It’s funny how these things happen – all at once within such a short period of time. It may take a little time out of your day, but take a look at each of these articles/editorials/blog entries and observe the common theme:
Eduwonk - “Luzer’s a little too harsh on Goldstein’s article, but he does point up a real risk for reformers: Namely that all this happy talk about how everyone is on board with reform now could lead to a superficial sense that things are changing or even some cosmetic changes when, in fact, not much actually changes for students in schools.”
Josh Greenman of the New York Daily News – “What sounds like a grand plan could all add up to a tiny pilot program. For all his strong rhetoric on the need to improve teaching as the central piece of transforming our public schools, Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, should be thinking much bigger.”
Flypaper – “But why on Earth would the reform crowd believe that any of this is actually going to get implemented, and well?”
The Quick and the Ed – “In reality Duncan has a little more than $5 billion to influence states that have a long and sordid history of taking federal money and then actively working to subvert the goals for which the money was allocated. It’s hard, slogging, bureaucratic work and it’s not going to catalyze a sea change in the way our massive, decentralized education system operates. Education isn’t energy or health care, issues where federal initiatives can have an immediate and transformative effect on national policy. This is a case where sky-high expectations on the front end almost guarantee some level of disappointment down the road.”
Daniel Luzer in the Columbia Journalism Review – “But while Goldstein casts Weingarten’s compromise with education reformers as the future of American education, she does not indicate that anything is actually changing in American education. The Prospect article makes it sound as if these changing alliances are a matter of great import, rather than just a very routine part of policymaking. So the president of the AFT is willing to talk to school reformers. This is great for school reformers and great for unions. But any thought of this as “great” for education is misguided.”
We’ve reached a turning point when so many finally realize that the best-laid schemes of mice and education reformers gang aft a-gley when they reach the folks who are supposed to institute those reforms.
Luzer gets bonus points for a realization that has escaped many in the education policy field over the years – that teachers’ unions are primarily a labor issue, not an education issue. He writes:
Throughout the last forty years, if there’s one thing the U.S. has realized about the teacher’s unions, it’s that’s radical overhaul of the nation’s schools is simply not their game. This is why they’ve historically opposed reform efforts. Sometimes this opposition is good and sometimes it is very bad, but it’s never logical or well documented or based in anything bigger or more important than labor economics.
The AFT has done a great job protecting teachers’ rights and improving their pay and benefits. But it is a labor union. Expecting the AFT to play the major role in changing American education so that every school educates American children much better—and much faster—than they’ve done in the past is wrong. The expectation is not just misguided, it’s structurally absurd. No one expects the UAW to revive the U.S. car market, after all.
