The language of the “Don’t Worry Crowd” never ceases to amaze me in its antiquated nature and inability to come to terms with the truth. Recently, perhaps the Don’t Worry Crowd’s biggest spokesperson, Diane Ravitch, was a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She almost speaks a different language than real reformers.
They are still talking about class size, which Ravitch brought up on her appearance on Jon Stewart’s show. The rhetoric is old, it’s outdated, and it’s not based on fact. It takes us away from the real issues. It is a complicated game she plays as a member of the Don’t Worry Crowd, as she does not see the condition of American education as a problem. Mediocrity (at best) across the nation’s schools is not concerning. There is no urgency for action with that mindset. Rather, Ms. Ravitch emphasizes poverty as the biggest problem for the school system, and in fact labels reformers as not being concerned with poverty, as if we “didn’t worry” about it.
Let’s be clear – poverty is an issue, there is no denying that. Poverty is perpetuated, however, when students are relegated to a failing neighborhood school based on the proverbial lottery of their family’s zip code. Choice in education is the best way to escape the grips of poverty and failing schools. Parents with the power to choose a more autonomous, individualized, higher achieving school has the ability to break the cycle of poverty. We concede, we recognize, we emphatically profess that poverty is a problem. But the Don’t Worry Crowd does not concede or recognize that the American public education system is broken. By starting with different assumptions, the Don’t Worry Crowd and we real reformers are truly speaking completely different languages.
The Don’t Worry Crowd is afraid of our insistence that some sort of consumer mentality of choice be brought into American education. Choice drives competition, and competition drives success. Competition drives innovation and excellence, and provides the best possible education for our children. Parents are not just regular consumers; they are consumers searching for the best for their kids. This makes the consumer choices parents make in education for their children different than, say, how we act in the market for fast food. We might not choose the healthiest burger at the drive-through, but we will choose the best option for our kids every time.
If there was one thing Ms. Ravitch got right, it was when she said that education is a public responsibility. It is our collective responsibility to educate students the best that we can. But, it is a responsibility that the traditional public school system is currently not realizing. The innovators that are picking up the pieces of the mess of traditional public education are succeeding in fulfilling our duty to our nation’s students by giving them options to find the best school fit.
Tyler Losey is an intern at the Center for Education Reform. He is a native of upstate New York and will be graduating with a B.A. in Political Science and Public Policy and a minor in Spanish from The George Washington University this winter.