good Sense and a Common Destiny, we mutually pledge each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor. 

 

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Scenes I’d Like to See: Pundits Teaching

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2013 //
30

A reader, Karl Gabbey, has a proposal:

“MAD Magazine once had a page in each edition entitled, “Scenes We’d Like To See,” that depicted a bit of “Schadenfreude” about people who deserved it. It might be fun to see loudmouthed politicians and assorted corporate types who consider themselves “educational experts” teach for an extended period of time. I have a suggestion: They ought to teach high school academic subjects with a minimum of 125 students per day preferably in rural or inner city schools, carry a full class load each school day with a minimum of three daily preparations, plus coach after-school sports without additional compensation. They should be required on their own time to write college recommendations for any seniors. Let’s not forget cafeteria or hall supervision. They should communicate regularly by phone e-mail, or have conferences with all parents about their sons’ or daughters’ academic progress. Hopefully, they’ll also have the opportunity to attend in-service workshops. Throughout the year, they should supervise other school activities like debate tournaments, plays, concerts, and of course the junior/senior prom. As a crowning touch, their performance(s) for the year should be rated by parents and students. That would be truly a “scene that I’d like to see.”

“P.S. I could add some more items like paying for class supplies, arranging and supervising a field trip, chaperoning class trips, or taking additional post-graduate evening or summer classes at their own expense to upgrade knowledge in their fields or to improve their teaching methods but those could be a bit much for a rookie and may border on cruelty.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

My Message to the Badass Association of Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2013 //
114

I was uneasy with the name , but I got over it.

The reality is that the Badass Association of Teachers fills a need. Teachers have been beaten up in the media, and have seen state after state strip away their academic freedom, their rights, their status in the community.

I was invited to join and to write an address to the BAT. This is it.

And here it is in full (by the way, I am uncomfortable with the name lie many others, but our struggle requires militants and BAT is the point of the spear):

Message of Support from Diane Ravitch to the Badass Teachers Association

Dear Members of the Badass Teachers Association,

I am honored to join your group.

The best hope for the future of our society, of public education, and of the education profession is that people stand up and resist.

Say “no.” Say it loud and say it often.

Teachers must resist, because you care about your students, and you care about your profession. You became a teacher to make a difference in the lives of children, not to take orders and obey the dictates of someone who doesn’t know your students.

Parents must resist, to protect their children from the harm inflicted on them by high-stakes testing.

Administrators must resist, because their job is changing from that of coach to enforcer of rules and regulations. Instead of inspiring, supporting, and leading their staff, they are expected to crack the whip of authority.

School board members must resist, because the federal government is usurping their ability to make decisions that are right for their schools and their communities.

Students must resist because their education and their future are being destroyed by those who would force them to be judged solely by standardized tests.

Everyone who cares about the future of our democracy must resist, because public education is under attack, and public education is a foundation stone of our democracy. We must resist the phony rhetoric of “No Child Left Behind,” which leaves every child behind, and we must resist the phony rhetoric of “Race to the Top,” which makes high-stakes testing the be-all and end-all of schooling. The very notion of a “race to the top” is inconsistent with our democratic idea of equality of educational opportunity.

We live in an era of ignorant policy shaped by politicians who have never taught a day in their lives.

We live in a time when politicians and policymakers think that all children will get higher test scores if they are tested incessantly. They think that students who can’t clear a four-foot bar will jump higher if the bar is raised to six feet.

We live in a time when entrepreneurs are eyeing the schools and their budgets as a source of profit, a chance to monetize the children, an emerging market. Make no mistake: They want to make education more cost-effective by eliminating your profession and eliminating you. Their ideal would be 100 children in front of computers, monitored by classroom aides.

You must resist, because if you do not, we will lose public education in the United States and the teaching profession will become a job, not a profession. What is happening today is not about “reform” or even “improvement,” it is about cutting costs, reducing the status of teachers, and removing from education every last shred of the joy of learning.

It is time to resist.

Badass Teachers, as you resist, be creative. Writing letters to the editor is good but it is not enough. Writing letters to the President is good, but it is not enough.

Be creative. The members of the Providence Student Union have led the way. They staged a zombie march in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education to demonstrate their opposition to the use of a standardized test as a high school graduation requirement. They invited 60 accomplished professionals to take the released items from the test, and most failed. This convincingly demonstrated the absurdity of using the test as a requirement for graduation. When the state commissioner of education who was the main backer of the tests scheduled her annual “state of education” speech, the students scheduled their first “state of the student” speech.

Act together. A single nail gets hammered. When all the nails stick up, the people with the hammers run away. When the teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle boycotted the MAP test, they won: the test was canceled and no one faced retribution.

Be brave. When you stand together and raise your voices, you are powerful.

Thank you for counting me as one of your own.

I salute you.

Diane Ravitch

Categories Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Is Eli Broad Abandoning TFA?

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
55

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad heaps praise on the much-maligned report of the National Council on Teacher Quality. For a foundation that claims to care most of all about performance, not inputs, Broad is surprisingly willing to endorse a report based solely on a review of course readings and catalogues, not results. That is probably because his foundation helped to support the “study.” He is impressed that the report was “eights years in the making,” but doesn’t mention that the NCTQ was created only 13 years ago by a conservative think tank to act as a battering ram against schools of education. This report is the culmination of its ambitions.

Bear in mind: NCTQ is not a professional association; it is not a research organization; it is not a think tank. It is an advocacy organization that promotes alternative ways to become a teacher, that is, alternative to going to an education school.

