Friday, August 05, 2011

What Motivated SOS Participants

Rachel Levy:

1. What were the main reasons that brought you to DC?

As a former (and hopefully future) public school teacher and current public school parent, I am disillusioned with most of the education policies that are part of NCLB and RTTT. These policies encourage and incentivize poor practice and they narrow curricula. These policies have failed to improve the quality of education, to meaningfully reform systems in need of reform. Dysfunction and inconsistent practice in schools and systems targeted by these policies has been replaced by dysfunctional and ideological rigidity and consistency of poor practice (or what I like to call a McDonald’s-alization of public education)—that’s not progress, it’s just another version of bad.

Bingo. For most of us, that's really what it is all about. That's really what it feels like has changed. Ten years ago, carving out a space in a public school in Providence for the kind of education we value was difficult, but now it is virtually impossible. It is simply not allowed. That is what got me to DC.

Everyone in the larger CNN piece makes this point quite consistently.

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