The Funniest Blog Post This Week
The Quick and the Ed
Kevin Carey over at the Quick and the Ed points out that the recent Washington Post story on Washington D.C. Mayor Fenty's school reform plan. It seems like the guy who drafted the plan, copied entire sections wholesale from Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
I know what your saying. Wow, a struggling school copied ideas from a more successful school district. Oh the horror.
Making fun of the Posts coverage of the story, and their attempt to point out that the two districts are different, Kevin had this to say (with a wee bit of sarcasm)
Intensive reading and math instruction in middle school, enhanced teacher recruitment, more focus on customer service to parents--while those wild, crazy notions might work in an urban / suburban district of 130,000 student in North Carolina, they obviously have no place whatsoever in an urban district of 57,000 students in DC. In fact, it's well-known within the research community that there's a point between 57,000 and 130,000--I believe the exact number is 94,583--where hiring better teachers and providing better math and reading instruction to at-risk students simply doesn't work anymore. You can look it up.Go read the whole thing. It made me laugh out loud.
2 comments:
Don't be too tough on the WaPo since the one big question wasn't asked by anyone - what happens when a new superintendent/board/mayoral appointee takes over?
That's the bug in the ointment of the whole system. The great, effective reforms enacted by the current superintendent are an affront or a challenge to the next superintendent.
Carefully carrying on in the footsteps of the preceding superintendent hardly displays bold leadership and that's what's generally expected of a new superintendent.
Ain't politics grand?! This is a definite problem of the public school system. Everything gets so enmeshed in politics. I wonder how many of the parties involved in this--the mayor, the newspaper, the critics--actually care about the education of the kids involved. I suspect that concern is only secondary. It's all about who gets credit, whose careers will be enhanced, whose won't, and who can be made to look bad. You see this when our politicians deal with Iraq, you see it when they deal with Social Security, and you see it when they deal with education. Crisis in Iraq? Crisis in Social Security? Crisis in education? I think we have a crisis in our politics.
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