It's never easy to disagree with Diane--not only is she a friend and colleague of long-standing, as well as a Fordham trustee, but also she's so often right about education. I've found over the years that when she and I work at a difference of opinion for a while, we usually discover that the domain of true disagreement is small. I believe that's the case here, but I'm pretty sure that's not true with regard to Randi Weingarten and many of the other "Broader, Bolder" signatories.
I'm convinced that many of them really are trying to change the subject, diverting attention away from U.S. schools' mostly-woeful academic performance while letting schools and educators off the hook for academic results by adopting the well-worn Rothstein story line about how we mustn't really expect kids to learn more until this or that other social problem is solved. Diane sincerely believes, as she says plainly here, that schools can and must work harder and more fruitfully on academics while also addressing some of poor kids' other needs. I agree. To me, however, it's akin to the arguments set forth by the Education Equality Project--the other recent manifesto that came out around the same time as the Broader, Bolder one.
Those folks, too, are concerned above all with poor and minority kids but contend that those kids are being ill-served by far too many schools today and that properly reformed schools alone can make an enormous contribution to their future lives and fortunes. (I was somewhat surprised not to see Diane on that list--but then, again, it was co-led by the lamentable Al Sharpton.) Let me also admit that she astutely picked up on the most confusing element of my initial commentary, my citing recent gains on state tests as encouraging even while lamenting America's sagging performance on international assessments. Though it shouldn't be possible to have this both ways, regrettably it is, because state tests, "cut scores," and proficiency definitions are so elastic. Find Fordham's pathbreaking study of this problem here.
