The winner for the best, most reasonable take on the reform vs. “status quo” contretemps goes to Thomas Toch of Education Sector, who sees both right and wrong in the “Bigger, Bolder” camp as well as the Klein-Sharpton, “Education Equity” group:
Yes, we should find ways to reduce the effects of poverty on students. Doing so will allow them to achieve at higher levels. But no, we shouldn’t assume that schools can’t make a difference on their own. Yes, we need to hold schools and teachers accountable for their performance. Too many of them simply haven’t embraced high expectations on their own. But no, we shouldn’t pretend that poverty has no impact on students. No accountability system can work unless it is credible, and NCLB, as currently crafted, is not.
I struggled to find the same middle ground as Toch, but he said it far better than I did. And attention should be paid to his wise lead, noting “extremes in school-reform debates always seem to conspire against the middle, making change a lot tougher to achieve. ”
If Toch turns this into a compromise manifesto, I’d happily sign it.
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When we aren’t leveraging resources as suggested in Dr. Ladd’s Making Money Matter, it’s hard to argue the Feds should be calling more of the shots.
Maybe when the feds demonstrate that ESEA, NSF (systemic initiative), and head start dollars are being used well, they will have credibility to leverage TANF dollars for education. In the mean time, capacity building through professional development (and curriculum improvements) as Dr. Ladd suggested nine years ago is our only hope.
I thought we knew what we were doing until the manifestos came out. Now we know whose oars weren’t pulling.