"The one reason Duncan's 'Race to the Top' will fail" --Marion Brady, in Washington Post

[Connie Weber]

"The one reason Duncan's 'Race to the Top' will fail" --Washington Post

"When 'Race to the Top' fails, as it will, the main reason won’t be any of those currently being advanced by the corporate interests and politicians now running the education show.

It won’t fail because of lack of academic rigor, poor teaching, weak administrators, too-short school year, union resistance, differing state standards, insufficient performance incentives, sorry teacher training, or lingering traces of the early-20th Century Progressive movement..."

read on...

What do you think of Marion's latest?

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Connie, wow, I really resonated with this. What Marion Brady is saying here matches up with my sense of total despair at the so-called Common Core State Standards Initiative promoted by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board... here's my post about that. The standards being promoted were completely AWFUL, in my opinion: boring, doomed to be boring, and not even acknowledging that creative writing exists, much less recognizing that it is vitally important.

That complete disregard for the kind of writing that really works well with ALL students seems to be symptomatic of exactly the kind of thing Brady is talking about, and I share his fears.

[Ian Carmichael]

Yet again (still) education is in the hands of technocrats - or should it be econocrats. I think Marion has put the well-established but little-heard case for creativity, flexibility and passion in education beautifully. And it's doomed to be little-heard until the politicians, mayors, school boards, tycoons and the rest either are moved sideways from signifcant educational power or become familiar with the plurality of meanings and purposes of education.

Yet again it seems to me important that there is space for the pedestrian. (Marion envisages that when he speaks of the the immense inertia of the majority.) There are lots of average teachers, average students, and average expectations. Many are content to follow the program (any program). But there are the challenged and the challenging for whom the pedestrian is stultifying prison. For some it is meaningless and disconnected from reality. For others it is imprisoning, restrictive and inadequate.

And while the world is as the world is; then we live in it amphibiously walking the walk with all and clandestinely helping the runners to run, the abseilers to climb [that's me - cheering from the base of the cliff!], and introducing the possibilities of the journey to those who've never heard of such a thing as possible for them.

In Socratic terms - we're to teach all in our care - and to 'corrupt' where we can! (I hope the 'thought police' understand the role of allusion!)

[Ian Carmichael]

I was just reading...
"The global goal of education for all can be achieved with the right political will, ambition, creativity and a relentless focus on results."

How relentless, what results? See full opinion piece here

[Daniel Bassill]

Thanks. I'm in full agreement. However, this comment falls short of a vision where all of the resources of a community are engaged in making learning, mentoring and enrichment available 365 days a year, and in the non-school hours, not just the school day hours.

I've been writing about this topic this week on my Tutor/Mentor Blog, with links to other information I'm looking at.

I don't even see non-school tutoring/mentoring and learning on the radar of Duncan and other leaders, except where it is a school led initiative focusing on test scores. Until others take on responsibility not much will change, especially in the big cities where the problem is compounded by the size of the school-age population, the bureaucracy, and the geography that isolates poor kids from others.

[scott smith]

I keep reading articles about how the US education system's relative standing in the world has decline; and authors such as Brady opine what schools are doing wrong. I think the larger questions is what are the characteristics of schools in the countries where graduation rates, science/math test scores....are increasing. In other words, what are these countries (China, South Korea, Finland....) getting right?

[Ian Carmichael]

...and do these increased graduation rates (if they are signifcantly different - start the graph scale at zero and see!) betoken any other advantages?

Is there a social, moral, economic payoff, or is there just a different rung on a nominal achievement ladder?

And if there are other other social benefits seen is these high achieving countries, are the links associational links or causative links?

(Spin, statistics, spin!)

[Connie Weber]

Thanks, Ian, Daniel, and Scott. Yes, much more to think about. Ian, I printed off your article for study. Thanks for framing the issues in a more global manner.
Scott, I have some good articles on Finland and Singapore; when I get time I'll scout them down. I think they were in an Educational Leadership issue from the summer. Do you have any good references?

[scott smith]

Thank you, Connie. Now I can't get this song out my head. One of the few M. Python songs without naughty words; thought I'd share.

Scott

[Ian Carmichael]

(:

[Connie Weber]

Cute, Scott!
My son is crazy over Monty Python; I'll share it with him, too. I've been needing a good dose of zaniness lately...