Dive Summary:
- Writing for the Washington Post, Alfie Kohn contends that a set of ideas and assumptions is behind most of the discussions on education in this country, and most of the proposals to change it.
- Those assumptions include the idea that we need to look at other countries for solutions to our lackluster student performance, that standardized test scores can judge the failure or success of education and that education should give students the foundation for economic success.
- Kohn attacks each of these premises and others while acknowledging that each has become an accepted part of conventional wisdom, which makes them entrenched and hard to rebut.
From the article:
... Progressive critics have complained to one another about how corporations, corporate foundations, and a corporate sensibility drive education policy. The creation of the Common Core “State” Standards is only the most recent example. ... But much less has been said about how journalists who cover education tend to reflect and feed this same mainstream — and, I think, deeply flawed — view of education. ...
