Duncan’s raison d’etre for reform

Elizabeth Brown:

Humans are fallible and have a tendency to repeat past failures. Education is no exception. The pendulum of reform has had its swing back and forth over the decades with minimal progress. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is taking the bull by the horns, purporting that the very teachers, who have entrusted him as their chief, are not to be trusted to do the proper job without close supervision, re-training, and additional monetary rewards. He calls for scrutiny, an uphauling of current educational institutions by employing a trace back system that will mark the culprit, the raison d’etre for the failure of our children.
Duncan’s tough, paternal scolding sends a clear message: teachers beware.
Revolutionary or some of the same? The 4.35 billion Race to the Top reform resonates a familiar cadence, the mantra of the Bush administration and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the gotcha mentality that fails to consider a teacher’s moral intentions, or the common good. Certainly, within education, there exists a few bad apples, as in any profession. Yet, the majority of teachers choose the field of teaching for the intrinsic rewards rather than the monetary rewards.
Our failing schools reflect , more likely, a society gone amuck, an evolution of insidious issues that have seeped into the classroom, rather than inept teachers.Yet, Duncan argues that it is the teachers that are ill prepared and failing our students.
Critics who agree, suspected soft bigotry, low expectations, or inept teachers, are coming out in droves and applauding Duncan’s reform as brilliant. Ruben Navarrette, in his article entitled “An Apple for the Secretary” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/28/09), argues that the “trace back” method is “groundbreaking stuff” and will finally flesh out the culprits. He points to Louisiana, currently using the trace back theory: students in grades 4-9 with low scores are traced back to teachers and the teachers are then traced back to the institutions that trained them. The state then provides the institution with information and “urges schools to improve.”