School Reformers’ Pledge of Good Conduct

Larry Cuban has another great post here! I missed this when it first went online, but love the idea of a reformer’s pledge. This should go far and wide – not only to the think-tank crowd, researchers and punditry, but also legislators, school board members, journalists and editors, and even parents, voters, and the broader community.

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School reformers now (and in the past) are (and have been) divided among themselves. So often, they seek similar goals–students who are literate, can think clearly, have requisite skills and knowledge to enter and finish college or start a career,  and  contribute to the larger community– but split over which of the goals should have precedence and how to achieve the ones they prize.

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Reformers fighting among themselves, of course, is hardly new.  For generations, traditionalists have fought progressives over the purposes of schooling, what content and skills had to be taught, how teachers should teach, and how students should learn. Whether it was the 1890s, 1960s, or the 1980s, ruptures between school reformers occurred again and again (see here, here, and here). And so it is today over how best to educate poor white and minority children, whether Common Core state standards are a boon…

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