Reformists and Reformism

When I began The Peavine Quarter nearly a year ago, I conceived it as platform for my musings on various topics, education and teaching as well as literature, film, and miscellaneous. I would also have a section that would provide a context for old (before PQ) writing of all sorts that would be otherwise unpublishable. I find that so far, I have devoted myself largely to the current push for education reform, much of which I consider misguided if not outright malicious.

I find that I increasingly use the terms “Reformists” and “Reformism” as if I were talking about some kind of proprietary ideology, its propagators, and its proponents. Increasingly, I believe this to be exactly the case. I used to accept calls for “reform” as coming from parents disenchanted with the local schools their children attend, and this may be the case in some instances.

But consider the movie Waiting for Superman. It begins with the stories of a few bright, engaging children and their involved parents, making the best of limited opportunities in sub-standard urban schools. This is a story that needs to be told. The mal-distribution of educational resources to the nation’s children is scandalous, not only rich-district/poor-district inequities, but deliberate inequities within the same district. The best discussion of this problem that I have read is Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities (1991). It is a real problem. Attention must be paid. But as the movie progresses, it gradually morphs into a condemnation public education in general, teachers and their unions in particular. It is a classic case of the undistributed middle term: These are bad schools; these are public schools; therefore, all public schools are bad. And so, the only chance that a child in America today has to receive an adequate education is to win a charter school lottery against impossible odds.

“But,” you say, “it is, after all, a movie, for goodness’ sake. If you watch any “reality” TV, you know that sometimes it is necessary to ratchet up the drama to make it more entertaining.” That is a point. But it goes far beyond that. In an October 20, 2010 article,   “Ultimate $uperpower : Supersize Dollars Drive ‘Waiting for Superman’ Agenda,” http://www.notwaitingforsuperman.org/Articles/20101020-MinerUltimateSuperpower Barbara Miner “explores the money behind the movie, its promoters, and those who will benefit from the movie.” She “follows the money” to the film’s corporate sponsorship. This was no maverick indie flick made on a shoestring, any more than the well-funded, well-orchestrated Tea Party appears, on closer inspection, to be quite the spontaneous, grass-roots movement its rank-and-file would like to think it is.

The “Luna bills” call for free computers for Idaho students (perhaps not, by itself, such a bad idea), but certainly an expensive one, especially in these lean times. We are assured that the cost will be more than offset by hiring hundreds fewer teachers, which the technology will make possible. With only a few misgivings, I assumed that this was a mostly home-grown idea until I read “Scenes From the Class Struggle” by Mayor Bloomberg-appointed  former New York City Chancellor of Schools Joel Klein in the June 2011 Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/8497/6/

Most of the article predictably rails against the teachers’ union and how it politicizes and corrupts schools. Then, he turns to math. I have long speculated on what Herb Grosdidier could have done in his individualized math program if every student had access to a computer and the right software. Klein says

…if you get the best math professors in the world—who are great teachers and who deeply understand math—and match them with great software developers, they can create sophisticated interactive programs that engage kids and empower teachers… Why not start with such a program and then let teachers supplement it differently, depending on the progress of each student?

That’s a whole lot easier than trying to teach the same math lesson to 30 kids, some of whom are getting it quickly and some of whom aren’t getting it at all. We now have multiple ways to teach the same lessons. As a result, we can tailor both the means and the pacing to each student. We can use digital games where kids progress based on solving increasingly difficult math problems, virtual classes that kids can take online, and tutors whom kids can work with online, as well as, of course, teachers working with large or small groups in person. The possibilities are enormous. We should be trying them all and constantly improving how we do the work. That’s exactly what New York City is doing in a pilot program called the School of One, which was designed to move from the classroom as the locus of instruction to the individual student as the focus of instruction.”

I would applaud, if he did not also say “But one of the best things we could do is hire fewer teachers…” In the end, that sounds mightily like the “Luna” plan, does it not? Is there a pattern here?

So, perhaps the Luna plan is not so daringly original as we are to believe. In fact, Reformism, more and more, is beginning to strike me a national franchise, a standardized packaged ideology.  Reformists its agents, promoting its agenda.

I hope this puts Idaho’s Reform bills and Reformism in some semblance of perspective.