American Education: A Race to Nowhere

Where is American Education in 2010?

American education is headed at high speed in the wrong direction.

Smart and caring CEOs and politicians who do not understand education very well have controlled American education policymaking for decades now. The result of this has been disastrous: the American people have been misled repeatedly about how our schools are doing and about what really works for the goals we value most. The degree to which the American people have been misled about education is staggering.

Recent education policies have hurt children, hurt families, and hurt our nation. Current policies (No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB], Race to the Top [RttT], and endless for-profit charter schools) seem as if they were designed by a group of people who sat down and said "OK, now let's do the opposite of what the best research suggests." Or to put it differently, the same kind of thinking that led to our financial meltdown is now guiding educational policymaking in America and many other countries. Predictably, these policies have slowed and sometimes reversed our educational progress as a nation, and a great deal of damage has been done to student learning and development, to families, and to teachers and the teaching profession.

So, people who understand children and understand education need to take action to stop this train wreck, and head education in a healthier direction. In the coming weeks and months, I'll explain through this blog why accountability, student achievement, teacher pay for test scores, so-called "scientifically-based teaching methods," back-to-basics, so-called "measurable outcomes," scripted instruction, rigorous academics, accelerated teaching, incentives, and national standards are not the solutions to our educational challenges--THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!!!

Authoritarian, test-driven, factory-style schooling is simply the wrong paradigm for our children and our future, and that means that the things that are part of that outdated paradigm are what we need to outgrow, not embrace. Furthermore, while we foolishly chase test scores, other countries are making much wiser decisions.

I'll also explain the power of framing and then, in each post, I'll give specific examples of how we can re-frame the educational debates around that issue. Language is power, and it's time for people who understand education well to use language more effectively, so we can return sanity and quality to American education and to the lives of children, families, and educators.