Thompson: Mike Petrilli's Strangely Combative Truce Proposal

@drjohnthompson It is no surprise that Mike Petrilli's otherwise excellent post, How to Push for Reform without Alienating Teachers,included a paragraph with a boilerplate attack on teachers.  His short, combative paragraph ends with the misstatement that teachers and our champions want to, "stop measuring teachers’ contributions to student achievement gains."   That is the way that political battles are fought. 

But Petrilli knows that union leaders, Diane Ravitch, and others who have made a career in pressing for reform do not want to "stop" reforms.  We just disagree with him on the merits of many policies.  Petrilli knows that one problem with the data-driven accountability movement is that it equates "student achievement gains" with real learning increases. 

So I am  more worried that Petrilli does not consider the threat of Gov. Scott Walker's "reforms" to the entire nation's prosperity than I am to his obligatory criticism of teachers.  

Petrilli recognizes that the failure of the Wisconsin recall should worry reformers of all ideologies. Despite their celebrations, Petrilli writes, "the school reform movement finds itself in a pickle. To succeed in creating world-class schools and raising student achievement, it needs education’s front line workers—a.k.a. teachers—to feel motivated, empowered, and inspired. And yet, according to the recent MetLife survey and anecdotal reports, many teachers are down in the dumps." 

What would have happened if "reformers," who were new to education in the early 1990s, had listened to educators instead of lumping us with a "status quo" that should be destroyed? It is a shame that a generation ago that accountability hawks could not have been exposed to the recommendations that Petrilli makes today, "Champion reforms that teachers do support," he counsels, "For instance, make it easier for educators to discipline unruly students, or to use 'ability grouping' in their classrooms instead of mandating the nearly-impossible strategy of 'differientiating instruction.' 

Today, rather than heed Petrilli's ideology-driven rhetoric, we should listen to his common sense, "In other words, remove the obstacles (often ideological in nature) that are getting in the way of teachers achieving success in their classrooms. If we don’t want to put teachers in charge of their own schools, at least give them more control over their work. ... And get their backs when they are faced with ridiculous demands from parents or others."

That being said, I must quarrel with part of Petrilli's final sentence.  We teachers get frustrated by some parents.  By definition, however, parents demands should never be dismissed as ridiculous.  Even when we see their interventions as wrong, we should always see parents' efforts on behalf of their own children as a result of deep and complex emotions.  It is one thing to throw low blows at teachers during political campaigns, but parents deserve a different degree of deference. And, if we start with the convention of respecting parents' positions, even when we think they are wrong, perhaps we could get past the ritual where even the best of the accountablity hawks have to devote a paragraph to ridiculing teachers' beliefs as they praise us.- JT (@drjohnthompson) image via.    

Comments

[Sarah]

Had educators been listened to in the 90s, I think we wouldn’t be where we are today. Unfortunately, they weren’t, and the nation hasn’t really progressed since.

[Paul Bruno]

Obviously, John, you haven't read the most recent Handbook of Education Policy Blogging. The "gratuitous swipe at one's opponents" is essential for maintaining credibility with one's own side and signaling how seriously you take your membership in the group. It removes ambiguity. Like a serial comma. Don't want people to think you're getting soft.

[Doug]

The basic problem that reformers have is that none of their proposed reforms work or stand up to any investigation so they chase new ones every 2 years like kittens with a ball of wool.

Testing, merit pay, charters, vouchers, ending LIFO, teacher bashing, union bashing, domocracy bashing (Mayoral control) budget slashing, grade level retention, and the like are all loser reforms initiated by those who simply do not know what they are doing or those with a hidden (privatization, religious) motivation.

The absolute refusal to look at the education systems of the successful nations actually makes fools of the reformers.

With the right wing political influence they are gathering my personal image is a child with a loaded gun. Too much power with no sense how to use it.

[john thompson]

Doug, you nailed it.

Paul, you are also right about their unity - on the outside at least. Reformers in the progressive tradition are like Democrats in that we're "not a member of any organized ..." But the "reformers" have been remarkable in holding their ranks together, despite the many inherent differences regarding education. I think the reason my be that their educational failures have been balanced by political successes, giving the illusion that chasing the ball of work will, someday, lead a great transformation somehow, somewhere in schools.

Sarah, aside from doing great harm to values and peoples' emotional well-being, they have produced almost no gains at a cost of billions. By accident we could have spent that money more effectively.

[Peter]

John et al,

I have found the "attack" on reformers rather odd, if politically and rhetorically understandable. In the spirit of the best defense being a good offense, the supporters of the status quo have spent much of the last ten years going after the reformers, distracting (with only a small modicum of success, thankfully) many observers from the point of the reform: that our public schools have failed to educate a couple of generations of children, especially those in the inner cities. But the logic of the anti-reformers, as it appears to me, is certainly bizarre: the system we work in and preside over isn't working, but nobody can fix it but us since the reformers can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the proposed fix will work.

It's a wonderful world.

[john thompson]

Peter,

I don't know any defenders of the status quo. Neither does the perjorative term of anti-reform make any sense. You advocate for one set of reforms, we advocate for our preferred reforms. But I'm glad you say our criticisms have had little effect. In other words, the failure of twenty years of "reform" is due to its flawed policies, not our protests.

But what about the key point? If reformers, then and now, listened to Petrilli's common sense, we'd be getting somewhere.

And Peter, I still don't understand why a conservative like you is so tolerant of the expensive failures of neo-liberals and leftist. Why not join Petrilli, teachers, and unions and work for reality-based policies, like those that Mike cited?