Magnet schools miss the point

APS has opened an Office of Innovation, link.  One of the first conclusions to come down to us from the twin towers is;
students need magnet middle schools.

Journal editors continue to grasp at straws in their effort to polish APS' apple, link; this morning writing;

"(The leadership of the) Albuquerque Public Schools deserves credit for seeing something that works well for all involved, and trying to replicate it for its students, teachers, parents and taxpayers."

The leadership of the APS has (finally) seen that students are attracted to learning about things they want to learn about.  Wow.

As good an idea as magnet schools at all grade levels might sound, it is still the same old, same old cemetery seating.  It is still students being expected to learn in unison.  If the goal of public education is to create learners, independent learners, why do we ever need to group their educational needs?

Why do even two students have to learn together to become independent learners?

Every school will be a magnet school when every school stops trying to meet the educational needs of arbitrary groups of students and resolves to meet their individual educational needs instead.

The curriculum is the magnet, not the building.

It is time to rethink fundamental premises.

Do we want to continue to gather groups of children who have nothing in common but the year of their birth and a zip code, and then try to form them into thought choirs, thinking and learning in unison for twelve years?

Even if we could, why would we want to?

If the goal of public education is to create independent lifelong learners, why is it not the immediate objective?

Like modern day Luddites, wikilink, educational power brokers resist any effort to graduate beyond brick and mortar educational institutions.

Why don't the people who insist upon remaining in the relative stone age of textbooks and lecturers and five rows of six desks ever have to defend their position?

It's fair to point out at this point that, educating people who can educate themselves creates many fewer opportunities for people to wield public power and spend public resources in vast amounts.

Just sayin



photo Mark Bralley