School Reform

Many American public schools are in trouble.  Many would-be reformers have suggestions to fix them.  On April 18 the New York Times ran an article listing some of these reformers and the private schools they attended.  Here are a few.

Jeb Bush--when governor of Florida, backed legislation to issue report cards on schools based on their test results. (Phillips Academy, Andover)

Bill Gates--Microsoft founder--gives grants to schools, but requires that they tie teacher tenure decisions to test scores.  (Lakeside School, Seattle)

Davis Guggenheim--director of “Waiting for Superman,” a movie that championed charter schools (Sidwell Friends School, Washington)

Michelle A. Rhee--former Washington D.C. school chancellor and advocate of “accountability”--(Maumee Valley Country Day School, Toledo)

Chester E. Finn Jr.--Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, big name in the privatization of public schools, quoted as saying of the public system, “Blow it up and start over.” (Phillips Exeter, Exeter, N.H.)

President Barack Obama--his administration developed “Race to the Top,” a program that awarded money to schools based almost solely on test scores (Punahou School, Honolulu)

President George W. Bush--signature policy was “No Child Left Behind,” a program that is based on test scores.  (Phillips Academy, Andover)

First of all, I’m suspicious of people who attack as a failure the system that has managed to educate most of the citizens of this country.  Secondly, I am suspicious of any reform that relies exclusively on test scores.  

Here’s something I know.  Two-parent families with money, with books in the house, with good vocabularies, with high expectations for their children and the drive to see that those expectations are met--those families will have kids who will almost always do well, no matter where they go to school.  

On the other hand, children of parents of poverty, of low expectations, of poor health, of no habits of reading or helping with homework or the inability to help with school work--those kids will not do well.  And here’s another thing--even if those kids somehow manage to earn good grades and have a drive to succeed, they won’t be going to the Phillips Academy in Andover.  We will not save American public education by denigrating it and starving it.