Checker Finn asked why there is so little humor among educators in America. [See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=35#1480.] Three reasons come to mind. But, before discussing them, let me say that the lack of humor is probably concentrated among that peculiarly American species - the professional education reformer. Most teachers probably do laugh a lot in private, or did so until they were buried by regulations produced by the nation's evergreen school "reform" movement.
Why are reformers such an unfunny lot? The first reason is a good one: Far too many youngsters in the United States are not doing well academically, especially those from minority groups. Since many education reform meetings focus on this grave problem, it is unsurprising that there is little joking at these gatherings.
That leads to the second reason: Americans have gradually placed far too much hope in formal schooling as a solution to major societal problems. In the process, tribus educationist reformist has emerged, with a set of hyper-inflated aspirations and expectations, which qualify as an ideology that both liberal and conservative members of the tribe can share. Ideologues, of course, rarely brook much joking in the spheres of life where their ideologies operate.
The third reason is related to the second: Since real circumstances almost never live up to the expectations of ideologues (who often are also utopians in the area in which their ideology operates), many education reformers are constantly disappointed by results of efforts to improve academic outcomes. That is no laughing matter for them.
Unfortunately, this situation is increasingly no laughing matter for the rest of us, because the ideological/utopian pathology of American education reformers has resulted in a proliferation of claims for particular reform strategies that go far beyond what research evidence (and common sense) can support. The public has no protection from this, owing to a lack of education fraud and liability laws.
Think, for example, of how frequently education reformers put forward unproven schemes for getting all children to reach a very high level of proficiency in all academic subjects. Paging George Orwell, or, better yet, George Allwell. (Picture a billboard with "Big School Reformer Is Watching All of You" on it.) One could chuckle at most of this silliness, but only until one contemplates the many counterproductive laws and regulations that have resulted, and the lack of action in many other areas that might actually help more than quite a few youngsters do better in school. Orwell might have given us a billboard with "No Child Left Behind" on it had he been writing in our time. No joke.
Scott Miller
University of California, Berkeley