Wanted: Less Political Shorthand, More Honest Dialogue

What’s in a word?

When the topic is education and the word is “reform” the answer is “a great deal.”

This article, written by Education Week reporter Sean Cavanagh, does a good job of explaining how the word reform is a“powerful shorthand” used to frame education debate.

As Cavanagh and others have pointed out, those who position themselves as “reformers” typically stand in opposition to what they consider to be the “status quo.” Their political discourse is filled with arguments about the importance of challenging the “education establishment” or bureaucracy.

Those with a focus on reform often talk, as well, about the importance of putting the needs of students first, giving less focus to the concerns of adults within the educational system.

Many who call themselves reformers support charter schools, seek to challenge the control of teachers’ unions, and advocate for school accountability and merit pay for teachers.

Members of both parties, including Republican governors and President Barack Obama, have used the word reform in speeches and press conferences as part of an effort to explain their educational policies. They use the word, in part, because it packs a punch, and because it also seems to be code for a specific set of policies.

But there may be some danger in using the word “reform” or “reformer” to frame educational debates in this country. The word, it seems, has the potential to divide people and to force them to revert to pure partisan thinking, instead of considering educational issues with an open, reflective mind.

Former Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, a former top U.S. Department of Education official and the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, explains this danger well:

"That kind of labeling exercise hardens positions and makes people defensive," Mr. Whitehurst said. "We need to be able to consider anything out there, including what is considered 'the status quo.' "

This is particularly true for those of us who support key tenets of educational and social justice, including issues of equity and equality within public education.

Partisan politics has kept people from thinking critically about education and possible policy changes for far too long. We do not need more partisan debate, peppered with code words like “reform” that divide us into separate camps before we even fully realize it.

What we do need, instead, is honest, open debate, that considers the results of research, as well as the experiences of those people who are most familiar with the system and how it works from day to day.