The Loving Hardass

I'll second Kevin's link to Sherman Dorn. Sherman's post does a nice job splitting the difference between the Education Equality Project and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. Read it all, but note especially his title, "The Loving Hardass." I think that's about right where we should be in accountability for schools: we should not forget that we're working with children from diverse backgrounds, nor that we have a responsibility as adults to do our jobs as best we can with what we have.

That said, Sherman's even-handed approach lacks the insistence necessary for change. We need our education leaders to say, with more frequency and greater urgency, things like, "We can prove it doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or what your home life is -- every single child can achieve." We need more speeches that include unequivocal lines like this one:

For the children who are denied the education they need to fulfill their God-given potential, it is a personal tragedy, and an inexcusable injustice. It is also an affront to American values, and a threat to America’s role as an incubator of innovation.

This must change.

Contrast the above quotes with this, the third graf of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education:

Evidence demonstrates, however, that achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status are present before children even begin formal schooling. Despite the impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close these gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner.

Ignoring for a moment what type of message this sends, consider that the word "education" appears in the Broader, Bolder title. It isn't a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Social Policy" or a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Children's Policy." The authors specifically chose to include the word "education" in the title, but spend the brunt of the statement asking for an expansion into early childhood education and health services and for education policymakers to pay more attention to student experiences outside of school. Again, those are worthy goals, but they ignore what schools can do. Writing in Democratic Education, in 1987, Amy Gutmann had a strong rebuttal to this point that still applies today:

Among the many myths about American education in recent years has been the view that schooling does not matter very much--except perhaps for the pleasure it gives children while they experience it--because it makes little or no difference to how income, work, or even intelligence gets distributed in our society. Like most myths, this one has no apparent author but a lot of social influence. Unlike some myths, the myth of the moral insignificance of of schooling distorts rather than illuminates our social condition. Its prophecy--of inevitable disillusionment with even our best efforts to educate citizens through schooling--is self-fulfilling because it pays exclusive attention to the question of whether schools equalize and neglects the question of whether they improve the political and personal lives of citizens.