Phony Stories About Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week - 0 views
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Jeff Bernstein on 11 Mar 12Our fight for public schooling is a fight for democracy, for one-for-all-and-all-for-one solutions to our problems. But what is this democracy idea? Or as the Occupiers say: "What does democracy look like"? We need to use schools to sell democracy-even to explain it! It doesn't just live on neglected and compromised. Even many of our parental allies seem content to view public education as a private concern for their kids' futures. Period. In such a world the only thing that matters is rank order and, as I used to remind colleagues, no matter how fast kids line up, there's always just one in the front all the way back to one at the end. We're fighting each other these days to see if by hook or crook we can get "ours" nearer the front. (And "cutting" the line is allowed.) We live, too many of us, in a climate that makes us all compete for the shortage of private goods rather than tackling the "shortage" issue.