The best metaphor for education reform today is Dr. Seuss’s children’s book Yertle the Turtle. Yertle, the master turtle, forced all the other turtles to pile themselves into a very high stack so that he could survey his kingdom. From where Yertle sat, perched on top, everything looked grand and glorious. Those on the bottom were not experiencing anything but pain and frustration. When the pile collapsed, Yertle was brought back to earth and got his comeuppance. This will likely be the fate of the politicians, economists, and business leaders who decided to reform the nation’s schools, at a distance, without consulting working educators.
And thus we have two new books—Dale Russakoff’s The Prize and Kristina Rizga’s Mission High—that give readers the view from the top and the view from the bottom. They are both excellent. By sheer coincidence, the authors each spent four years embedded in the stories they report. Each learned different but not conflicting lessons. Russakoff’s The Prize is a gripping story about a plan hatched by Mayor Cory Booker of Newark and newly elected Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey to turn Newark into a national model of education reform. Central to this hoped-for miraculous transformation was a gift of $100 million by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, matched by donations of another $100 million by other philanthropists who wanted to take part in a great adventure. full: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/03/24/solving-the-mystery-of-the-schools/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
