Hubris alert! My friends in the education reform community are feeling triumphant, now that Waiting for Superman is about to hit the theaters with its “to the barricades” message. Count me as worried; just consider what happened to Adrian Fenty when he got over-confident and morally righteous. Here’s an example of what concerns me, from Dom Giordano in the Philadelphia Daily News:
Guggenheim told me that we now know what to do to educate and advance every kid. He said, “In recent years, we’ve cracked the code. The high-performing charter schools, like KIPP and others, have figured out the system that works for kids in even the toughest neighborhoods.”
I echo this. And my mantra is – it’s a mystery? We know what to do. The only question is do we have the will to do it?
We’ve “cracked the code”? We “know what to do”? Look, what KIPP, and Achievement First, and the other high-flying charter schools are achieving is extraordinary, worth celebrating, and worth replicating.
