It’s the same old song and dance from the education establishment. Design a ridiculously expensive, cumbersome reform to save public education, the same public education they ruined. Invite politicians, elite college professors, corporate CEO’s and other big name policy makers to draft the reform. Sprinkle in a token few “educators” and tell them all to “shoot for the moon” when writing the reform. Pretend that funding is unlimited. Throw in every unproven pet educational program du jour. Then, convince lawmakers that the reform as written is the only way to assure the successful futures of our children.
Never ONCE during the entire process think about nuts and bolts of the reform and whether it will actually work or not. When the reform fails, write articles on how it’s not that the reform itself that is flawed, but the “unrealistic goals, insufficient management, and inadequate funding” of the program that are lacking, with strong emphasis on funding being the blame.
And so here Maryland is in year five of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education leviathan spending bill and local governments and the state are discovering that, surprise, it’s not working and it’s not sustainable. What do the creators of the bill do?
They shift the blame off the people who created the mess and on to those who need to implement and pay for the mess.
In his article in MARYLAND MATTERS, December 16, 2024, Kalman Hettleman, one of the members of the Kirwan Commission who developed the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, bemoans the fact that the Blueprint has become a huge problem for state and local educators and education agencies as they fight to fund the full implementation.
Hettleman is a renowned “expert in education” and has a resume that includes being a past member of the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (Kirwan Commission), member of Baltimore City school board, deputy mayor of Baltimore City, Maryland secretary of human resources, and Baltimore City director of social services. He had many other government positions in his career*. He is also the author of two books and numerous articles on public education. He was never a teacher. However, he has written several education books including this one:
From the summary of this book on Amazon:
In this book, Hettleman presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation’s schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author’s rare fusion of on-the-ground experience as school board member, public administrator and political activist and exhaustive policy research. The causes of failure, Hettleman shows, lie in obsolete ideas and false certainties that are ingrained in a trinity of dominant misbeliefs. First, that educators can be entrusted on their own to do what it takes to reform our schools. Second, that we need to retreat from the landmark federal No Child Left Behind Act and restore more local control. And third, that politics must be kept out of public education.
Hellbound and Down 