Both the Education Establishment and Most in the Education Change Movement Are Lost and Confused >>>>> We Must Revolutionize K-12 Public Education Ourselves

We can depend on no one who makes her or his living in the institutions of the education establishment of the United States having the correct answers to the dilemmas of K-12 education.


We also cannot depend on most members of the education change movement or on those occupying positions in cultural institutions of the United States:  They are all lost and confused.


I am on my own.


And you are on your own---  until you join me as I wage the K-12 revolution.


Three recent occurrences demonstrate the confusion that abides in the education establishment and among cultural arbiters whose programs have implications for K-12 education in the United States.


First, the Obama administration, with Arne Duncan at the helm of the United States Department of Education, has declared that there is too much testing of our K-12 students. The administration professes guilt at having encouraged additional testing in its Race to the Top initiative, which has granted waivers from No Child Left Behind requirements to those states that generate alternative programs for demonstrating ability to hold students to high standards and improve performance of students of color by comparison to their white counterparts. This declaration of a problem with excessive testing and the administration’s culpability has come in confrontation with teachers unions (American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and the state manifestations of the two nationals [as in the case of our hybrid of those two nationals, Education Minnesota]) who abhor any move that holds teachers to performance standards.


Second, Principal Michael Bradley at Roosevelt High School in southeast Minneapolis has prevailed upon central administration officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools to allow him to shift funds from remedial instruction for math and reading to expanded programs in the arts, with the goal of increasing student interest, improving student attendance, and raising graduation rates.


Third, an organization in the American Northwest has gotten heavy funding to rewrite the entire 37 masterworks of Shakespearean drama in language more comprehensible to the contemporary reader--- doing so with more faithful renderings than the No Fear Shakespeare abominations, but nevertheless providing readers with linguistically updated versions for the “difficult passages.”


Now read carefully here as I take you through the problem with all of this:


First, here is the logical thing to do with regard to testing:


By all means continue to teach to the test. We should be testing what students need to know, so teaching to the test is no problem. Designate one test, in Minnesota ideally the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA), that will provide the chief measure of student achievement. As teachers teach to the test in math and reading comprehension, they should also be teaching a knowledge-intensive curriculum, logically sequenced, grade-by-grade, to give students a truly excellent education--- and to enrich their vocabulary and knowledge bases in ways that will increase reading comprehension.


Second, with regard to the fine arts versus mathematics and reading:


There is no conflict. Backing off of math and reading instruction is a copout of major proportions, the result of teacher incompetence and curricular deficiencies. Painting, sculpture, and music should be a part of any knowledge-intensive and culturally enriching education. Any educator who maintains that there abides a math and reading versus fine arts clash of educational goals is guilty of the old education establishment ruse of creating false oppositions---- and demonstrating lack of understanding of the purpose of education to prepare students for lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.


Third, with regard to rewriting Shakespeare:


Anyone who endeavors to rewrite the works of the greatest dramatist of the English language is an arrogant fool. The whole joy of becoming adept at reading Shakespeare is being transported into a magnificent world of literary expression that jerks one out of her or his too-oft humdrum banal cultural experiences, into a linguistic world that lifts the soul and engages the brain.


So I’ve gone to work, and you need to as well.


We can never depend on anyone in the education establishment or in the cultural institutions of the general society to articulate what needs to be done in revolutionizing K-12 education in the United States or in promoting enriching cultural experiences. We need to guide educators toward the provision of an academic experience of excellence for all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors, and we ourselves need to advance high standards for American culture.


At many places on this blog, including in some of my most recent articles, I have articulated the knowledge-intensive, logically sequenced, grade-by-grade curriculum that will be necessary to impart an excellent K-12 education to students in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS); and the detailed program of teacher training under the aegis of MPS that will be necessary to secure the level of teaching quality necessary to impart such a curriculum.


I have over the last twenty years, with increasing momentum upon each passing year, created a parallel structure in the New Salem Educational Initiative from which officials at MPS can extrapolate principles for application at the level of the locally centralized school district.


And I have created many different forums--- academic journal, television show, this blog, a new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education)--- along with public commentary at school board meetings and meetings with various MPS personnel--- for the purpose of inducing change at the locally centralized school district.


We can count on no one in the education establishment to articulate a program for the needed overhaul of K-12 education. Arne Duncan, Michael Bradley, and the errant corruptors of Shakespeare serve to demonstrate how members of the education establishment and other shallow thinkers circle back to the same old controversies and make bad decisions anew time after time.


Key members of the education change community are just as lost.


So we must revolutionize K-12 education ourselves, having the guts to impel officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools toward the needed change.


We must act.


I am acting in many ways, every day.


If you sincerely want excellent K-12 education for all of our precious students, you must act as well. 


If you'd like some guidance, I am not hard to find.