Waiting for Kryptonite

by Dr. Arnold Dodge

The success of the movie "Waiting for Superman" is based on a myth.  Myths have a way of explaining the world in terms of good and evil.  The creators of the popular education movie have crafted a manichean scenario that dangerously oversimplifies the complexities of solving our education malaise.  We need to disabuse ourselves of the good v. evil myth of educational reform presented in Davis Guggenheim's version of educational reality.  Superman is not coming to rescue us.

Ironically, Guggenheim's other blockbuster documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is 180 degrees different in orientation than his education documentary  - which could have been aptly titled, "A Convenient Lie."  Just as the public finds it inconvenient to fathom the complexities and implications of global warming, so they find it convenient to believe the simple-minded solutions to education problems that are delivered by "heroic" figures.  There is no dearth of politicians, business folk and media pundits who weigh in with certainty on the fix we need for our schools.  Their weapons of choice are the emphatic bullets that make their way into their speeches and their press releases.

The collective consciousness is seduced by these oversimplifications.  Research done on heuristics (mental models that we use to explain complex phenomenon) warns us that we are susceptible to simple answers to complex problems. H.L. Mencken's memorable line, "There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong" seems especially on the mark.  The straightforward calculus used in Guggenheim's movie appears indisputable:  offer more charter schools to disadvantaged kids, do away with the evil teachers' unions, hold teachers accountable using standardized tests and 'voila,' we have a good education system.  Super.

Guggenheim's tale is based on three fundamentally flawed assumptions which are driving the current school reform mania: a) poverty can be minimized (or ignored) as a controlling factor in educational achievement; b) teachers, especially veteran teachers, protected by tenure and their unions, are not up to the task of providing quality teaching, and; c) results on standardized tests are a valid and reliable metric to determine school success.

The answer is d) none of the above.

First, the crushing effects of poverty are not miraculously overcome through education despite the heroic efforts of people like Geoffrey Canada who is prominently featured in the movie.   A study recently released by the Century Foundation found that students who live in poverty do better if they attend more affluent schools than do students whose high-needs schools are supported with additional resources.  There is a ton of evidence which suggests that the best predictor of school success is socio-economic status.  Troubled schools breed all kinds of maladies that only wealth and/or income expansion - and the concomitant effects on family and neighborhoods - can address.  (Are there examples of outliers that overcome the odds?  Of course there are, but the reasons that they are successful are complicated and in most cases not easily replicable. Again, a simple answer cannot rescue us from the truth.)

Second, while there are teachers who abuse the system - and are protected by unscrupulous unions - the majority of teachers triumph every day in environments which are loaded up with external conditions which make teaching and learning challenging.  Schools where parental pressure to perform - consistent with the recent "Tiger Mom" phenomenon - subordinate creativity and imaginative teaching techniques to the all-important competition for grades and college entrance.   At the other end of the spectrum, schools which are dangerous, under-resourced, populated with children whose home environments are language poor - and maybe unsafe as well - are asked to raise standards and academic achievement with little or no oxygen for any more than survival.

Third, the use of standardized tests results - to the exclusion of all other indicators - as the sine qua non of school success, reduces teaching to an ever-narrowing medium and produces a host of ugly secondary consequences: teachers and administrators gaming the system, test prep substituting for a truly meaningful and valid curriculum, schools shuttered, teachers dismissed, testing and tutoring companies getting rich, dispirited and disenfranchised students. On and on the list goes.   Ken Robinson, the creativity guru, avers "Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip mine the earth for a particular commodity."  This approach will not service us for the future, he opines.   And for good measure, Professor Einstein adds, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

As we witness the parade of self-proclaimed educational experts - from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg to Davis Guggenheim - attempt to set the agenda for America's schools, we should be wary of quick fixes that are no more than chimera, insubstantial as a comic book character.