Anyone with even a passing interest in the debate over “21st century skills” should read a series of postings on today’s “education experts” blog at National Journal.com. Diane Ravitch, Sandy Kress, and Andy Rotherham (and perhaps more by the time you’ve read this) have responded to the question: “Has the P21 Movement Succeeded?” So far the jury has voted 3 against, 0 in favor. Ed Sector’s Andy Rotherham, echoing a piece he just published with Dan Willingham on this topic, expresses concern that P21 has failed to engage its critics in a substantive way: “[A] failure to go deep on these issues is why rather than being transformative so far the 21st Century Skills movement instead runs the risk of being another educational fad that changes little – or worse unravels some of the progress that has been made on behalf of low-income students over the past few decades.” We agree and are particularly disappointed that P21 has rejected the advice of a panel of scholars CC convened more than six months ago.
Diane Ravitch’s contribution hints at one explanation for P21′s lack of interest in transformation: “The board of P21, the organization that promotes this alleged movement, is top-heavy with representatives of the major technology companies, suggesting at least to me that the movement will end up noted as a lobbyist for selling more hardware and software to the schools.” Whether or not it is any good (it’s not) P21 has a product that it’s selling, so (from P21′s perspective) why change it? Here’s why: Because improving education is more important than selling anything. And P21′s program, as it is currently formulated, will not improve our schools and will not increase student achievement. As Rotherham points out, it may even make our schools worse.
Lynne Munson
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