Broad’s recommends that future teachers be deeply grounded in their subject and that they participate in a high-quality residency program.

He writes: “We would never allow a medical student to perform surgery without participating in a high-quality residency program and studying under the careful eye of an experienced physician. We shouldn’t force new teachers to enter the classroom without the same type of support and training.”

Medical students are not allowed to perform surgeries without years of training in medical schools, internship, and residency. That leaves out Teach for America.

Is Eli Broad turning his back on Teach for America?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teach for America TFA, Teachers and Teaching

The Origins of BAT: When Reason Doesn’t Work

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
20

Mark Naison, one of the founders and leaders of the Badass Association of Teachers, explains why BAT became necessary, and why its numbers have grown so dramatically:

 

When Reason Doesn’t Work: Another Explanation for “The Rise of the BATs”

Many people have criticized the “Badass Teachers Association” for its unprofessional sounding name and in your face image, but the meteoric rise of this group didn’t come out of nowhere.  All over the country educators have faced policies imposed from above by education officials-political appointees all- which violate their best practices and common sense, but have had no success whatsoever modifying these policies by writing position papers, mounting petition drives or testifying before the few open forums where such policies are discussed

 

Let’s use New York State as an example. During the last year, the Governor, the Legislature, and the State Education Department have imposed on school districts throughout the state protocols for teacher evaluation that are expensive, complicated, time consuming, unfair, and in the judgment of most principals in the state, completely unworkable. Some of the best principals in the state organized to challenge the new system. They wrote an extensive, well researched critique of the policies, circulated a principals letter with thousands of signatures, got even more signatures on a parents letter, and tried to testify at allegedly “open hearings” held by the state’s

“Education Reform Commission,” but found themselves marginalized and rebuffed.  The policies have been literally rammed down the throat of school districts by the Governor, who now have to cope with massive demoralization of teachers and administrators, the smothering of creative pedagogy in favor of “teaching to the test” and the cancellation of beloved art, music and sports programs to pay for the unfunded mandates the new system requires.

 

This  misapplication and intensification of high stakes testing provoked a huge statewide test revolt organized by parents, concentrated in Long Island, the Hudson Valley and Western New York,  as well as a broad based movement against Common Core Standards,  but is it any wonder that teachers, whose union leaders reluctantly supported the plan, are also rising up?

 

Teachers and children’s lives are being destroyed every day in New York State  and some teachers decided that  maybe a new, more confrontational style was required to deal with the arrogance of policy makers and  the astro turf, billionaire supported education policy groups behind the new policies.  So Badass Teachers Association was born, fueled by that rage and disappointment.

 

That is touched a chord with teachers throughout the nation, and the world, says something about how much concentrated power, and concentrated wealth, has undermined even the the pretense of democratic discussion regarding education policies.

 

Maybe it’s time to fight fire with fire.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

They Closed My School, But It Will Always Be in My Heart: CORRECTION!

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
15

In my original post, I miscredited the author of this piece. It is Carina Hilbert. I attributed the piece to someone who retweeted it. My apologies to Carina Hilbert.

Here is the link to her blog.

Teacher Carina Hilbert is heart-broken. She was proud to work at Albion High School. She loved the kids. The kids were the best. So was the staff.

But they closed the school.

It hurts her to think about it, to talk about it, to write it.

“I may be gone from AHS, but a piece of my heart will always be there, hidden away in room 121, where magic happened, students learned and grew, and lives were changed. We are all Wildcats.”

Who are “they”? Who are these cold, callous people who blithely shut down a beloved school and disrupt communities? How dare they? And they piously claim they are doing it “for the children.” Did they ask the children? Did they ask their parents?

Of course not.

Categories Closing schools, Education Industry, Michigan, Teachers and Teaching

Arthur Camins: Why the Debate Over Standards Flounders

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2013 //
12

Arthur Camins has written an insightful critique of the current debate over standards. As he puts it, “the past gets in our eyes.”

Camins begins:

“The Common Core State Standards for Reading and Mathematics appear to be simultaneouslyunstoppable trains and under siege, making strange bedfellows of both supporters and opponents.

Two issues cloud the debate about their validity, value and efficacy: (1) The idea of standards
has been conflated with standardization; (2) Standards have become inextricably linked to highstakes assessments. This has superseded a deeper meaning of assessment- the daily cycle of
diagnosis and feedback to students that marks the practice of every effective teacher.
However, there is something deeper contributing the cloudiness. I am reminded of a classic
Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy laments upon missing a fly ball, “Sorry I missed that easy fly ball,
manager. I thought I had it, but suddenly I remembered all the others I’ve missed. The past got in
my eyes!”

Camins notes a strange paradox: The supporters of “reform” says that the best schools (i.e., charters and vouchers) have autonomy, while the opponents of the Common Core say that teachers need autonomy.

He writes:

“Ironically, the critique of standards as unwarranted, creativity-stifling impositionsis grounded in many of the same autonomy assumptions about the power of unencumbered individuals to drive innovation and improvement. For example, many supporters and critics appear to share the idea that regulation stifles creativity. What separates the two perspectives is a different notion of size and characteristics of the group that can be trusted with autonomy. For supporters of standards, high-stakes assessments, charter schools, and privatization, the group to be counted upon is small: the really smart entrepreneurs. For some opponents, the number is large: virtually everyone.

Curious, this idea that schools should have autonomy, but teachers should not.

Read this provocative article.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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