This piece is ‘must’ reading for anyone involved classroom technology adoption.

The problem with education- more specifically- classroom technology is that the purveyors, the public, students, their parents, and educators believe that adopting technology and using it in the classroom will improve student achievement.

Faith in technology turns out to be exactly that- a faith, or belief.

Now, data is beginning to percolate up challenging the faith placed in technology and its required spending. Bluntly, a district or a school can spend freely on adopting and integrating technology without a commensurate gain in student achievement.

Richtel terms the faith in technology vs. student achievement “A Dearth of Proof.”

I won’t repeat Richtel’s reporting. This excerpt from the opening of the article sets the stage:

“…The class, and the Kyrene School District as a whole, offer what some see as a utopian vision of education’s future. Classrooms are decked out with laptops, big interactive screens and software that drills students on every basic subject. Under a ballot initiative approved in 2005, the district has invested roughly $33 million in such technologies.

The digital push here aims to go far beyond gadgets to transform the very nature of the classroom, turning the teacher into a guide instead of a lecturer, wandering among students who learn at their own pace on Internet-connected devices.

‘This is such a dynamic class,’ Ms. Furman says of her 21st-century classroom.

‘I really hope it works.’ Hope and enthusiasm are soaring here. But not test scores.

Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.

To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education experts, something is not adding up — here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.

This conundrum calls into question one of the most significant contemporary educational movements. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade — which include powerful educators, Silicon Valley titans and White House appointees — say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets.

Some backers of this idea say standardized tests, the most widely used measure of student performance, don’t capture the breadth of skills that computers can help develop. But they also concede that for now there is no better way to gauge the educational value of expensive technology investments.

‘The data is pretty weak. It’s very difficult when we’re pressed to come up with convincing data,’ said Tom Vander Ark, the former executive director for education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an investor in educational technology companies. When it comes to showing results, he said, ‘We better put up or shut up.’

And yet, in virtually the same breath, he said change of a historic magnitude is inevitably coming to classrooms this decade: ‘It’s one of the three or four biggest things happening in the world today.’

Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later…”(NYT)

Richtel develops his argument using sections titled:

Engaging With Paper
Instruct or Distract?
Teachers vs. Tech
The Sellers
The Parents

Be skeptical. The data we do have- and have accumulated over the years- shows that the single greatest correlation between student and his/her achievement is a qualified teacher.

Technology cannot teacher-proof a classroom, or, out-teach a good teacher.

I’ll make a modest proposal. How about upgrading the profession by respecting and understanding what good teachers do day in and day out. It’s difficult and perhaps one the most beneficial professions to society.

Enough, read Richtel.

Perhaps it is time to seriously look at a boarding school.  Times have changed. Boarding schools are not what you may think they are.  Boarding schools like mine (www.brentwood.bc.ca) are bulging with fantastic students all seeking more out of their education.  They are filled with students who have sought and found a meaningful education in a supportive, positive environment.  These are kids that are going places!

There is no harm in looking and I believe you will be pleasantly surprised at what you find.  A good place to start is: www.boardingschools.com
Good luck!

If we were honest with ourselves, many of us in our 40s and 50s cruised through high school with little or no pressure on us to make a decision about our future.  The culture in the 70’s and early 80’s was that university was a place where all this would get sorted out.  Our future was something that would magically come to us once we enrolled in a university.  These were halcyon days.

More and more parents are recognizing that the investment in their child’s future needs to come sooner rather than later.  Waiting to pay for their child’s university education may be waiting too late if the child’s high school doesn’t provide a top-tier education along with an experienced and capable post-secondary counseling program.  I deal with parents everyday who have decided to invest in their children’s education now, while they are in high school.  They know that if they don’t get it right now, they may not get a second chance.

