The recent headline in the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press was sent to me by my good friend Carl Glickman:  “Low-income Vt. students rank No. 1:  Report faults state on education reform.”

It seems that despite the gains made by the kids in Vermont, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) gave the state an “F” for education reform.  Incredulous, I decided to check out ALEC’s web site for verification.  Guess what, while they give Vermont their #1 “performance ranking” they actually give Vermont a grade of “D”, dead last, on education reform.

I have often thought that debates about public education go on in an ‘evidence-free’ zone, but this takes the cake!

I am still not over the sadness and anger I feel over what happened to my colleague, Joyce Irvine.

Even though I have never met her, I call Ms. Irvine my colleague because of the way her work as principal of Wheeler Elementary School in Burlington, Vermont, has been described. As reported in the New York Times parents are grateful for her leadership, she knows all her students, she has begun innovative programs, her teachers and her superintendent give her high marks, even her U.S. Senator praises her work.

And she has been fired.

With the Congressional summer recess soon upon us, now is the time to begin planning on meeting with your Senator and/or Representative to let them know what you think should be done with ESEA.  While it seems unlikely that a reauthorization attempt will be made in this session of Congress, that does not mean members of Congress are ignoring the issue.  Congressional staffers continue to meet to try and hammer out a bill and this summer gives us all the opportunity to make our voices heard when members of Congress travel home.

For the past eighteen years I have worked as a high school/middle school  principal along side a dedicated staff and a committed community to improving a school.  In that time we have increased graduation and college going rates, engaged our students in more internships and college courses, created an advisory system that keeps tabs on all of our students, and developed the highest graduation standards in the state (including a Senior Project and Graduation Portfolio). 

But reading the popular press, and listening to the chatter from Washington, I have just found out that we are not part of the movement to ‘reform’ schools.

(This blog also appeared in the June 6th edition of the Washington Post's Answer Sheet.) 

The Sunday before Memorial Day was Wayne’s day.

It was the day he graduated from our school.  A day he did not think would come.  But a day he made happen—and we helped.

Wayne came to me last summer and asked could he please come to our school.  Eighteen, having been pushed out of his school in northern Ohio, he had moved in with a girl friend in the area. 

(first published on May 27th, 2010 in The Nation)

Before his election President Obama carved out what many regarded as a more progressive and enlightened position on education reform. Recognizing that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had become widely unpopular because of its overemphasis on standardized tests, he declared, "Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles in a standardized test." He pledged to lead the nation in a different direction.

Deborah Meier's education advice to Obama

As the Obama administration explores new ways to support a national culture of learning – as opposed to our current national culture of testing – it faces a central dilemma: How to satisfy all of our country’s education stakeholders at once.

Earlier this month Governor Charlie Crist of Florida surprised lots of folks by vetoing a school ‘reform’ bill passed by the state legislature.  Who knows how this figures into his political calculations; I’ll just say that the veto made educational sense.

Dear Friends,

The saga of education reform continues, now almost 30 years after the release of the Reagan administration’s “Nation at Risk” report. Some might say that we are more at risk today than ever. More students live in poverty; high school graduation rates are stable at an unacceptable rate of 70 percent for the overall population, but fall below 50 percent in many urban and rural communities; the United States has fallen from first in the world to 13th in higher education participation.

Clearly, our economic interests and our democratic traditions cannot tolerate this situation.

Now that health care is finally behind the White House and Congress, it’s time to get busy with the rest of the agenda for change – and that means public education.

Most people in this country understand the importance of public education to our society.  Schools are the only institution where we prepare the next generation not just for jobs and careers, but also for participation in our democracy.  Yet our schools continue to be separate and unequal, and our children’s opportunities to learn are not the same.  With graduation rates below 40% in places like Detroit and Cleveland, while national graduation rates for Blacks and Latinos hover around 50%, it’s clear that education is one of the unfinished pieces of our nation’s civil rights agenda.