It's not that I think it's my job to point out when education-related writing is bubbling over with clich?s; with tear-soaked appeals to care for the children; with flag-waving vapidities about vague, now-nearly-meaningless things like ?international competitiveness?; with trying-to-be-stirring phrases like ?now is the time? and ?we must act for?the future? and suchlike. It's just that so much education-related writing is 40, 50, 80 percent watery, wishy-washy piffle. Sometimes it just makes no sense. Here, for instance, is Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, writing about No Child Left Behind?at the Huffington Post:
But most other Americans I talk with have a very different view. While they know that the current law is far from perfect, they also know that our kids aren't gaining skills and knowledge nearly as fast as they need to in order to keep up with the escalating demands in the world of work?or, for that matter, with our international competitors. They know that this is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal.
Regardless of whether No Child Left Behind?or its fundamental concepts?work we should just keep pressing the gas? We should continue demanding that schools meet random, perhaps unattainable achievement levels and punishing those that don't because, if we don't,?American youngsters are going to lose out to ?international competitors?? Do you see how intellectually flimsy this?is? I mean, there's nothing to it. It's like air. Haycock continues:
Second, and equally important, is the question of goals for whom. Many adults who work in education would love to go back to the days in which a school's average performance was all that mattered?when they could simply sweep under the rug achievement gaps that separate low-income from middle-class students and students of color from white students.
While that may make life easier for the adults employed by schools and school systems, it would be catastrophic for the students in underperforming groups, who desperately need us to expect more of them and their schools. It would also represent a huge setback for our country?we'd not only be walking away from a national imperative for fairness, we'd be undercutting the chances for success of over half of our students. These young people will either accelerate our economy or be a drag on it. The choice is ours.
President Obama needs to clearly signal that schools will be held accountable for the performance of all of their students and for closing the longstanding gaps that threaten our future. We can't have educational reform without equity; we can't get the changes in achievement we need nationally without educating all of our children.
It's just not compelling. Take one example: Haycock writes that the nation can't have educational reform without ?equity.? (Obviously it can, and does.) But what, exactly, does Haycock mean by equity? When, for instance, will she believe that such undefined equity has been reached? Can it be reached??Is she talking about equity of opportunity or equity of results? How close do the test scores of black kids and white kids have to be before we have hit equity? Haycock, it seems fair to say, has no definite or logical answers to these questions.
Haycock ends her piece by writing, ?In short, we need the president to ask more?not less?of our students and our schools because, given the state of the union, we have neither a moment nor a child to waste.? We need to ask more of our education-related writing, which is both cause and effect of education-related debates gone stale.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow