Swift & Change Able

Eduwonkette and I are moving right past the honeymoon stage (she spilled the beans and talked about how we "went at it" last week) to, well, I don’t know what.

So, I’ll say it publicly: I still respect her. I just don’t remember her name.

Ette’s post yesterday was about a fairy tale. I like fairies. And pixies and sprites etc. But I’m also intrigued and amused by imps.

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The Imp Possible Dream

Once upon a time, in a land far away, all children in the United States went to wonderful schools. They all had extensive libraries at home and tons of the latest education technology, dwarfing the resources provided by the public school district.

Every one in every town wanted every kid to go to the best possible school.

If you were an African-American kid and wanted to go to a mostly white school, they said "No problem. We’ll roll out the red carpet." If English was your second language and you talked in class, they knew it was because you were asking a friend for a translation, so they didn’t yell at you or send you to the principal’s office. If you couldn’t walk or hear or see, they went out of their way to accommodate you and never said "stay home" or "go to class in the basement."

The John Dewey Foundation gave its seal of approval to every classroom. Children knew not only how to write essays, but to write poetry (and, yes, spelling counted). Science was a lab course with fascinating experiments. Students often did field work in biology - urban kids knew as much about butterflies and flowers as their suburban and rural peers. Social studies classes had trips almost weekly. In Washington, DC., for example, there was not a single high school student who had not visited the U.S. Capitol or listened to arguments at the Supreme Court.

Students never were taught by substitutes, not for more than a day or two. Schools of education worked closely with K-12 administrators to make sure there was an ample supply of graduates who were competent in math, science, special education, and other hard-to-staff areas. No phys. ed teacher was ever asked to teach algebra (unless he or she also knew the subject). Every collective bargaining agreement did everything to encourage teachers, short of require it, to teach in hard-to-staff schools and subjects.

All teacher assessments (including homework and written exams) met the highest reliability and validity standards. An A at Martin L. King High School meant exactly the same thing as an A from Alexander Hamilton High School. Boys were not rated differently than girls. 

In high school, teachers never used coloring books or showed R-rated horror movies. If you wanted an AP course, it was yours for the taking. Unbiased advice on college options or financial aid? No problem.

No child left high school without learning how to read or do math - not easily, anyway. Rich parents never got jealous when attention was lavished on poor kids. They knew their kids still had most of the advantages. And no one was asking the public to subsidize those expensive summer camps in Maine and the Adirondacks (or wherever) for poor children, so their more fortunate sons and daughters had plenty of time to network and learn the finer points of being priveleged.

No one worried about the U.S. education system - not business, not civil rights groups, not parents - because there was nothing to worry about.

THE END

See Eduwonkette: here