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Tension in the Education Reform Movement

By Kay Steiger - Sep 19th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Today The American Prospect and the New America Foundation co-hosted an event to discuss this Kevin Carey article in the current issue of TAP , which calls for some change in progressives’ approach to education. Mainly, Carey says, the teachers’ unions have been largely focused on maintaining the status quo and opposing No Child Left Behind in any way, shape, or form. Carey wasn’t totally down on teachers’ unions, however. “I absolutely believe teachers have the right to organize,” he said. “It’s not a privilege; it’s a right.”

But an education policy consultant who worked for 22 years with American Federation of Teachers, Bella Rosenberg, became extremely defensive at the outset of the event. She pointed to the scientific process and noted that teachers have never been opposed to evaluation. Her frustration seemed to come from a singular blame on schools. She called for policy to look at the whole child, from poverty to housing to nutrition. “Housing policy is education policy,” Rosenberg said.

The shining moment of the event seemed to be Congressman Artur Davis (D-AL). He seemed to call for a consensus between these two points and a “sense of urgency” on addressing some of the problems within education.

All seemed to agree when the topic of de facto re-segregation of schools came up. Davis said that thanks in part to Supreme Court rulings Parents Involved v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, both of which determined that schools could not take race into account when making decisions about where students could attend, schools allow achievement gaps to persist. Davis mentioned his own past at Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery County, the demographics of which represented the county where it was located (60 percent white, 40 percent students of color) when he attended. Today, that public school is made up of roughly 80 percent of students of color, even though the population of the county has largely remained the same.

In the end, although Carey and Rosenberg clearly disagreed about the details of measuring success and interpretations of current data, they both agreed that changes need to be made. They both agreed that education reform isn’t separate from addressing the problems of poverty and children at risk. Ultimately, they both agreed that schools need standards by which to measure success. Although school reform tends to be a contentious issue, with the future of all children in public education at stake, the worst thing that can be done is nothing.

Tags: college, education, higher ed, inequality