I've been involved in education policy for 10 years, but the past month or two has been particularly "instructive."
- 2+2=5. I've seen arguments made by smart and powerful people that not only ignore the facts on a number of important education issues, they willfully spread incorrect information about the cost and public nature of charter schools. I'm not so naive as to think that politics doesn't sometimes involve the "creative presentation of information," but I'd at least like to think that in a discussion about education that we could have our own opinions, but not our own facts.
- Team spririt gone bad. I myself have fallen into a particularly troubling argument about "charters v districts" — as if one was automatically better than the other. This frankly is a little like Ford arguing with General Moters about who's best. The fact is: this classification of a school matters less than the curriculum, leadership, governance, etc. of the individual school. And we're not getting the outcomes we need from education generally. The last thing we need is the fight that was started by the Senate's move to cap charter schools. Charters were meant to be a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
- This will go down on your permanent record. What we do now will have long-term impacts. I have to give credit to David Laird and anyone raising the issue of the future of our workforce. The consequences of our current discussion are really troubling because we are simply not addressing the future needs for a well-trained and responsive workforce for people in the E-16 system and current workforce right now. We're arguing about short-term issues, and not the long-term consequences of doing nothing.
- Schoolhouse Rocks. Perhaps more importantly (and more hopefully), I think we've lost sight of the fundamental democratic purpose of education. This starts to get really "fuzzy" if we're not careful about it, but this fundamental purpose is also a point of common ground, and something that actually motivates people to have a better discussion. I was reluctant to make this point for a while, but have been surprised by how postively people react to it. This democratic purpose includes the need for an educated workforce. People who don’t have the education to get a good job will be less productive citizens.
What I learned on my Spring break? It's time to have a new conversation on education. The one we have is failing us. Perhaps its even time to start the class all over again.