I saw a Daily News story the other day entitled, "Goodbye, My Bed-Stuy." When I first attempted to understand the nationwide agenda of the self-proclaimed educational "reformers," the name of Robert Moses kept coming to mind.
He viewed his intelligence and his central planning as superior. He sought to improve society as he saw it. People's homes and neighborhoods stood in the way of his highways, slum clearance and grand schemes of gentrification. Communities needed to be razed, landmarks devastated and neighborhoods re-engineered.
Protest arose from many circles. Jane Jacobs rose to prominence.
With public-school closings, the Common Core and prevailing definitions of "college and career readiness," I see modern-day reformers ripping at the hearts of communities, much in the same vein as Robert Moses. Sometimes, reformers blinded by their own ambitions fail to recognize the harm they inflict. In some ways, the Common Core seems to be Robert Moses redux.
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