Pull Ourselves Up By Our OWN Bootstraps!

Are there American Education historians who can reach in and define the core issues that plague American Public Education?

Yes, I believe there are! 

The two historians who immediately come to mind are Carl F. Kaestle and David B. Tyack. Their historical analyses of American Schools still resonate and relate directly to our current round of teacher bashing, while we're all "Looking for Superman."


I would like to recommend that you read Opportunity to Comment: Elevate Educators to Professional Status before you read this article. I believe it will provide a clear contextual background for our current dilemma in American Public Education.

June 4th 2008 - Is There An Imposter In My Booth? by Stephen Poff
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

The era of the EXPERT, aka HERO, is over. This is a relief. There are so many of us with wide-ranging experience and education, we can't turn our future over to the "pie in the sky experts". They will only disappoint us.

The teachers in the trenches are also experts, even if they haven't done some quasi-experimental research or written books, simply because they didn't have monetary backing to do it.

Because I believe that each one of us has expertise to share, I will continue to live by my mantra of research:

• EVERY ANECDOTE IS A DATA POINT

Case in point: My belief in Diane Ravitch, as a defender of American Public Education was destroyed several years ago, yet I'm just as much to blame for letting her slide back into the "role of the great expert".

I've decided not to let that happen. I've decided to make my heroes work for their label.

• I can't believe in her expertise until I understand that she accepts her role as a power broker in convincing educators to go along with NCLB in the first place. 
• I can't believe in her expertise until I understand that she has stopped talking the blame game and begins to be more assertive with the opponents of American Public Education.

Here is a sample interview that generally characterizes Dr. Diane Ravitch's viewpoint of her role in the NCLB fiasco.





This interview is OK, yet Dr. Ravitch still doesn't seem to recognize that many in Congress and early adopters were affected by HER initial, and unexpected, support for No Child Left Behind....

In response to her statements in this interview, I've answered some of her concerns:

Yes, I've read your work over the past three years, yet I will continue to have concerns about your recommendations in the future. Mostly because of what I believe is your grave misunderstanding of the real impetus of the NCLB legislation. The entire purpose was to begin the destruction of the American Public Schools.

My core concern is about your lack of understanding of your own power....I really WANT to believe that you didn't understand how powerful you were.

At the time of the first NCLB initiatives, your support was critical because Dr. Ravitch, you are an expert in our profession, at such a level of distinction, that your suggestions carried great weight with lawmakers and educators in our country.

It was such a shock, to me, that you didn't understand the serious consequences of your actions at the time, while many of us NON experts did. It seemed so surreal to me.

The consequences of the actions of this Pandora act will continue to reverberate throughout our American Education system for decades. I just hope a vibrant, American PUBLIC Education System will survive.