Today I heard that Michigan 'lost' in the current round of Race to the Top. From what I am seeing about race to the top it is clear that we are losing out on some money but I wonder if we really lost. Maybe it is an opportunity to do some serious thinking about education instead of being fixated on union busting and charter schools. I have some bad feelings about race to the top. In his blog, Learning is Messy, Brian Crosby, has a couple of thoughtful posts about race to the top. I agree with his concern that we are narrowing down our conception of education. In a nation this big and diverse that makes absolutely no sense. There has been and should be greater variety of approaches. Think about it. With all of the hand-wringing about the poor education of today, we did manage to educate students reasonably well with a broad variety of local approaches. (I am sure that some were horrible but many were successful.) Now we are acting like only one thing can work and we virtually have NO evidence for it. It is amazing. It is a waste of money and I fear that somebody is getting really rich off of this thing. (We will know in 20 years or so I guess). I am not into conspiracies generally but this thing has taken on a life of its own and I don't see good coming of it. There is so much creativity in this country but the message is that we will only reward uniformity. I heard the secretary of education speak about it on the radio and I am not convinced or impressed. He sounded like a politician. Anything that enshrines charter schools has got to be suspect. I really am ranting this time. I guess that is enough. Where are the voices of reason?

I offered a comment on The Tempered Radical site: "changing views of privacy" from July 17, 2010.