The Language of Education Reform

I have conversations with people about education reform.

Do I favor school choice?
Yes, but not schools that exclude students.
Do I support vouchers?
Yes, but not to faith-based schools.
Do I think schools should be run more like businesses?
Not just no, but HECK NO!

I was a hospital-based respiratory therapist throughout the 1990's and witnessed how "healthcare reform" led to dramatic declines in the quality of patient care. Observing how business practices were dominating decision making in health care is what led me to get a BA in business administration from Georgia State University. (Go Panthers!)

When someone says schools need to adopt some of the "best practices" from business, I want to respond with, "Do you mean like adopting Deming's "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle of continuous improvement?" 

Deming is best known for his 14 points of quality management.  His work was woven throughout the curriculum of the Department of Managerial Science. 

Like so many other things in politics, people tend to pick out the parts of a body of work which support their beliefs and use them out-of-context and in isolation from the rest of the work. This can lead to myopic abuse of seemingly good ideas.

Make no mistake about it, education reform is a political issue.

This is exactly how I see the term "teacher accountability" when used to make teachers the scapegoats for the problems with public schools. It sounds good by itself, but when preached by organizations such as Students First, it is an abuse of the english language. 

Do public schools need to change & adopt new ways of providing a high quality education to ALL students? Yes, and teachers have been asking to lead those changes. 

With the new Teacher Keys, which Georgia is implementing, teachers' effectiveness will be assessed by the progress their students make during the school year. This will be directly tied to their salary. The system is set up to incentivize standardized test performance.

Where have we see that before?

Who do you think will be assessed as a more effective teacher; the 4th grade teacher with 34 students every class period of the day or the 4th grade teacher with 25 students every class period of the day?

Teachers do not control how many students are in their classes, administrators do. Teachers are not allowed to be the leaders of public schools in Georgia. I think this is wrong.

Last week, I made a similar point to a member of the State Board of Education. She asked me what Georgia could do to improve education in the state. My reply was, "Don't ask me. Ask the teachers." Teachers need to be allowed to lead.

Allow me to take some Deming quotes out of context:

"The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!"
"Management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences."
"Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality."

"The most important things cannot be measured."

If those are the business practices education reformers want schools to adopt, that is education reform I can support.