As troubling, despite a half century and literally trillions of dollars and enormous effort to try to close the achievement gap, that gap remains nearly as wide as ever.
Yet “reformers” continue to mainly just tinker around education's edges:
- Remodel school buildings, remove graffiti.
- Ensure classes are taught by teachers with the right license
- Raise standards. The mantra is “All students can learn to high standards.”
- Lower class size, as if the same teachers teaching the same curriculum at a ratio of 1/15 will make that so much difference compared with 1/30 to justify doubling the cost of the teaching force. The data is clear it doesn't.
- Emphasize multiculturalism.
- Lengthen the school day and start education earlier. That is, expand Head Start, even though the metaevaluation indicates it’s ineffective. ln other words, give kids more of what doesn’t work.
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