There are competing schools of thought in education reform, and Rick Hess has found a dichotomy that explains many of the debates that happen inside the tent.
You see, there are really two kinds of policy thinkers when it comes to school reform: gardeners and engineers. There are those who regard school reform as an engineering challenge—a matter of pulling this lever and imposing that requirement. Others of us are more inclined to think like gardeners, relying on the conviction that all policy can really do is foster the conditions under which good things are more likely to happen.
It shouldn’t be especially controversial to observe that the engineering camp has dominated the school reform squad in recent years. The lexicon alone—filled with its talk of “effective teachers” and the “exporting of best practices”—is a tip-off. What’s followed has been a push for testing, new standards, statewide teacher evaluation systems, and related efforts to secure the assurances and certainties of engineering. The problem is that complex social organizations and processes are incredibly tough to engineer. This isn’t my observation, it was Friedrich Hayek’s—I’m just borrowing it.
Count Matthew Ladner among the gardeners, as he approvingly cites a rebuke of those who “endlessly seek to govern by design in a world that is best organized spontaneously from below.” Many hope educational choice programs, like Nevada’s near-universal education savings accounts, can create the conditions for spontaneous generation of new, better schools (and other education providers).
New Orleans, with a system of mostly charter schools that’s heavy on both choice and regulation, looks like a synthesis between the gardening and engineering approaches.
What’s next for DC vouchers?
Despite a push by outgoing House Speaker John Boehner and a bipartisan effort in the Senate, Congress did not reauthorize the private school choice program in the nation’s capital this year. This week, it was left out of the end-of-year omnibus budget deal. The voucher program will still be funded, and it doesn’t technically need to be reauthorized until next year, but some school choice backers worry that by pushing the issue — which could face pushback from the White House — into an election year, Congress could be “gambling” with the future of the Opportunity Scholarship program.
Meanwhille…
Success Academy, and other no-excuses charter schools, shorten school days in an effort (among other things) to avoid teacher burnout.
Online school operator K12 draws static from shareholders.
A Catholic high school graduate, and former Arne Duncan mentee, shares her story.
Charter school advocates worry the unfavorable ruling in Washington State could spread to other states.
A school to watch for personalized learning.
Quote of the week
“Lord knows, if we think a school is not going to be fixed, I will not hesitate to shut it.”
— New York mayor Bill de Blasio, foreshadowing a decision to shut three struggling schools with low enrollment, during an interview with NY1’s Errol Louis, reported by Politico. The mayor has since come under fire from pro-charter groups for not trying to open new, better schools in their place.
Tweet of the week
Save DC’s #schoolchoice program https://t.co/cEWy95nv4o
— Am Fed for Children (@SchoolChoiceNow) December 18, 2015
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