Data vs. Imagination

Today The New York Times carried an article that discusses some novel approaches to education reform. In one school, students are offering suggestions to teachers on how to improve their teaching. In other schools, young teachers are working together to modify their teaching styles so that their schools function more effectively. The article suggests that, as in all things, progress is most effective when people talk to one another.

The article does point up that this new approach has generated conflict between teachers and administrators. Not surprising. Bureaucracies die hard, and people with power are loathe to give it up. It's too bad that school officials lack the imagination to realize that the willingness and freedom of teachers to change is probably the only way to true education reform. Imagine the reform that could occur with the kind of leadership that encouraged teachers to work together in individual and collaborative efforts to create more effective classroom experiences for students. Just as the school in which students are teaching teachers, perhaps teachers should be given the opportunity to teach administrators.

In his Tucson speech, President Obama urged an expansion of our moral imagination. There's no better place to begin that expansion than in our schools. Education Secretary Arne Duncan should take note. Instead of his plan to amass data about student performance through Race to the Top, why doesn't Secretary Duncan expand the moral imagination of our public education system by funding programs that encourage administrators, teachers, and students to work together to solve the problems in their schools?