Who is Mike Rose, and why is he so darned reasonable?
At a time when the Democratic presidential candidates are busy shredding each another in Iowa, and pundits on the Left and Right are deeming each other mortal threats to the America; when Ann Coulter is declaring a 10th Crusade against Islam, and a responder to ASBJ’s Your Turn poll ignores the month’s question to scrawl: “Impeach Cheney, then Bush!” … Amid all this, some UCLA education professor has the temerity to take on the most controversial K-12 issue of our time and come up with a most thoughtful, clear-headed, and non-biased analysis.
Just who does he think he is?
In his recent Education Week commentary, “Seek a ‘Fuller Language of Schooling’’ (www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/11/07/11rose.h27.html), Rose explores the kind of education NCLB, and its testing regimen, fosters and asks a basic, philosophical question: “What kind of education befits a democratic society?”
It is undeniable that the federal law “shines a bright light on those underserved populations of students who get lost in averaged measures of performance,” Rose writes. The assumption that all children can learn, that public institutions such as schools have a responsibility to their citizenry, that schools can be improved -- these are the democratic promises of NCLB.
“What is worth exploring, though, is the degree to which these tenets are invested in an accountability mechanism that might restrict their full realization,” Rose writes. He then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of standardized tests and their impact on teaching, particularly in school serving disadvantaged children.
Clearly, “NCLB has jolted some low-performing schools to evaluate and redirect their inadequate curriculum,” he writes. The question is: Have they done this “through a strictly functional and unimaginative curriculum (which, admittedly, might be better than what came before) or through a rich course of study that, as a byproduct, affects test scores?”
Rose, of course, argues for the latter and says “there are signs that we as a country are beginning to seek some fuller language of schooling” that goes beyond “scores, rankings, and an elaborate technology of calibration and compliance.”
“The No Child Left Behind Act will undoubtedly be reauthorized,” Rose concludes. “But my hope is that as we debate its merits and flaws, we will begin to develop more fitting ways to talk about children and the schools that shape their lives.”
Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor