Just stay with me for a minute. The right-tilted Hoover Institute has a publication out for the fortieth anniversary of A Nation At Risk, the Reagan-era hit job on public education, a collection of essays by various members of the reformster world. Some of these are not very enticing (Eric Hanushek on Fixing Schools Through Finance, or Cami Anderson on Lessons from Newark), but there's at least one that's worth a look.
Maybe you are old enough to remember the old Crest Commercial. “Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventive dentifrice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.” Translation: Brush your teeth, floss and visit the dentist regularly and your dental health will be better than if you don’t.
Nothing substitutes for high quality curriculum and effective teaching. But, here’s the rub. I don’t think there is much conflict about the goal of effective dental care: Healthy teeth and gums, free of disease. So, what to do is relatively clear. With education, not so much.
Do we want all students to be independent critical thinkers prepared for active democratic participation or do we want that only for some students? Should education prepare some for rule following? Do the adult designers of learning materials and instruction think inequity and scarcity are normative? The answer to these question underly all system policy arrangements, curriculum design, and minute-by-minute instructional moves.
The other point, which I know you know well, is that forever the United States has been doing everything but what matters most, addressing inequity is children’s lives. Of course, inequity plagues dental care too. We don’t have universal health care and most insurance is neck down, eliminating or limiting eyes, ears, mouth, and mental health coverage.
Just wanted to point out that this has that same old problem running through all previous phases & chapters of Ed reform - identification. We wanted to scale up what the “best” schools were doing. We wanted to adopt the “best” classroom practices. We wanted to reward the “best” teachers (or fire the worst). We wanted to use the “best” technology. Now it’s the “best” curriculum. It’s magic bullet thinking and it doesn’t work.
We, as amateurs, have a tendency to reach for or reject proposed solutions before we really understand the problem(s) to be solved.
Peter,
Maybe you are old enough to remember the old Crest Commercial. “Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventive dentifrice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.” Translation: Brush your teeth, floss and visit the dentist regularly and your dental health will be better than if you don’t.
Nothing substitutes for high quality curriculum and effective teaching. But, here’s the rub. I don’t think there is much conflict about the goal of effective dental care: Healthy teeth and gums, free of disease. So, what to do is relatively clear. With education, not so much.
Do we want all students to be independent critical thinkers prepared for active democratic participation or do we want that only for some students? Should education prepare some for rule following? Do the adult designers of learning materials and instruction think inequity and scarcity are normative? The answer to these question underly all system policy arrangements, curriculum design, and minute-by-minute instructional moves.
The other point, which I know you know well, is that forever the United States has been doing everything but what matters most, addressing inequity is children’s lives. Of course, inequity plagues dental care too. We don’t have universal health care and most insurance is neck down, eliminating or limiting eyes, ears, mouth, and mental health coverage.
Thanks,
Arthur
Just wanted to point out that this has that same old problem running through all previous phases & chapters of Ed reform - identification. We wanted to scale up what the “best” schools were doing. We wanted to adopt the “best” classroom practices. We wanted to reward the “best” teachers (or fire the worst). We wanted to use the “best” technology. Now it’s the “best” curriculum. It’s magic bullet thinking and it doesn’t work.
We, as amateurs, have a tendency to reach for or reject proposed solutions before we really understand the problem(s) to be solved.