To some, this may sound like a ridiculous idea or perhaps an impossible task. I’m currently working on an article on why reversing the reform movement is both a necessary and achievable task for educators. Here I’d like to share some of the thoughts of others whose work I’ve been reading that confirms my conviction about this matter. I invite your thoughts on this subject as well.
Why We Need to Reform the Reformers
“…it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell." Former President Jimmy Carter describing our political system during a recent radio interview with Thom Hartmann
Capitalism and community aren’t natural allies. Capitalism’s emphasis on individual acquisition and consumption is usually antithetical to the needs of community. Where capitalism is about the pursuit of self-interest, community is about connecting to—and at times assisting—others. It’s driven not by monetary gain but by caring, giving and sharing. While opportunity to advance one’s self-interest is essential to happiness, so too is community. Capitalism 3.1, Peter Barnes [p. 101]
…we can’t simply tell the corporation to be responsible. And we can’t effectively legislate responsible behavior. Legislation can help, but we’re like the little Dutch boy who tried to plug the leaks in the dike with his fingers; new leaks keep springing up, and we can never have enough regulatory fingers to stop them all. Change must come instead at the source, in the mechanism by which the corporation is operated. Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things, Ralph Estes (p. 202)
They start out, by and large, like you and me. Some come from Brahmin families; many do not. Typically in college they major in business or later get an MBA; here their indoctrination into the bottom line mentality begins. Once they enter the corporate world, they are exposed to role models who further bequeath the corporate mentality. Before they know it, they have become full-fledged members of the corporate culture, following the dictates of the bottom line even when it doesn’t feel right. While they are operating in the corporate world, they suppress their personal morality. Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things, Ralph Estes (p.74)
We are in dire need of senior managers who have the vision and courage to make good choices when the payoff may not be immediately apparent on the balance sheet. But in most cases they will have to be convinced that doing the Right Thing will have a positive effect on their firm’s bottom line, or at least will not add to the cost of doing business. Saving the Corporate Soul & (Who Knows) Maybe Your Own, David Batstone (p.10)
Why Educators?
“Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong.” Diane Ravitch "Saving Our Public Schools” [p. 19]
You teachers who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, maybe you can learn to doubt the experts once in a while. Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can define science another way. Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize Laureate physicist) [p.187]
The philosophy of the classroom of one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next. Abraham Lincoln
… public education does not serve a public; it creates a public. …The question is not, does or doesn’t public schooling create a public? The question is, what kind of public does it create? Neil Postman, The End of Education, p. 18
Do I risk being stoned in the public marketplace if I suggest that the purpose of education is not to make kids economically valuable, but rather to enable them to develop intellectual and personal worth as well as practical skills? As we become ever more instrumental in our attitudes, affixing monetary profit and loss statements to every activity, we risk losing sight of the need to produce truly well-educated individuals who can adapt to the extremes of any technological climate and who have the skills (and perhaps even the wisdom) to become leaders in science, medicine or public affairs. Jane Healy, Failure to Connect, p.106
Future education should not merely mirror the society, but fashion selectively a special culture that will correct and complement society. Now, however, schools contract all the diseases of the larger world. The more learning merely reflects society, the less it can help improve it. This critical need for public education to have some independence from the body it serves has not been recognized in all its emphasis on transmitting culture and on fitting students into the world as their elders know it. James Moffett, The Universal Schoolhouse, p.57