Steve H on schools and assumptions

. . . . This relates to a main theme I have been pushing for years; education based on individuals rather than statistics. I can understand that the government wants to improve averages (statistics), but this comes at the expense of individual educational opportunities. As long as education is based on statistics, the affluent will provide the needed opportunities and the poor will get the baseline.... It's nice that psychologists will add some real science to the debate, but it's not the solution.

Years ago, I had a discussion with a member of our school committee who really liked the idea of IEP's for all students. I thought it odd at the time because she was a major proponent of mixed-ability, child-centered learning. I guess she thought schools could have it both ways. Differentiated Learning sounds nice, but most schools use it as cover for their fundamental belief in mixed-ability learning. As I mentioned long ago, our school started calling it Differentiated Learning instead of Differentiated Instruction because the teachers don't instruct and they want the kids to take responsibility for their learning.

How can psychologists set a baseline for instruction when schools do not believe in instruction? Will it be a baseline for instruction just to meet NCLB? [ed.: the answer is yes]

What's missing from this discussion are parents and their opinions of what constitutes a good education for their individual children. I emphasize the word opinions because this is not the domain of ed school graduates or psychologists, who now seem to be playing the statistical baseline game.

I would rather see psychologists stick with the individual. I'd rather see psychologists define what is an expected learning level for individual children. But what I would really like to see is schools assuming that all kids can get into Harvard (no matter what a psychologist says), not that all kids can get over the minimal NCLB requirements, or what they call "all kids can learn."

I may have to tattoo this onto my forehead.

My own district, which includes parents who attended Harvard themselves, scorns the very idea that a parent might wish his child to follow in his footsteps.

"Don't push your child."

"Every child has his place."

"Parents need to let go."

"Let your child self-advocate."

etc.

Richard Elmore posts coming right up.

The rich really are different from you and me. Rich school districts, too.