I'm really blown away by the arguments of the "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" outlined on their web site.

Despite the impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close these gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner.

This is the same argument that protectors of the status quo have been using for years, that the causes of poor academic achievement are completely outside a school's control and thus the only way to improve academic achievement is to solve poverty, parental apathy, ethnic minority attitudes towards education, etc. Of course, at the same time many of these same organizations call for additional funding for public education without explaining how more money will help them solve these problems that they insist are outside their control.

This group calls for more funding for preschool, kindergarten, summer school, school to work and after school programs. They seem to avoid the "if we only had enough money" argument.

They downplay the success of schools in closing achievement gaps and improving the academic achievement of poor and minority students as inconsistent and unsustainable. This sort of reminds me of the "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" line from the Wizard of Oz. They don't want anyone to be "confused" by the successes of some schools. The primary reason for this is that it doesn't match their point of view. If school reforms can make a difference then their argument is null and void.

I just don't buy it. How do they explain the success of hundreds of schools in California alone at getting greater percentages of poor and minority students to grade-level proficiency? As I've said before, even if they're right that the sole cause of poor academic achievement is these outside factors, then we need to modify instructional strategies to meet these additional challenges. We can't just accept poor academic achievement as something out of our control. These students need help now.

The line which really makes it clear that their purpose is to protect the status quo is this one:

Second, the broader, bolder approach pays attention not only to basic academic skills and cognitive growth narrowly defined, but to development of the whole person, including physical health, character, social development, and non-academic skills, from birth through the end of formal schooling. It assigns value to the new knowledge and skills that young people need to become effective participants in a global environment, including citizenship, creativity, and the ability to respect and work with persons from different backgrounds.

Whenever people start talking about the "whole person", rest assured that they're talking about reducing our reliance on high stakes testing and eliminating school accountability. While I agree that these other factors have value, how can we worry about them when the majority of our students are unable to read, write and do math at their grade level? Until we can get students to grade-level, we should focus on the part of that person that reads, writes and does math. Once we solve that problem, then I'm all for those non-academic skills. Why would we want to water down our already insufficient efforts at getting students academic skills to focus on non-academic skills?

Unfortunately, this "Broader, Bolder Approach" is just more of the same excuses focused on protecting the status quo of public education. It's too bad. They have a huge list of "important" people supporting this approach. If only those people could put their energy behind reforms that are working in classrooms of high-achieving, high minority schools every day.

It shouldn't surprise me that they're taking this approach. The project is supported by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), who receives a quarter of their funding from unions. I'm sure NEA, CTA, AFT, UTLA and other teacher unions are pretty happy with the work of EPI diverting attention from real education reform.

Of course the real losers in all this are first, the students who are stuck in failing schools and second, all of us who will be paying higher taxes to support these students in their adults live because we've failed to adequately prepare them for work or higher education.