Is a serious backlash against the ed reform community finally starting to form? Maybe. Here’s Exhibit A. Here’s Exhibit B. And of course, Diane Ravitch has been Exhibit C for a while now. These are just a few data points, and this is, obviously, far from the first time that the ed reform community has been under attack, but something strikes me as a little different this time around. It’s not just the usual suspects who are complaining, for one thing, and it’s not just the usual complaints.
Maybe this is nothing. Maybe I just happened to see a few anti-reform pieces over the space of a few days and it struck me as more of a trend than it really is. Or maybe it’s just a projection of my own growing skepticism of the ed reform agenda. I’m not sure. One of these days I’m going to have to take the time to actually write a longish post on the subject called “10 Reasons I’m Increasingly Skeptical of the Ed Reform Agenda.” I’ve already got the reasons, but I haven’t yet done the work to flesh them out into a coherent argument. Someday I promise I will.
In the meantime, read Exhibits A, B, and C. They aren’t earth shattering or anything. But they do point in a direction that I suspect might start to pick up steam one of these days.