Not So Fast
Maybe it’s a good thing that the President-elect hasn’t chosen his education secretary yet. While education buffs are chomping at the bit to be the first to have predicted the winner, and ready to read into the selection (in error) what will happen to education over the next decade, we’re thinking that the trouble in Chicago may not bode well for a leading contender, Arne Duncan.
We’ve not been the biggest cheerleader, even before the feds whisked away his Governor in the middle of the night. Duncan is praised for upsetting the status quo but in reality, he’s been a reformer-lite. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take a little over none any day. But Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 was carefully scripted to close down only the very, very worst schools (not all the bad ones) and to replace them with only a handful of new providers, who have to contend with many of the same rules that have long interfered with well-intentioned efforts in urban school systems. Chicago’s charter environment – 30 strong - is stuck there, thanks to a legislative environment that has capped its growth. We can’t find much evidence that Duncan has been roaming Springfield’s halls trying to lift that since he arrived. He thinks he has enough authority to do what it takes. We disagree. The proof is in the figgy pudding – Chicago school kids are thankfully no longer in the worst school district in the nation (1987, Former Ed Secretary William J. Bennett) but they are still pretty near rock bottom.
In 2007, a dismal 16 percent of Chicago’s 4th graders were proficient in reading compared to 22 percent in other large urban districts and only 13 percent of 8th graders were proficient in math. Only 42 percent of Chicago Public Schools met national performance standards. Arne Duncan will continue to fail to make meaningful change without fundamental reform in Springfield.
As the Chicago Tribune points out, Obama should pick someone who “will make a statement for real reform,” and not someone like “Linda Darling-Hammond or someone else reluctant to smash skulls…”
And given that politicians in Illinois do not call their Governor to the carpet on his outrageous Capone-ish tactics, we’d humbly suggest looking elsewhere lest we find ourselves knowing more than we care to about Chicago politics.
kimmy
December 10, 2008 | 3:59 PMYou mean those who back reforms with no track record of success? Backed by ideology? Without any real data proving their worth? Roll of the eyes. One side is just as bad as the other.
interested
December 12, 2008 | 4:35 PMLinda Darling-Hammond would be a disaster. Arne Duncan would be a better pick than her, at least. But a truly BRAVE pick, if we really believe in Obama’s promise of CHANGE would be someone like Joel Klein or Wendy Kopp or Paul Vallas. Now THAT would be amazing and give me fresh hope for the future of education reform in this country. Still, when the alternative is Linda Darling Hammond, Arne Duncan is a win.
MJC
December 12, 2008 | 7:13 PMUnlike, say, laboratory-based chemistry experiments, the effects of educational reforms are difficult to measure. So, however, is the opportunity cost of not pursuing promising innovations.
Educators would love to be able to isolate a cause and, two months later, measure its effect and have faith in (i.e., be able to depend on the replicability of) the results. That’s why math is so comforting. 2 + 2 is always 4. That certainty brings order to our lives and precision at the bank teller’s window and the checkout counter.
That kind of precision is typically not possible in the social sciences in general or in educational research in particular. The purpose of the research often seems to be to find data to prove ideological points. It’s almost standard procedure, even for supposedly “data-driven” educators, to use educational data as false witness to prove ideology . . . to cherry pick and fudge and mold the data to prove the ideology. The beginning of every statement of scientific cause and effect is, “all things being equal . . . .” In a classroom, however, all things are never equal. No two students, no two teachers, no two communities, no two days are ever exactly the same.
Kimmy is right that wishing something to happen doesn’t make it happen, nor does feeling that something ought to work make it work. But we cannot insist on exactitude in the real world. The empirical “evidence” we rely on in educational research is only a compilation of data points. We need reason to explain the data.
Other social scientists are in the same position. Economists disagree, for example, on whether war is “good for the economy” or at what point deficit spending brings on inflation. Political scientists argue about the proper balance between individual human rights and societal security and on the level of regulatory oversight appropriate to the proper functioning of a “free market.” Research and history provide some patterns, but the tougher job is to explain the pattern, since the pattern itself doesn’t provide the explanation.
The question is whether we’re going to allow parents to make choices - to interpret the patterns and to reason through the data - for the education of their children or whether those choices are going to be limited, with decisions imposed by the government. Given the uncertainty of educational research and the level of dissatisfaction with the educational results of the existing government monopoly, it seems reasonable to argue that the less powerful, and less centralized, the government decision-making, the better. That leaves parents and teachers and administrators with more freedom, with more initiative, and with more motivation to improve the quality of education and, thus, society.