Friday, December 15, 2006

Reforms Always Fail, Except This Time

If there is one constant in public education, it is calls for reform. But according to Dr. Hicks, every urban school distict that has ever attempted reform, has failed. And he is right. But somehow he has managed to convince virtually all of Racine's movers and shakers that he can reform our district. Why do seemingly smart people believe that Dr. Hicks can accomplish what has repeatedly failed everywhere else?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do they? That is an excellent question especially when the data doesn't really support what he claims.

Denis Navratil said...

I don't know. Political correctness may be a factor. If you question Hicks' methods or if you ask questions about the cost of RUSD, you will be labelled as anti-child, anti-teacher, anti-education, etc... Many smart people don't have the stomache for all that, so they go with the flow. Of course many of them also pull their kids from Unified and send them to private schools. Basically, we need these people to grow spines.

Anonymous said...

I've always been curious about the fact that when you start to ask questions that they label you with terms such as "barracuda, trouble, or troublemaker"(I know about these).

Denis Navratil said...

Kathy, this is just another way the left squelches debate, fosters self censorship, and bullies their way forward (backward?) with less opposition. Kind of like Becker on global warming.