Kevin G. Welner, professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of the National Education Policy Center has written a response to the much publicized “How to fix our schools: A manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and other education leaders,” recently published in the Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post. Welner says, “In fact, we should start by removing the irresponsible signers of this manifesto from any position of power over ‘’the future of our children.’” He follows with a point-by-point research-based rebuttal of each of the points made in the “Manifesto” and concludes with the following:
“Think about that – the people to whom we have handed over responsibility for educating our children are engaged in scapegoating, offering bread-and-circus diversions while the children under their care see their life chances slipping away.”
“These are the people in power – the people who have overseen the system that they now seem to acknowledge has only gotten worse under their regimes and their policies.”
“They scapegoat and divert because they refuse to acknowledge their failures and to step aside.”
“How very, very sad.”
Read the complete article, published in the Washington Post, by clicking here.
Welner makes the case that no evidence supports the reforms touted by signers of the education manifesto or producers of the movie Waiting for Superman. He opposes wasting more taxpayers’ money and teachers’ time on educational reforms that have been shown not to work.
Instead he recommends improving teaching quality using evidence based best practices and improving other factors including school leadership, class size, facilities, learning resources and curriculum. And these are only the in-school factors.
Our nation must address the out of school factors influencing quality education at the same time.
These recommendations make sense and will be understood by teachers as essential for improvement of schools.