On March 23rd, in New York, there’s going to be a panel discussion on The Future of Education in America, hosted by The New Yorker Promotions Department and The University of Phoenix, according to a full-page ad in the Digital Edition of March Seventh.
The future of American Education, from where I sit, is dismal. We’re going backwards. The reasons are myriad, and the solutions are not so simple.
I guess I’m a cynic, because I felt certain that none of the four had ever been a teacher. The top-down trend in Education continues, and those at the top are never teachers. I Googled the names of the four “distinguished experts.”
What a surprise! I was right! The first picture in the ad shows a smiling guy in a crisp white shirt. He’s smiling because he’s the retired CEO/Chairman of the Board of the Intel Corporation, Craig Barrett. The theory these days seems to be that Education is a business, and that CEOs know how to run schools.
To Mr. Barrett’s right is an earnest looking middle-aged woman named Cynthia Brown. She’s the Vice President for Educational Policy at the Center for American Progress. She’s been working in the field of Education for 35 years, but she’s never taught. According to the website of the Center for American Progress, her work has been about “addressing high-quality, equitable public education.” At least she’s not a charter-school advocate.
Oh wait, that would be Madeline Sackler. She’s an attractive young woman, whose face smiles out at us in the ad, directly under Mr. Barrett. She directed and produced the documentary film, The Lottery, which follows four families who have applied to Harlem Success Academy. The charter school chooses its students by lottery, and apparently, succeeds where public schools fail. In an interview on C-Span, Ms. Sackler came off as serious and sincere.
For me, her conclusions were much too simplistic. In four months of film-making, she learned all about why our public schools are failing, and what has to be done to cure them. She learned that poverty, crime, and culture are merely excuses that educators make. She learned that without ever having taught, of course.
I saved the best for last: Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, of No Child Left Behind fame, and now in the business of consulting on education. This is the woman who thinks that children with learning handicaps and non-English speakers should achieve at the same level as their peers, as defined by standardized tests. She’s never taught.
At the bottom of the ad, right above the logo for the University of Phoenix, which, by the way, is an online university, is an invitation to readers of the New Yorker to submit questions to the panel. My top question will be: Where are the real experts on education in your panel? Beginning on March 7th, you can submit your questions too. Here’s the link.