The logic is sound. Building a strong foundation academically allows students to have a leg-up in university.  With drop-out rates in universities and colleges across North America at an all-time high, it is abundantly clear that the student’s academic readiness is a key factor in college/university retention.  If a student is well prepared for the academic and social demands of post secondary education, they are more likely to stay in school.  Here is where there is a distinct advantage for students studying at a quality boarding school.

Boarding schools are designed to be a bridge to university.  Quality boarding schools offer the social/academic tools for post-secondary survival.  As parents, perhaps it is worth taking another look at what boarding schools offer.  After all, you can’t build a solid structure on a weak foundation.

Overnight Boarding Camps
What happens when you combine an amazing campus, a school with a legendary athletic tradition, playing fields and facilities that rival those at most colleges, and an experienced coaching staff? It’s simple, really. You have created the most comprehensive and vibrant overnight sports camp experience in the Southeast.

• Team Baylor Sports Camp: Designed for kids of all ages to enjoy sports activities. Whether you are an all-star athlete, or just ready to have fun and improve your skills, Baylor is the place to make the most of your potential while enjoying an action-packed week of different sports, recreation, and excursions.
• Golf Academy : varsity golf coaches and an in-house pro from an area golf course host this instructional clinic.
• Boys Lacrosse Camp: Trilogy Golf Camp is designed for the serious lacrosse player seeking a highly competitive training experience.
• Baylor Elite Swim Camp: This camp will challenge swimmers mentally and physically as they train with nationally ranked Baylor swimmers.
• Southeast Distance Running Camp: Campers will explore over 200 acres of Baylor’s campus with runs along the Tennessee River and wooded trails.

Day Camps
As you might imagine, there are many different types of camps that offer all kinds of activities to match all kinds of interests and talents. In addition to traditional day camps, Baylor offers specialized camps in these areas:

• Sports Clinics: Basketball, baseball, cheerleading, volleyball, football, weightlifting, wrestling, soccer, crew, lacrosse, golf, distance running, tennis, and swimming.
• Fine Arts: Pottery, film, 2-D and 3-D art, painting, sculpting, music video, and dance.
• Enrichment: Cooking, babysitting training, etiquette classes, robotics, CSI science, and sailing.

Baylor takes summer fun seriously and we are committed to making sure every camper has a great experience. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for Baylor’s camp programs and get ready for a summer of fun, adventure and skill development.

Somehow being a high school math teacher with 21 years experience makes me an expert on all things math, even elementary school math curricula, according to my (facebook) friends. Parents of grade schoolers heard the story and had their own Archimedes moment:

“Eureka! They are not teaching as much computation these days because the calculator will answer those questions! Being able to program and operate a calculator actually requires algebraic thinking, and that is why 3rd grade homework has more x(-es) in it than I remember!”

But the follow up questions and comments friends posted made me reflect on my chosen profession and passion. These parents wanted me to compare Saxon Math to Everyday Math to Singapore Math. Have I heard of these? Which is best? My response was that all “newer” curricula (and I do not mean the New Math from the 70’s) strive to have students form concepts instead of endlessly calculate. No one curriculum is better than the rest. Rather, all curricula need to be supplemented with other materials.

If, as an Advanced Placement Calculus teacher, I, unilaterally, taught from our school-issued textbook, my students would not have the full understanding they need to succeed. Similarly, though calculators will sum fractions with unlike denominators, not teaching how and, more importantly, why, a common denominator is needed to preform the addition, will hamper students’ ability later on in high school to execute a trigonometric proof. If that child ends up going to pharmacy school one day, guess what? S/he will have to pass an involved timed arithmetic test (fractions, decimals, percents) using only paper and pencil. So my question about these curricula is: does there seem to be a balance of conceptual and computational? If not, does the teacher supplement to create a balance?

I think the new approach to teaching mathematics is great. I get to help my third grader with her homework (when she lets me) and I see a good bit of conceptual combined with computational. All I remember about my third grade math homework is two and three digit multiplication for a few months followed by a lot of long division. Who knew in 1973 (thankfully I never had the “New Math”) that we would purchase little machines for $1.99 at the grocery store that could do those problems for us?

