The Big Idea -- it's bad education policy

Once a proponent of charter schools and other nouveau reform efforts when she served in the George H W Bush administration, Diane Ravitch has changed her mind, repented and now adopts the role of Cassandra in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She warns that schools are not like businesses, yet powerful businessmen create foundations that launch unsuccesful school reforms on little evidence, and contribute greatly to (and probably lead) federal education policy. The book is worth the read. Her recent Op-Ed is a taste.

One simple solution for our schools?

A captivating promise, but a false one.

This from Diane Ravitch in the LA Times:

There have been two features that regularly mark the history of U.S. public schools.

Over the last century, our education system has been regularly captivated by a Big Idea -- a savant or an organization that promised a simple solution to the problems of our schools. The second is that there are no simple solutions, no miracle cures to those problems.

Education is a slow, arduous process that requires the work of willing students, dedicated teachers and supportive families, as well as a coherent curriculum. As an education historian, I have often warned against the seductive lure of grand ideas to reform education. Our national infatuation with education fads and reforms distracts us from the steady work that must be done.Our era is no different.

We now face a wave of education reforms based on the belief that school choice, test-driven accountability and the resulting competition will dramatically improve student achievement.Once again, I find myself sounding the alarm that the latest vision of education reform is deeply flawed. But this time my warning carries a personal rebuke. For much of the last two decades, I was among those who jumped aboard the choice and accountability bandwagon. Choice and accountability, I believed, would offer a chance for poor children to escape failing schools.

Testing and accountability, I thought, would cast sunshine on low-performing schools and lead to improvement. It all seemed to make sense, even if there was little empirical evidence, just promise and hope.

Today there is empirical evidence, and it shows clearly that choice, competition and accountability as education reform levers are not working. But with confidence bordering on recklessness, the Obama administration is plunging ahead, pushing an aggressive program of school reform -- codified in its signature Race to the Top program -- that relies on the power of incentives and competition. This approach may well make schools worse, not better...