Thursday, July 25, 2013

Corporate School Reform on The Ropes



The corporate School Reform project is starting to implode. The Common Core Standards are generating huge opposition; Teach for America has turned into a strike breaking agency and is losing its support among progressives; parents are up in arms about how excessive testing is ruining their children's school experience and are starting to join the Opt Out movement. None of this, in the short run, is helping teachers. Our classrooms are being micromanaged, our tenure and job protections savaged; our pensions raided; our voices smothered. But as the Reform 'House of Cards" collapses, we will have an opportunity to present an alternative vision of what our schools should look like. Hopefully, after the casualties are mourned, we will have the energy and wherewithal to do this.