The truth is, this generation is much better off, really. I hated arithmetic. I never saw any algebra until 7th grade, when the world of math just opened right-up for me. Maybe with these new approaches, we’ll have lots more kids saying, “I love math” when they come into high school, and my job- which I already love a lot- will be even better.

NPR’s The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School

Photo credit: Old Shoe Woman via Creative Commons

Relax.  Every student that chooses to go to a boarding school initially had the same questions and anxieties.  In fact, I would be worried if you didn’t have these questions!  At my school, Brentwood College School, we only accept students who choose to be at our school.  If they are being sent to us, we don’t accept them.  It is that simple.  It makes for a happy school and my first piece of advice, if you are looking at the possibility of a boarding school, is first and foremost, make sure you look at schools with a similar philosophy.  It makes all the difference to the tone on campus.

If you are satisfied that you have found some good boarding school options and have researched them well, then here is a checklist to give you an indication of whether or not you should look further into it:

1.       Are there members of your family that would not be supportive if you decided to attend a boarding school?

2.       Do you feel your current education adequately prepares you for where you want to go in life?

3.       Are you engaged with your current education?  Feel challenged?  Motivated?  Interest in school has rarely waned?

4.       Is the number of students in your class small enough to make it conducive to learning effectively?

5.       Are all the programs you are interested in easily available at your school?

6.       Is the atmosphere of your current school one that makes it easy to remain motivated, work hard and try new things?

7.       Are you satisfied by the teachers’ willingness to provide extra help and support when needed?

8.       Does adjusting to a completely different lifestyle where you live, work and play in the same location, make you weak in the knees?

9.       Does gaining independence at such a young age and losing some privacy make you shudder?

10.   In your heart of hearts, would you really rather just stay home with your family?

If you have answered ‘no’ to most of these questions, perhaps it is time to take the discussion further.  In my humble opinion, out of all of them, the first one is the most important.  Going to a boarding school is not an individual decision; it has to be right for everyone in your family.  Talk it through with them and good luck!

I simply wanted to make clear whole thing- book release, lots of buzz, lots of press, and lots of media appearances looks like a PR campaign to me.

New York Times columnist David Brooks also had at Chua last week and, rather than through larger perspective questions as I did.

Brooks has at Chua arguing that, in reality, she’s coddling her children keeping them from learning to navigate precisely the kinds of situations that they must successfully master.

Brooks thinks Chua’s kids will miss out on learning the soft knowledge necessary to successful navigation and achievement in modern America:

“…Her [Chua] critics echoed the familiar themes. Her kids can’t possibly be happy or truly creative. They’ll grow up skilled and compliant but without the audacity to be great. She’s destroying their love for music. There’s a reason Asian-American women between the ages of 15 and 24 have such high suicide rates.

I have the opposite problem with Chua. I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t.

Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale.

Yet mastering these arduous skills is at the very essence of achievement. Most people work in groups. We do this because groups are much more efficient at solving problems than individuals (swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events). Moreover, the performance of a group does not correlate well with the average I.Q. of the group or even with the I.Q.’s of the smartest members…

Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.

This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table.” (NYT)

Brooks is currently doing the best job (of any broadly read author) of covering our emerging understanding of social intelligence and its importance.

More than just facts and knowledge manipulation individual success and achievement appears to depend as much, or more-so, on one’s abilities to read, understand, and navigate social situations and relationships.

Brooks’ view is informed by his research and writing behind his forthcoming book “The Social Animal” due out in March. I’ll have a post on this in a day or so.

For those unfamiliar with the firestorm of the past week, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua wrote a Wall Street Journal Saturday Essay titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior: Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?”

The essay is an excerpt from her new book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

I read the Journal Essay and shrugged, finding it preachy, self-serving, and un-nuanced.  After all, her book was about to hit stores and she wants to sell books.
Ms. Chua claims to be shocked; shocked I tell you at the virulent response to authoritarian parenting.  Uh, she expected a warm fuzzy?

