Educational “establishment” and “reformers” redux

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by David Safier

A few days ago, I complained about how the media is using the terms "establishment" and "reformer" in the current educational debate. "Establishment" has come to refer to teachers, teacher unions and liberal education profs. "Reformers" is used to refer to people who agree with the Bushies on education — merit pay for teachers, more charter schools, more vouchers. I'm exaggerating here, but not much.

A New York Times article noted the misuse of terms this morning, the first time I've seen it in the traditional media.

Editorials and opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have described the debate as pitting education reformers against those representing the educational establishment or the status quo. But who the reformers are depends on who is talking.

Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, used different terms in discussing the debate.

Dr. Fuller said it pitted “professionalization advocates such as Darling-Hammond,” who believe the policy emphasis should be on raising student achievement by helping teachers improve their instruction, against “efficiency hawks like Klein and Rhee.” The efficiency hawks, he said, emphasize standardized testing, cracking down on poor school management and purging bad teachers.

“It’s tough love without any love,” he said

Tough love without any love. Ouch! Sounds like a definition of "compassionate conservativism" as well.

Democratic educational "reformers" should take note. An idea is not necessarily wrong because it comes out of conservative think tanks, but it needs to be inspected very, very carefully. The reasons given for the idea are very often red herrings on the spin cycle.

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