Join the conversation

For months now, Washington think tank dwellers have been casting supporters of the Broader Bolder Approach to Education as characters in a morality play about the future of school reform. The storyline goes like this: BBA supporters, who link student achievement to influences both inside and outside of schools, are slothful defenders of the status quo. Struggling against them are righteous warriors for school reform.

As we've noted before, this is a bogus story. No one benefits from this phony battle between school improvement and out-of-school supports for student success.  Students need excellent schools, but they also need excellent pre-K and after-school programs, health care programs, and other out-of-school supports for learning.

The New America Foundation may be about to continue this sham debate. Tomorrow, they will sponsor a discussion entitled "How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Education." It pits Kevin Carey, a proponent of No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, merit pay, and charter schools, against Bella Rosenberg, a signer of the Broader, Bolder Approach. The framing question: "Which of these visions represents the future of Democratic thinking about education?"

Perhaps the hosts of tomorrow's discussion won't promote the canard that the Broader, Bolder Approach signers oppose school improvement or intend to let schools off the hook for improving the lot of poor children. Given how New America has framed the discussion so far, however, we don't have very high hopes.

While we're on the subject of false dichotomies.... Since when is the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education a specifically Democratic initiative? Its Republican signers, who include James Heckman, John Dilulio and Chris Cross, may be surprised to learn that they've been drafted into the opposing party.