. . . . . .

Professional development of teachers now stresses process (atmospherics) rather than substance (content). In language arts, one no longer is supposed to get his or her hands dirty drilling students in grammar, punctuation, and the rigorous use of standard English conventions, but rather is expected to teach the "writing process" and promote "creativity." In math, computation skills are out and "problem-solving" is in. In history, facts are passé and "critical thinking" the reigning fad. Since there are no longer right and wrong answers, teachers do not have to perform the labor-intensive task of carefully reviewing student work and denoting errors with a red marker. Teachers no longer have to know the basics themselves, much less insure their students do, since this is considered demeaning and boring for students and teachers alike. Everybody is a college professor "wannabe," everyone a member of a "community of scholars," from little Johnny and Shirley, who have trouble finding the lavatory or the laboratory, to the teacher, whose job description now revolves around the heavy load of seating kids in circles rather than rows.

Schools of education and other parts of The Blob are mounting a strong counter-attack against the growing national pressure for testing and accountability, offering all kinds of rationalizations for why testing is bad. Given the questionable effectiveness of many trendy reforms adopted as part of "continuous improvement," it is not surprising that educators are resistant to the search for empirical evidence that might invalidate their theories and new "best practices." To the extent that educators are promoting testing today, it is in the form of "performance assessment" and portfolios,' which are inherently subjective and unreliable as evaluation instruments and, therefore, are unsuitable for purposes of high-stakes accountability of the type school systems dread.

If one reads any K-12 curriculum documents, descriptions of educational philosophy, or school district mission statements, the last word you will ever see these days is "competition." This is a four-letter word in the current K-12 culture, where "cooperation" and "collaboration' are the constant buzzwords. There is however, one moment each year you can count on that word rearing its ugly head - at salary time, school boards are always cautioned by the local teachers union that they must be prepared to pay "competitive" salaries!

And so it is that the let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom push for innovation under the banner of "continuous improvement" in K-12 education always includes a few hardy perennials and always is rooted in the cultivation of the K-12 world's own interests. This does not mean that your child's teacher or principal is evil, only that they are subject to the same egoistic pressures as the rest of us. We should be at least a little wary, then, when educators pitch their latest fad as "all about kids." We should all do some more critical thinking about what goes on in our schools.

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