Proposals for
enormous changes in the school system have always been a feature during times of economic crisis, but you have to stop and catch your breath at times when some of the more «throw the baby out with the bathwater» schemes get a serious airing from our self - appointed «out of the box» thinkers on education «reform,» or, as one of our local school board candidates would prefer, «transformation.»
The critics of modern
school reform that I know are people who see
enormous trouble
in the public education
system, but don't think it will be fixed by spending billions of dollars on questionable teacher assessment
systems linked to standardized test scores, or expanding charter
schools that are hardly the panacea their early supporters claimed they would be, or handing out federal education dollars based on promises to
change schools according to the likes and dislikes of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, whose record as superintendent of Chicago public
schools was hardly distinguished.