Archive for July, 2010
I’ve been anxiously following the news about the new National Governors Association initiative, Complete to Compete, and the recent announcements about states competing for Race to the Top funding, and I continue to worry about reductionist models of education driving our reform agendas. I think that many of our policy makers and government officials at both the state and federal levels actually do believe in the full promise of liberal education, but somehow forget what that really means in educational practice when they get down to developing actual policy proposals. I was pleased, then, to see that the United States isn’t the only place where these issues are being debated.
Anthony Seldon, the master (head of the college) of Wellington College in Great Britain, wrote a wonderful article in a recent issue of The Independent where he warns of the dangers of “the whole process of education with schools and universities becom[ing] mechanized and industrialized: mass production factories of the mind.” He discusses how—in ways very similar to debates here in the United States—political and educational leaders in Britain recognize that “genuine education has never been more necessary than now,” but, in practice, students aren’t experiencing the kind of education they really need. As he notes, “good education should be the opportunity for each child to discover who they are, how they should relate to others, and what they love about life.” Instead, he bemoans how all around the world, “students sit inert in large school and university classrooms, passively absorbing material dictated to them by grey men and women, which they repeat in their essays and dissertations, straining every sinew to produce the ‘right’ answer.”
I recently returned from a meeting in Minneapolis of the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) that overlapped with a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and featured speeches by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter. Reflecting on these meetings and the flurry of recent news about the rapid adoption of the common core standards by many states, my feelings have veered from hope to serious concern about the direction of K-16 education reform.
On the “hope” side of the equation, I was heartened by presentations and discussions at the SHEEO meeting. These individuals—who are at the very center of managing severe state budget cuts and positioning their state systems to educate far more students with fewer resources—were very aware of the need to focus attention not only on meeting President Obama’s 2020 goal to increase the number of college graduates, but also on ensuring that the quality of student learning increases as well. As one speaker, Jamie Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation, put it, in all our discussions about educational goals, it’s “the learning that matters most.” There were also other thoughtful discussions about how to improve learning outcomes and specifically about the role of accreditation in assuring institutional quality. For instance, SHEEO members discussed whether the current system can and should do more than define “minimum” standards and, instead, push institutions to improve at all levels—including for the top performers. Can accreditation also be about raising aspirations at the top, as well as ensuring that institutions guarantee a minimum achievement level for graduates?