Chua’s Provocations

Chua’s essay reads as though designed to touch nerves provoke.   If you’ve read Chua’s essay, feel free to skip down to the “Questions and Issues” section.  A few tidbits that have American parents in a dither:

“…Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

attend a sleepover
have a playdate
be in a school play
complain about not being in a school play
watch TV or play computer games
choose their own extracurricular activities
get any grade less than an A
not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
play any instrument other than the piano or violin
not play the piano or violin…

“…Here’s a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called ‘The Little White Donkey’ by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it’s also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn’t do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

‘Get back to the piano now,’ I ordered.

‘You can’t make me.’

‘Oh yes, I can.’

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu’s dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t have ‘The Little White Donkey’ perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, ‘I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?’ I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed [Chua’s husband] took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn’t even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn’t think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn’t do the technique—perhaps she didn’t have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

‘You just don’t believe in her,’ I accused.

‘That’s ridiculous,” Jed said scornfully. “Of course I do.’

‘Sophia could play the piece when she was this age.’

‘But Lulu and Sophia are different people,” Jed pointed out.

‘Oh no, not this,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Everyone is special in their special own way,’ I mimicked sarcastically. ‘Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don’t worry, you don’t have to lift a finger. I’m willing to put in as long as it takes, and I’m happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games.’” (WSJ)

Questions and Issues
Chua’s telling provokes questions and comments from so many angles?  A few of mine:

Asian parent sterotypes?

Blunt force isn’t motivation; it may be/work for some but certainly not all.  The best leaders have a quiver full of methods, carrots and sticks, to cajole the best out of their charges.

Remarkably self righteous tone.

It’s interesting to note that Ms. Chua twistingly calls American parents children in this construction:

“…What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up…”(WSJ)

As a parent, if you do not always impose your will over the child’s, then you too, must be a child.  Really?

Ms. Chua doesn’t seem to recognize or value the plurality of America- in parenting, in education, and in definitions of success.

Chua’s one dimensional definition of success- desiring to be something other than a doctor, lawyer, or, engineer somehow marks and makes one inferior.  She attacks the American notion of instilling and valuing self esteem, but I think that’s a smokescreen to hide behind.  She counters the self-esteem movement with her authoritarian bent as though the self esteem movement must be beaten into submission.

I suspect her real issue would surface with child wanting to pursue success outside one of her rigidly defined areas.  God forbid, one of her girls pursue a trade- becoming a chef?

I wonder how Ms. Chua responds to American students who achieve as highly as her daughters?

Book deal smell- I can’t help but see the past week’s firestorm as calculated publicity designed to sell books.  Nothing sells more easily and faster than outlandish positions and statements that shock an audience; it’s cheap easy public relations.

Ms. Chua is clearly a smart, articulate woman who knows herself and her goals.  Maybe she’s as un-nuanced as her book excerpts and media persona.   Maybe Ms. Chua is as extreme in her personal dealings as she seems.  Maybe she’s not.

Maybe, just maybe, the book, its excerpt, and Ms. Chua’s subsequent media appearances are nothing more than a well calculated public relations campaign designed to start a fire and make Ms. Chua and her publisher a few bucks.

I’m betting somewhere in between.

On the book sales front though, I bet much of Ms. Chua’s preaching and extreme positioning result from her desire to sell books.  In this way, she’s not a lot different from say- Ann Coulter.

“Louisiana loses 24 square miles of coastal wetlands each year, the equivalent of a football field every 30 minutes, due to loss of sediment buildup that used to occur naturally.” (Redirecting Mississippi River Proposed As Way To Save Louisiana Coast)

Mississippi River Delta

Water, the worldwide topic for this fourth annual Blog Action Day gives me license to talk about something important that America seems to not want to deal with- restoring the Louisiana coast by freeing/redirecting the flow of the Mississippi river back into, and through, the state’s coastal marshes and wetlands.

