Ed in '08 , the Gates/Broad funded advocacy campaign, hosted the first-ever education " blogger summit " this week at the Hotel Palomar in D.C. You may wonder, what happens at an education blogger summit? Were there intellectual cage matches for snarkiest wit? Gold stars for citing the most stats in the latest Education Sector report on inequity in school funding ?
Not exactly, but there were some lively discussions about the future of public education, agreement on the need to turn up the volume on education issues, and some really good brownies.
However, I'm pretty scared about some of the ideas being advanced on revolutionizing schools. There is a growing chorus of powerful, mostly right-of-center voices declaring public education a failed experiment. These voices (including keynote speaker Newt Gingrich) want a brave new world of schools in America. After all, test scores show the U.S. falling farther and farther behind her international competitors. Our teachers have failed us! We're a nation at risk!
I asked the first question to Newt, equating the bypassing of educators in crafting education reform to America's disastrous de-Baathification policy after invading Iraq. Some eyebrows were raised.
Here's where I was coming from:
It's safe to say we all agree that American public schools need drastic improvement. However, Gingrich and his ideological compatriots' wholesale slapping of the labels "OBSOLETE! FAI ...
Anytime
