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Top down education "reforms": mere alterations with no evidence than improvements will accrue
By William Phillis
 
During the past couple decades, politicians and other non-educators have hurled education reform packages at public school boards, administrators and teachers with the warning that if they oppose any of the packages, they will be labeled as obstructionists in support of the status quo. Generally speaking, the public education community has attempted to implement the "reforms" foisted upon them. 

Sadly, many, if not most, of the recent "reforms" are ill-advised and punitive. To reform means to alter the form of or to form again. Most people think that reform and improvement are the same, and therefore do not want to stand in the way of improvement. But the public education community has been snookered by many of the so-called politically motivated "reforms".

Many of the "reforms" handed down from politicians, corporate folks and other non-educators merely fashion public education in their own image. The "reforms" such as No Child Left Behind, charter schools, vouchers, Race to the Top, high stakes testing and parent trigger have NOT improved education. Many of the "reforms" are designed to shatter the image of public education. They are designed to label traditional public schools as failures.

Some of the "reforms" have removed the love of learning and the joy of teaching from the classroom. They have primarily shunned the wants and needs of students. They are premised on top-down designed curricula and multiple high stakes testing to punish those who fail. They ignore and thus perpetuate inequities inherent in poverty, segregation and racism.

It is time the entire public education community draws a line in the sand. Children are being hurt. For example, think about the thousands of Ohio students getting their "education" from the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, Ohio Virtual Academy and other failed charters. Think about the class time lost in public schools classrooms in the testing debacle. Think about the lost educational opportunities due to the state's unconstitutional school funding system.

Think about all the time wasted to secure funding from Race to the Top and the Ohio Straight A Fund. These funds should be devoted to all children in the common school system.

The abyss created by the politicians, corporate gurus and other non-educators started in the 1980s when public education became a political football. The National Commission on Excellence in Education's research-void Nation at Risk report was a political statement. There was no basis for such phrases as "our nation is at risk", "rising tide of mediocrity", and "committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."

Those inflammatory phrases resonated with many as the cause of an economy that was tanking. It was the stuff that supported political agendas.

Nearly a decade after the Nation at Risk report, the U.S. Secretary of Energy commissioned the Sandia Laboratories to study public education. The subsequent report did not corroborate the Nation at Risk report. It was nearly a polar opposite. But the Sandia report was buried for political reasons. Political and corporate leaders had a choice agenda. The goal was to erode public confidence in the public common school.

In 1989 an education summit was convened at the University of Virginia. Education must have been too important to leave to educators, because not one educator was included in the summit. The shape of the future of American education was determined without even one educator being in the room.
 
Meanwhile back at the Ohio ranch, the President of the United States came to Columbus Ohio on November 25, 1991 at the invitation of Governor George Voinovich to speak about education. The President's pronouncement: a voucher for every student!

Voinovich, with his pal and campaign contributor David Brennan (who has extracted one billion dollars from Ohio school districts for his mostly failing charter schools), started Ohio down the choice road-an effort that is primarily a "reform" failure. The rest is history.

Some in the public education community are beginning to push back on these top down "reforms." It is time for an objective debate about the current "reform" agenda with public school educators being allowed to participate.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A



 
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