Campaign 2012: Differences Within Pro- & Anti-Reform Camps

 

There are some interesting internal differences and disagreements going on in education-land right now, differences which I think are healthy on the whole in that they illustrate substantive differences of opinion, independent thinking among entitities that too often agree with (or disagree with) each other automatically, and the reality that neither teachers, nor reformers, nor Democrats or Republicans are as monolithic as they are sometimes depicted on education issues.  

So, for example, while union leaders expressed strong support for the President's remarks on education earlier this week, some teachers (see John Thompson below) were deeply disappointed that the President didn't go further towards dismantling NCLB's accountability system.  They see the NCLB waiver scheme as more of the same, rather than any kind of surrender on testing and accountability. 

In the meantime, several civil rights and some reform groups are banding together to express concerns that the Kline NCLB reauthorization proposal and top Democrats on the Hill are urging the Administration's waiver scheme not to go too far in sending responsibility for educating children back to the states.  But at least one group, Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, declined to sign onto the letter to Kline because it didn't include praise for the teacher evaluation measures in his proposal.

There's no big mystery behind the differences, really.  Teacher advocates opposed to standardized testing and accountability want to push back against the current system as much as possible, knowing that they will only get some of what they ask for.  Teachers unions want to create an environment in which they are heard without going so far as to scuttle a Democratic President's re-election chances.  Civil rights and some reform groups are more concerned about schools' longstanding habit of not paying much attention to poor, minority, and special needs students than they are about teachers' pedagogical or curricular autonomy.  Rhee's organization is building its reputation as being the most politically indepedent of the reform organizations, and the most narrowly concerned with teacher evaluation issues rather than broader concerns about accountability, etc. 

These internal differences do make things interesting, though, in the sense that they show that no one --not reformers or reform opponents -- can claim an entirely unanimous front. Teachers, teachers unions, and Democratic leaders on the Hill are all in somewhat different places right now.  Ditto for reform groups.  

Comments

[notyetLAUSD]

It's not Reformer vs. Anit-Reformer

It is Reformers vs. Post-Reformers

Everyone agrees we need to make changes. The difference is Reformers = industrial era solutions and Post-Reformers are past that.

http://notyetlausd.blogspot.com/2012/01/reformers-or-post-reformers-or-post.html

[mary]

To say that teachers are only concerned with pedagogical and curricular issues and therefore not concerned about poor children continues the false narrative of the testing is teaching reform movement. Teachers have always cared about the kids in their classes and about kids in general and the assumption that they don't and billionaire CEOs and politicians do is just propaganda. And we need to get past this narrative and quit bashing teachers and join them in trying to save out poor children. But they can't do it alone and if you really think the high stakes testing experiment is the way to do this then come to our classrooms during state tests and watch all those 3rd graders throw up from the stress of the situation or ask secondary teachers about what kind of thinking skills children are bringing to their classrooms after 6 to 8 years of training them to bubble in test questions. The testing has become part of the problem for students far more than for teachers. We got an education but the system is just training kids to take tests today. So now we have two huge problems and one of them is testing and the other is poverty.

[Bea]

This is BS: "Teacher advocates opposed to standardized testing and accountability want to push back against the current system as much as possible, knowing that they will only get some of what they ask for."

It's not accountability that raises the hackles. It's the misuse of student assessment tools. Every. Single. Teacher. I know appreciates the disaggregation tools now available and apply that data to inform instruction and differentiation to serve kids.

What has gotten wildly out of control is using student assessments for purposes for which they were never intended.

That is most certainly not opposition to accountability or even opposition to standardized testing.

You keep playing at this us:them game but you make up your version of who's on which team and what they're playing for. The more I read your work, the more I'm astonished that you have this soapbox. Weak stuff.

[TFT]

Are you vying for the most out of touch ed "journalist" alive?

Could you expose your bias any more than you did up there?

Students First is independent? In what way? Only beholden to her billionaire backers (meaning politicians)?

Geez, Russo. Stop pitting side against side and just take one and fight, so you can lose.

[Bruce]

It's good that you continue moving away from the simple-minded morality play view of the world of education, Alexander. There are more than two sides to all kinds of issues; and I've never seen our nation more in need of moving away from simple polarities than now. At (some of) their worst, journalists remind me of gangbangers at the old Locke egging on a pair of angry kids because they want to see a fight, and so they keep setting up participants as "rivals" to assist in cranking out stories. But journalists who want to help will illuminate by providing insight and thoughtful commentary, exposing what is not often seen and too often overlooked, especially in the world of ideas. And encouraging civility in these discussions is also helpful.

[Bea]

BS again. Few waste more column inches to polarity than Russo. Inciting dustups generate hits. Want to encourage civility? Try taking an intellectually honest stand.