Over the decades, we’ve hemmed in the Mississippi River through a system of levies and flood control projects.  The river flows smoothly and flooding along the river’s plains and deltas have become an anomolous events.  The Mississippi is more steady, navigable, safer and less threatening from a flood control standpoint.

This safer, more usable, Mississippi has come at a cost.  The natural flushing of soils and depositing of sediments all along the Mississippi have disappeared.  The soil still exists but its fertility declines without regular refreshment from the river.   A line that you hear down here in Mississippi is that “the Delta is the most chemically dependent place on earth.”  All the Mississippi Delta soil is still here, but it now requires chemical intervention to keep it fertile.

Fertility is an easy issue compared to what the taming of the Mississippi has done to Louisiana.  The River is now so hemmed-in that the water and all its contents drain straight out into the Gulf of Mexico rather than flow the Louisiana marshes and wetlands.  This redirecting of the Mississippi has been a disaster for south Louisiana.

“…Until the 1930s, silt and sediments carried down the Mississippi River and deposited in the delta added nearly one square mile (2.6 sq km) a year to Louisiana’s land mass, most of it marsh.

But during the past 80 years, with the advent of levees to control the flow of the Mississippi, as well as dredging and the channelization of the river for navigation, the state has lost about 2,300 square miles (6,000 sq km) of its coastal lands as silt washes straight out to sea.

“The result of that is a very, very fragmented shoreline, a very deteriorated barrier coastal area,” Graves said (Garret Graves, chair of Louisisana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority).

As an illustration, Graves noted that the rim of Louisiana’s coastline is nearly 400 miles long, but the actual tidal shoreline — accounting for the patchwork of islands, bays, inlets and channels — amounts to over 7,700 miles.

As the state’s outlying islands shrink and disappear, the Gulf’s sea water has pushed farther north into estuaries, killing vegetation accustomed to brackish, less salty water.

The rapid growth of onshore oil and gas facilities and other development also has taken a toll.

But the whole process was intensified by a flurry of hurricanes in the last several years — including Katrina and Rita in 2005, and Gustav and Ike in 2008.

The storms punched new holes through barrier islands and coastal beach, exposing even more marshland to saltwater intrusion and leaving wetlands especially vulnerable…” (Reuters)

Redirect the Mississippi Through the Louisiana Marshes

No other state has taken this kind of hit. Louisiana’s safety and productivity hang in the balance. The state needs the wetlands for hurricane safety and to maintain the productivity of its waters. Louisiana is America’s seafood breadbasket.

It can be done. On a smaller scale the Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi River has been freed to successfully flush, replenish and rebuild the wetlands it serves.

The cost wouldn’t be cheap, but the necessity is, in many ways, a national security issue, considering commerce, safety, liabilities and costs. The price, $20 billion- a bargain when you consider losing a people, the nation’s seafood breadbasket, and the continuing hurricane and insurance risks.

The cost of Boston’s Big Dig (Central Artery/Tunnel Project) totaled $22 billion- a great public works project but not meaningful to the nation.

Louisiana’s vanishing coast is national issue. It’s time to redirect the Mississippi River and let fresh water from the River restore the Louisiana coast. President Obama has talked about it. It’s time for action.

Photo credit: USGS

Is everything we do in American education perfect, no. Do we need to make great improvement to certain elements of American education, hell, yes.

We have some big issues/shortcomings. There’s no denying that American education is awful in some areas.

But, as I like to argue. American education does much right. We include enormous numbers of students. Access- top-to-bottom, north-south-east-west is better than anywhere else in the world- maybe not good enough for our collective American goals. But, American educational inclusion and access continue to be the envy of the world.

Yet, the sky has been falling for as long as I can remember. Hell, I even wrote my college entrance essay on American public school shortcomings (roughly 26 years ago). But, are our shortcomings as bad as we make them out to be and is American public K-12 education really in the Chicken Little predicament that we hear about every day- locally regionally and nationally?

