Pondiscio: Less testing, more trust, more knowledge

This reference is used to annotate "I would never send my kids to school" (2017) by Piotr Wozniak

Robert Pondiscio is an expert on education. His rational and pragmatic positions stem from a good understanding of the process in which knowledge is acquired efficiently. He is also familiar with teaching in a tough urban setting (South Bronx public school 2002).

Unlike Pondiscio, who believes in curricula, I support self-directed learning that is unstructured . However, when it comes to massive schooling and school choice, I agree with Pondiscio entirely. He understands the value of choices made by kids and parents. Instead of employing ruthless metrics that distort education, authorities should support good choices, incl. those made by less affluent and less knowledgeable families that could easily fall victim to an inefficient and opaque system of education:

Decades of rising standards, test-driven accountability and an expanding role for charter schools – all aimed at improving the life outcomes of other people's children – have generally underwhelmed. Parents are also deeply unhappy with the deleterious effects of prep-and-test school culture. [...] There's a good case to be made for ensuring that public dollars are spent on bona fide schools with acceptable results, yet the stronger moral argument belongs to voucher proponents: Why deny low-income families the ability to do exactly what affluent parents have long done: to choose schools not on "evidence" but on personal prerogative? [...] As for the inevitable hue and cry over tax dollars making their way into private and religious schools, that bridge was crossed long ago. Pell Grants have helped low-income students attend college – including all manner of faith–affiliated institutions – for half a century. This firmly establishes two precedents: We have already agreed to socialize direct public investment in educational opportunity for low-income students, and that shared investment is in the student, not the school. [...] If it's education reform technocrats and accountability hawks versus parents this time, the mood, the moment and the moral argument would seem to favor parents. If this year has taught us nothing else, it's that Americans have had just about enough of their betters deciding what's best for them and expecting them to play gratefully along. Reformers might have to start accepting that our greatest point of leverage is to help parents choose wisely, rather than trying to police their choices by means of aggressive accountability schemes

Title: Stop policing poor parents on school and education choice

Author: Robert Pondiscio

Link: U.S.News

Backlink: School voucher