Pondering Checker
Posted: January 5th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 4 Comments »
Let us ponder the wisdom of Checker Finn. He is arguably the most thoughtful longtime advocate of something broadly called “Education Reform.”
He writes:
It’s possible, of course, that we’re pursuing the wrong core strategies. Maybe standards-based reform has exhausted its potential (as Mark Schneider suggests in The Accountability Plateau). Perhaps choice and competition really cannot lift all boats. Possibly technology is overrated, alternate certification can never amount to much, teacher quality is doomed to mediocrity, principals don’t truly want authority, etc.
Could be. But from where I sit, the basic strategies aren’t ill-conceived. Rather, they’ve been stumped, stymied, and constrained by formidable barriers that are more or less built into the K-12 system as we know it.
Those barriers aren’t accidents. They’ve been erected by adult interests, bureaucratic routine, structural rigidity, and political stalemate. And they function to keep anything in education from changing very much. Eight such barriers are especially troublesome.
You can read his fully essay — and the 8 barriers — here.
My view:
1. I am heartily, strongly in favor of eliminating each of the 8 barriers he describes…
However,
2. I don’t think a perfect Checker Universe — all 8 barriers knocked down — would achieve what he hopes.
Why? When I look at the 5,637 charters in the USA, they/we already have all 8 barriers significantly reduced.
Consider: No elected school board; inherent choice for our families; reasonable control of our budget/academic standards/accountability; partial or complete freedom from cumbersome HR contracts and ability to use technology as we see fit.
Yet our sector has not created enough success.
Now of course Checker and I would agree on this: some reform opponents, those who proudly man the 8 barriers, trying to block change (except to flood the existing system with boatloads of cash), also tend to argue that no successes have from the charter sector.
False. There are many. And among the charter school successes, reduction/elimination of Checker’s 8 barriers was absolutely necessary.
Necessary but insufficient. We know “insufficient” because the average charter does not do that much different from other public schools. Maybe a little better, that’s my view of the evidence.
Ed reformers need to choose.
Either you believe:
1. A Checker-Utopia With All 8 Barriers Removed would lead to great academic gains.
or
2. A Checker-Utopia With All 8 Barriers Removed is necessary but not sufficient for great progress — in fact, not CLOSE to sufficient.
Which do you believe? I used to believe #1. Now I believe #2.
There is a long(er) and proud history of #3. “ed reformers” who believe these goals are mostly irrelevant to creating academic gains.
Tom: Yep. But if I have to type it out long hand each time when my tiny blog audience knows what I mean, I’ll have no choice but to turn to Twittering.
If you got the eight, what else do you believe it would take beyond our messed up income and quality teacher distribution that only gets worse each year.
Finn’s 8th goal (we need to put the focus back on the high kids!) is repugnant and antithetical to his stated desire of achieving equitable outcomes. It recalls similar proposals for curricula for “leaders” and “feeble-minded followers” in the early 20th century (see Kliebard, “The Struggle for the American Curriculum). Oh, and how would ratcheting up gate-keeping standards in AP classes lead to greater equity exactly?
I’m more along the lines with Tom and, it appears, Mike, in that these reforms are mostly missing the boat how to fix schools. Greater accountability of the style proposed by Finn is only going to narrow our focus about what matters in schools (i.e., test scores, test scores, test scores). Increasing pressure on teachers to produce these scores (in the absence of other measures) narrows curriculum and shortchanges kids. There’s also years of empirical evidence evidence that this style of accountability just isn’t working and actually worsens inequities (see Valenzuela, “Leaving Children Behind”).