Maybe not when we challenge the conventional wisdom.

Nicholas Lemman turns a critics eye toward ‘the sky is falling’ educational establishment in his current New Yorker article, “SCHOOLWORK,” concluding quickly, that, despite the ragged edges and unevenness, American public education succeeds. (Lemann address both lower and higher education in his thinking. I’m sticking to K-12 education in this piece.)

Lemann writes:

“…Education is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution; the creation of the world’s first system of universal public education—from kindergarten through high school—and of mass higher education is one of the great achievements of American democracy. It embodies a faith in the capabilities of ordinary people that the Founders simply didn’t have.

It is also, like democracy itself, loose, shaggy, and inefficient, full of redundancies and conflicting goals. It serves many constituencies and interest groups, each of which, in the manner of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, sees its purpose differently. But, by the fundamental test of attractiveness to students and their families, the system—which is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and decentralized—is, as a whole, succeeding. Enrollment in charter schools is growing rapidly, but so is enrollment in old-fashioned public schools, and enrollments are rising at all levels. Those who complete a higher education still do better economically. Measures of how much American students are learning—compared to the past, and compared to students in other countries—are holding steady, for the most part, even as more people are going to school…” (TNY)

By large scale measures, American education succeeds. The issue, it seems, is that we each see, or have, a story story about an instance or failure point in American education. Our stories get told and re-told, becoming conventional wisdom- those supposed truths that live-on unchallenged often assuming lives of their own like Internet hoaxes and urban legends.

Lemann points out the educational reform has become a stock drama; an assumed narrative with stock players and plot lines that have taken on their own lives beyond scrutiny. The reality of American education an our desire to improve it is that our thinking, and possible solutions require- like all complex problems- a nuanced view.

Burning the place down might not be such a good idea.

Lemann again:

“…It should raise questions when an enormous, complicated realm of life takes on the characteristics of a stock drama. In the current school-reform story, there is a reliable villain, in the form of the teachers’ unions, and a familiar set of heroes, including Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children’s Zone; Wendy Kopp, of Teach for America, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and Michele Rhee, the superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. And there is a clear answer to the problem—charter schools. The details of this story are accurate, but they are fitted together too neatly and are made to imply too much. For example, although most of the specific charter schools one encounters in this narrative are very good, the data do not show that charter schools in general are better than district schools. There are also many school-reform efforts besides charter schools: the one with the best sustained record of producing better-educated children in difficult circumstances, in hundreds of schools over many years, is a rigorously field-tested curriculum called Success for All, but because it’s not part of the story line it goes almost completely unmentioned. Similarly, on the issue of tenure, the clear implication of most school-reform writing these days—that abolishing teacher tenure would increase students’ learning—is an unproved assumption…”

Large-scale, decentralized democratic societies are not very adept at generating neat, rational solutions to messy situations. The story line on education, at this ill-tempered moment in American life, expresses what might be called the Noah’s Ark view of life: a vast territory looks so impossibly corrupted that it must be washed away, so that we can begin its activities anew, on finer, higher, firmer principles. One should treat any perception that something so large is so completely awry with suspicion, and consider that it might not be true—especially before acting on it.

We have a lot of recent experience with breaking apart large, old, unlovely systems in the confidence of gaining great benefits at low cost. We deregulated the banking system. We tried to remake Iraq. In education, we would do well to appreciate what our country has built, and to try to fix what is undeniably wrong without declaring the entire system to be broken. We have a moral obligation to be precise about what the problems in American education are—like subpar schools for poor and minority children—and to resist heroic ideas about what would solve them, if those ideas don’t demonstrably do that.”(TNY)

What to do? Lemann implies my favorite operating conditions. Breathe, think and act prudently. Also, implicit in Lemann’s argument, skeptically consider catch-all, top down, grand, systemic solutions.

All for local and state solutions that work, raise their hands.