The Oregonian’s editorial “Keep school reform moving” is a disappointment. It’s core argument is silly (here):
The choice now is to spend more time in this underfunded and failed system, or to grab hold and pass Kitzhaber's proposed reforms, and then shape and strengthen them on the fly.
Go with the governor. If Oregon is going to err, let's for once err on the side of action, rather than continue pretending that our early childhood programs, schools and universities are better than they are, and talk, talk, talk until every proposed change is beaten flat into a form that feels safe and fits neatly onto dusty shelves.
Passing impossible, wasteful (how could we ever fund enough programs to graduate everyone, 100% from high school) and shifting educational bureaucracies about is not educational reform. It's pretend reform that mostly reschuffles the status quo. So, not only are we now pretending all our schools "are better than they are", but we are now pretending to reform them. “Every proposed change” has already been “beaten flat into a form that feels safe.”
Several better paths are available. The legislature could enact them. The Oregonian could support them (or at least mention them): More foreign language immersion programs (especially Mandarin), more high school and university study abroad programs, and more online education (especially many more independent online courses at the high school and university levels.).
Recall what Arvind Subramanian, author of the Eclipse, said in a recent post (here):
China, by 2030, will have a fifty percent larger economy than the United States, fifty percent more trade, it will continue to control the financial spigots of the world, and it will, perhaps, be issuing the world’s number one currency.
Does the Governor’s education reform effort really seem adequate to prepare today’s students for that world? I don’t think so!
Comments