Maine ASCD Weblog

Stupid in America

A report giving on ABC's 20/20 by John Stossel last week has apparently gotten a lot of attention. I am not a viewer of this show but happened to catch the last few minutes of Stossel report Stupid in America which kept referring to America's public schools as "unionized monopolies." Needless to say, he did not have very nice things to say about the teachers unions and had some very unflattering "news" clips highlighting teachers union rallies and interviews with representatives of the union leadership. Coupled with this, the "report" played clip after clip of students in various schools complaining about teacher incompetence.

Stossel's goal in all this was apparently to push for the idea of competition in American public education. His answer: publicly funded charter schools.

The New York Charter School Association hasn't let the moment slip by. Nor apparently has the NYC Teachers Unions which has started a petition drive against ABC and its parent company.

From my perspective these polarizing efforts deflect us from having open and clear discussions about school reform. Part of the reality is that public schools are not businesses and cannot be managed as such. The issues of educational reform are complex and need thoughtful consideration, not overly simplistic solutions and political razzle-dazzle.

Perhaps the best response to Stupid in America comes from the Eduwonk blog which provides this observation:

"...in today's ratings-driven environment a story that sparks lots of controversy and follow-up attention seems a more valuable commodity to a network than one that everyone ignores...."

~John Brandt

Rigor

Tony Wagner’s commentary in the January 11, 2006 Education Week is well worth the read. Entitled, “Rigor on Trial” Wagner explores the current fascination with “increasing rigor” in American schools. He questions:

“How do we create a reform strategy that relies less on mindless, mandated compliance and computer-scored, test-based accountability and more on the development of collaborative problem-solving and reasoning skills?”

He starts off the article with a description of an exercise he conducted with a group of principals in Hawaii in which the group had a pretty hard time agreeing upon a universal definition of “rigor.”

Ultimately, Wagner discerns that rigor is less about what we see teachers doing and more about students’/learners’ thinking. He suggests that the recent interest in Advanced Placement classes and college-prep testing as a solution may be ill advised in that these often lead to assessments which simply measure how many facts and information a student can regurgitate and have nothing to do with measuring thinking.

Wagner goes on to discuss the kind of leadership needed to change this kind of educational practice suggesting instead the implementation of what he calls a “’leadership practice community,’ a community of practice whose goal is to help its members become better leaders of change.” This is accomplished by bringing principals and superintendents together to “discuss case studies related to strengthening rigorous instruction in their schools.”

Read the whole article.

~John Brandt