Education Reform: Skepticism and the Informed Stakeholder

One aspect of political and public discourse that must be addressed is that it has become increasingly briefer and quicker—particularly as it compares to scholarly discourse. Political and public discourse is made public (consider the rise of 24-hours news networks and blogging) in very short segments (seconds and minutes when televised, 750-1000 words when published, for example) and is supplanted by new information almost immediately. Scholarly discourse takes months to become public and then often is made public only within the scholarly circle to whom it is addressed.

In the time and space crunch, political and public discourse has sacrificed carefully defining terms and establishing clear evidence for the premises offered (aspects of scholarly discourse that are essential for reaching credible conclusions)—thus, falling victim to the Rush Limbaugh strategy of claiming a false premise and then elaborating within that false paradigm.

If all stakeholders in public education are to contribute positively to a democratic and robust debate about public schools, we must all arm ourselves against this sort of discourse. Here, then, are some suggestions for ways to anticipate and identify when that political and public discourse is failing the debate:

• Are the terms defined? For example, when a claim about school quality or teacher quality is presented, does the argument clarify how those evaluations are made? If claims about school or teacher quality are based on tests scores, does the argument prove a causational relationship between the data and conclusion? These basic expectations are almost never addressed.

• Is there evidence for the claims or for the problems being confronted? What is the nature of the evidence—how representative is that evidence? Cherry picking and misrepresenting the evidence are common and just as corrosive (if not more so) than offering no evidence.

• How transparent is the person making the claims? What limitations does that person offer? Claiming objectivity is not transparency, and such claims tend to be masks for ideological agendas. Arguments should not be discounted because someone admits her/his bias upfront; in fact, this is the most effective way for anyone to engage the audience in a dialogue.

• How grand or sweeping are the claims? In short, the bigger the claim, the more skeptical we must be.

Now, briefly, let's consider some of the most repeated red flags in the education reform debate:

• Public schools are failing. This is possibly the most repeated claim reaching back to the mid-1800s. It so often stated, it genuinely holds little value. The truth is that schools are now producing and have always produced a wide range of outcomes, all of which are dependent on what goals we are measuring schools against. This premise fails the evidence test and the grand claims test.

• Charter school X has succeeded with high-poverty students so all schools can. This premise comes in many forms, but essentially it is one of many "no excuses" claims that warrants serious skepticism. First, consider how this premise works within a flawed understanding of outliers. For example, Clarence Thomas, as an African American male, has achieved an honorable position as Supreme Court Justice. By definition, Thomas is an outlier, and not a template for evaluating all African American males. But this premise is even more complicated. How is the charter school success being defined and proven? Then how is that success evidence of scalable and generalizable conclusions? School success is almost never limited by the type of school—public, private, or charter—and making grand claims about outliers often fails by disregarding whether or not the population of students within those schools are, in fact, comparable. Charter school claims tend to be distorted by those student populations; even when charter schools do serve high-poverty students, they rarely serve proportionally English Language Learners or special needs students.

• Someone is protecting the status quo. The status quo premise is one of the biggest red flags. We must ask what that status quo is, who is defending it, and why. If care isn't taken to establish these points, the argument and conclusions are likely not credible.

• Public schools and colleges of education are poisoned by a liberal agenda and the overarching influence of teachers' unions. I have been in public education and higher education a combined three decades. Two realities about this claim: (1) No monolithic ideology permeates educators, academics, or scholars, and (2) education at all levels are significantly different throughout the country. That said, public schooling tends to be highly traditional in the sense that teaching and learning have changed little over the past century and that schools of all kind tend to reflect the ideologies and assumptions of the surrounding community (thus, technically, they are conservative). The bureaucratic nature of public schooling, in fact, creates a standardized and traditional norm in public schools and colleges of education that blurs the distinction between traditional and progressive as well as marginalizes radical ideas and people. A singular liberal bias and influence of teachers' unions simply do not exist in the U.S. Any premise, argument, or conclusion depending on these concepts is by default misleading. Public schools in New Jersey differ from public schools in SC (a non-union state with no union-negotiated contracts or tenure) by both ideology and union influence; thus, any premise or conclusion drawn about either state's education system must be linked to that state's unique characteristics, and where conclusions about NJ and SC are similar, ideology and union influence are necessarily irrelevant.

• Teacher quality isn't related to experience or credentials. This is one of the most complicated claims since we must know how teacher quality is being defined and then navigate an increasingly complex set of variables. Like sweeping claims about public schools, this premise is too big to be of much value, except to trigger a red flag and establish that the conclusions coming are likely flawed. A much more fair claim is that experience and credentials are foundational but not guarantees of quality. Most of us would expect credentials as a minimum and experience as a valuable characteristic in our doctors; it seems reasonable that this holds true for teachers as well.

While this certainly isn't exhaustive, the big questions we should ask and the few red flags above help establish that political and public discourse about education needs a vigilant and informed audience to create from even flawed arguments that stuff that can lead to the continuous and thoughtful reform that should be an integral part of universal public education.

Like this piece, the truth about schools and how we should change them is complicated and they require time and patience.

Ironically, of course, an informed motorist seeing "All atheists are liberals. Think about it" reaches a conclusion much different than those posting the sign intended.

And this is the potential for the education reform debate, one that depends on informed, skeptical, and participatory stakeholders who mine even the worst claims for something of value.