drjamesarnold.com

It’s Time to Reform the Reformers Jim Arnold & Peter Smagorinsky Jim Arnold recently retired from the superintendent’s position of the Pelham City, GA Schools and blogs at http://www.drjamesarnold.com/ . Peter Smagorinsky is Distinguished Research Professor of English Education at The University of Georgia whose public essays are archived at http://smago.coe.uga.edu/vita/vitaweb.htm#OpEd “The failure of public education” has become a de rigueur assumption in the public forum on public education, particularly among those who claim to possess the silver bullet for “reform.” The definition of reform signals the need to improve something for the better by removing faults, abuses, and evil ways. For there to be a need for reformers, then, those they wish to reform must be found to be as defective as possible. When the target of reform lacks sufficient dereliction, and a reformer still needs to advance his or her agenda, ideally with consulting fees, then the flaws must be ma...

 I grew up reading Superman comics, and especially enjoyed those that featured stories of an alternative universe.  Bizarro World was one such universe, where the planet and its inhabitants were diametrically opposite to everything on earth.  Even the name of the planet, Htrae, was “earth” spelled backwards, and the planet was a cube shape rather than spherical.       Education seems to have entered it’s own Bizarro world with Arne Duncan’s policies and beliefs.  It would seem President Obama’s appointee to head the US Department of Education, second only to Bill Gates as the most powerful force in US educational policy, believes strongly in the Bizarro theory of educational improvement; whatever research says, do the opposite.  For the first example, we need look no further than Common Core, the Federal standards that aren’t Federal standards because Arnie says they’re not.  Used as a carrot in the RTTT program, acceptance of ...

Testing the Alternatives     Jim Arnold recently retired from the superintendent's position of the Pelham City, GA Schools and blogs at http://www.drjamesarnold.com/ .  Peter Smagorinsky is Distinguished Research Professwor of English Education at the University of Georgia whose public essays are archived at http://smago.coe.uga.edu/vita/vitaweb.htm#OpEd   Last fall journalists exposed the wretched conditions at Trenton (NJ) High School.  Brown water oozed from drinking fountains, rodents roamed freely, teachers and students became physically ill from being in the building, mold covered the walls, roofs were leaking, ceilings were crumbling onto the students and teachers below, streams of water ran down the hallways, and morale throughout the building was, not surprisingly, well below sea level.  Conditions reached the point where the met the state criterion of being "so potentially hazardous that it causes an imminent peril to the health and saf...

Rules of Educational Process     I believe in public schools.  I am a product of public schools, my children graduated from public schools and my grandchildren currently attend public schools.  My experience and beliefs tell me that public education is a strength of our nation, and that a strong system of public education is the primary means of salvation for the vast majority of students.  Abandonment of that system through privatization and market based solutions, euphemisms for “let politicians and their cronies use public money for personal gain” will abandon a significant percentage of our student population, primarily poor, rural and minority students, to subsidize the education of a select few.  Our system is far from perfect, but is the only hope for most of our kids.  Our state and nation cannot afford to abandon the 90% of students in public ed for the benefit of the comparatively affluent 10% that are not; neither can we use ...

Dear Mr. Duncan,     We haven’t met. I would be happy to do so, but considering our respective views on education, leadership and what constitutes constructive education reform I rather doubt we will have that opportunity.  I do have several questions  and observations I would like for you to consider.  Let me say first that we seem to agree on the importance of teachers in the educational process.  Teachers do indeed make a difference in the lives of  children.  They do indeed deserve more respect and financial compensation than they currently receive.  I think, however, that our agreements end there.   I believe that teachers more often succeed in our educational system in spite of your “reforms” and not because of them.     I would suggest that you, as Secretary of Education, should be a leader in  support of public schools and the efforts of thousands of teachers to make a difference ...