What is Noble in the Education Reform Movement and What is Not

1.  It is noble to try to help minorities, English-language learners and students with special needs perform better in school.  It is ignoble, however, to blame the very teachers who dedicate their lives to trying to help these same students for the low scores.  It is also idiocy.

2.   It is noble to try to give all students an equal education.  It is ignoble for the self-same reformers to send their children to private schools that advocate none of their reforms.

3.  It is noble to test students to measure their understanding and retention of material, if this information can be used to help students.  It is ignoble, however, to use test scores to devastate underprivileged neighborhoods by firing teachers and closing schools therein.

4.  It is noble to try to raise the standards of all students.  It is ignoble to purposefully concoct a test so difficult that the vast majority are slated to fail. 

5.  It is noble to want kids to do better on tests over time.  It is ignoble to put such an emphasis on tests that schools become test prep centers rather than centers of broader thought and creativity.  It is ignoble when money is funneled away from the classroom to testing companies.  It is ignoble when test standards are manipulated from easy to hard and then back again, all for political ends. 

6.  It is noble to fund research to try to find new methods to improve student learning.  It is ignoble to use this funding with the cards stacked against public schools and a workforce with union-protected rights. 

7.  It is noble to try to increase graduation rates.  It is ignoble when it drives schools to lower standards through credit recovery schemes as a means to accomplish this.

8.   It is noble to try to increase the availability of twenty-first century technology in the classroom.  It is ignoble to think that this technology can replace teachers.  Based on experience, I might add it is also naive to think this technology will not crash at some point.

9.  It is noble to give parents and students a choice about their education.  It is ignoble to create (sometimes for-profit) charter schools to strangle public schools.  It is absurd that these same charters force out under-performing students, many times those with special needs or English-language deficiencies.

8.  It is noble to try to ensure that every classroom has a qualified teacher.  It is ignoble to use this as an excuse to destroy tenure for all, berate teachers and demoralize an entire profession.

9.  It is noble to try to use the media to attract attention to the need for change.  It is ignoble when the reformers control the media and warp the news to their own political ends.

10.  It is noble to hold public forums and hear the opinions of community members.  It is ignoble when the voices of parents, educators and community members are drowned out by the hyper-inflated egos of some reformers who have spent little-to-no time in real classrooms.

It is noble to say you want to attract the best teachers, it is ignoble to make reforms which entirely discourage such teachers or drive them from the profession they love so much.