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February 9, 2010

Creativity & Accountability

Tom Vander Ark:

Yong Zhao is back in receptive Seattle this week preaching his gospel of edu-innovation. The anti-standards, pro-creativity Zhao is a Chinese-born prof at Michigan State. Here's his thesis in a nutshell:

In my new book Catching Up or Leading the Way, I mostly focus on issues facing education in the United States noting that the current education reform efforts, with their emphasis on standards, testing, and outcome-based (read test score-based) accountability, are unlikely to make Americans "globally competitive."

Zhao and I like the same schools and probably share a similar vision for what a good education looks like and the benefits it provides students. We both agree that bad standards and tests badly applied is bad for kids.

But his anti-standards mantra strikes me as a bit irresponsible in the sense that he doesn't grapple with accountability. We have NCLB because states were not fulfilling the good school promise--they ignored generations of chronic failure. The Department of Education is now grappling with a new accountability framework, one that is tight on goals and loose on means.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 9, 2010 2:13 AM
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