The other thing about the term "education reform"....

[Smarmie Doofus]

and it's misuse to describe the stated agenda of "education privatizers" ( I'm not that comfortable with this term either but it better describes their anaysis and agenda than does "education reformers", e.g. Obama, Duncan, Bloomberg, other NY billionaire media folks, Rhee, Klein, Gingrich, et al)is that "education reform" is a perfectly good term to describe solutions to very real and very significant problems that are ENDEMIC in public schools today that are completely obscured by the posturings, media noise, and machinations of the privatizers.

I speak of misuse of funds, abuses in contract-awarding, nepotism, favoritism, test-score fraud and assorted varieties of corruption, large and small. Madfloridian OPed a long thread recently, I think it was in GD, where people... teachers, students and others.... seem to come out of the woodwork with first hand accounts of things that would uncurl Shirley Temple's hair.

THESE kinds of things ache to be *reformed*. But we really don't talk about them much 'cause the media is full of the Duncan variety of "reform" which, again, is better thought of as "privatization", "de-unionization", or at very best, "restructuring".

Whatever it is... it's not "reform".

[tonysam]

1. Don't forget abuse of the "due process hearing" system, which is anything but.

And abuse of the legal system which heavily favors school districts. Never mind the vast majority of teachers are not fired or non-renewed because of real misconduct.

The reason real reform won't happen is because the people who push the current "reforms" either don't understand the political and cultural aspects of public education, or they think it is okay for administrators especially to be able to do whatever the hell they want.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. I always hate to resort to, "You wouldn't understand", but....

>>>>>>The reason real reform won't happen is because the people who push the current "reforms" either don't understand the political and cultural aspects of public education, or they think it is okay for administrators especially to be able to do whatever the hell they want.>>>>>>>

... it really is hard, I believe, for non-teachers to understand public school culture. On the surface the privatizers ( I'm no longer call them reformers, with or without quotes) make plausible arguments.

But one has to understand how schools really work.. from the *inside* ... to * really* understand what's good, what's bad and what's necessary to effect positive change.

Not to say that teachers should govern ourselves without accountability to the larger community; rather I'm saying that people WHO MAKE ED POLICY ought to be *intimately* familiar with how public schools work.

Intimately.

And that's not what's happening NOW.

[tonysam]

3. I couldn't agree more. n/t

[Catshrink]

4. You said it.