What are your top 5 steps a classroom teacher should take to educate the public about the current and desired states of education at their schools?

I’d totally posit that we can control ourselves outside school, as well, and influence our classrooms at school, if not control them

I agree with you, but I am not downplaying the importance of “let’s see if this works” in teaching and learning. I think the “let’s see if this works” with regards to policy, funding, standardized testing, and all these other movements that work towards reward, punishment, and compliance. The “let’s see if this works” mentality in the classroom is exactly what we should be striving for. I apologize for being unclear about that.

Your other point is very well taken and one I think about quite often. As you know, I am vehemently opposed to cookie-cutter schooling and eveyrthing that goes with it. That includes Duncan’s one-size-fits-all mentality with regards to funding, testing, and curriculum movements. Personally, I turn a deaf ear to a lot of the “global education” discussion when it comes to comparing countries namely because I think we are all preparing our kids for something different. It’s a matter of context for individual countries and the workforce that they should be creating. The biggest problem, again, is that people don’t understand this or want to understand it.

I don’t think we can ignore what Ravitch and Duncan do and stick with the “we can only control our classroom” idea. Education is a nation-wide phenomenon and ideas need to be spread and discussed so that potential secretarys are more in tuned to reality rather than promoting the “elitist and political affinity for numbers” that you are referring to.

Thanks for the discussion!

The problem isn’t experimentation in pursuit of solutions. It’s the politicians’ disregard for moving ahead with #edreform that leads to better teaching and learning in favor of lining their pockets with populist votes and vendor dollars. It’s Duncan’s insistence that what Duncan wants to try is right for everybody. It’s the paradoxical belief that competition will help schools that are already failing to compete. It’s the scape-goating of schools and teachers for complex national and global trends in the supply-and-demand of products, services, and types of worker (thanks for the assist, Dr. Bracey). It’s a shallow understanding of global competition based on comparing our test rates against countries that don’t educate or test anywhere near the percentage of students we work with every year, using tests that stifle America’s innovative spirit, our most valuable resource in this day and age (ditto, Doc). It’s an elitist and political affinity for numbers, not people.

It’s in refining obsolescence.

It’s a lack of will on the parts of educators and learners to refuse to follow policy that limits children’s learning. I’m complicit in that. Ravitch and Duncan aside, what are we to do? Tag that question #notrehtorical.