taken from Alan Shoho
Why do so many 21st century educational reformers look to business people or the business sector for answers to educational issues? What expertise or experience do business people have in creating effective schools? And where is the EVIDENCE to suggest that they have any proven ideas beyond political rhetoric? Would the business sector ever approach educators to address ethical lapses in judgment as demonstrated by many examples from the past decade with BP, Enron, WorldCom, financial meltdown, mortgage crisis, etc.? Can you imagine a business asking clients how to run their business? Or what about lawyers asking people without law degrees for legal advice. As you can see, I have pondered many questions since UCEA in New Orleans.
Over the past few weeks and months I’ve attended a number of meetings and luncheons about how to improve education with Chamber of Commerce types and legislative staffers. As I walk away from each of these meetings, I keep wondering where did we (as educators) lose our credibility and how can we regain it. Based on my experience, very few policymakers and influential voices are looking to educators for answers. Unfortunately, I do not have many answers to offer, but there are a lot of educational scholars who are smarter than me and maybe our collective thinking can re-create an environment where our voice is heard and sought out.
While many business affiliated groups are pushing for educational reforms like charter schools, vouchers, creating pathways for alternative certification, etc., where’s the evidence that any of these methods work? During President George W. Bush’s two term presidency, he advocated for experimental, randomized, control studies to be the gold standard to deem whether an innovation was worthy or not. As far as I know, very few, if any of these ideas being pushed by business-affiliated groups have any proven track record.
The challenge ahead of the field is to not only point out and ask questions like above, but also to create a new environment in the 21st Century where we capture the public’s trust and confidence in preparing school leaders and reforming education for the betterment of all children.
