Skandera successfully pushed simplistic, ineffective reforms
Ways of doing education right abound here, abroad
The Journal’s June 11 Sunday editorial regarding Hanna Skandera’s time as secretary of education ironically applauds as “accomplishments” the very areas that research has already shown to be ineffective elsewhere. More enlightened school districts across the country are abandoning most aspects of it.
Hanna Skandera and the Journal’s editorial board use talking points from the conservative Heritage Foundation and New Mexico’s version, the Rio Grande Foundation like, “no excuses,” teachers and their unions are the problem, high-stakes testing (of students and teachers), etc. But as your editorial correctly points out, these also were the talking points of Arnie Duncan and the Obama administration. This simplistic, business-inspired rhetoric clearly has wide appeal.
It’s time to move on from simplistic and failed education reforms though, like many other countries and some U.S. states and districts have done. Educationally successful countries use progressive social policies and public investment in children and teachers, not market reforms and high-stakes testing. For instance, Finland uses no highstakes tests and teachers are highly respected and professionalized. Sweden, next door, opted for vouchers and testing, and their educational system plummeted. If you want more appropriate comparisons to the U.S., try Canada, especially Ontario. In the U.S., compare Massachusetts — with a unionized teaching force, by the way — with Skandera’s Florida.
Research-based, 21st-century reforms are:
Community schools with wrap-around services, not quasi-markets and charter schools;
Controlled choice programs that seek desegregated schools, not market-based choice that results in schools stratified by class and race;
Restorative justice approaches to discipline that reduce suspensions, not overly punitive, zero tolerance, suspension-oriented discipline;
Dual language programs, not Englishonly approaches to English language learners;
Authentic, performance-based assessments, not highstakes paper and pencil tests; and
Social movement unionism, allied with communities, that fight for research-based social and educational reforms, not industrial union models that focus only on bread-and-butter issues, important as those are given teachers’ salaries in New Mexico.
New Mexico is a poor state. Schools cannot make up for all the out-of-school factors that influence student achievement, and we can’t wish that research-based fact away with “no excuses” rhetoric.
However, an enlightened, research-based approach to schooling, along with a commitment to investing in our children, teachers and communities, can create more humane schools and make a world of difference for New Mexico’s children.