Public Education Debate

I have reading some more current stuff about education this summer while I haven’t been doing school. A few of the books I read I would highly recommend: especially The Schools our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn.
This book is a response to ED Hirsch’s The Schools We Need and Diane Ravitch’s book The Schools We Deserve. Ravitch, Hirsch and William Bennett (I also read his book The Educated Child) are some of the most prominent voices leading the conservative movement on education so I thought I would agree more with them: but I don’t! Their view of education is of a nationalized curriculum that can be force fed to every child in America regardless of their individual strengths, weaknesses, interests, passions etc. and of standardized tests that can hold every teacher, student, school, accountable for every minute of every school day. Their motto seems to be “if we can just motivate (by force) lazy teachers, students and schools to meet these minimum requirements we will achieve our ultimate goal of education which is to: (you will hear this phrase from politicians on every side) COMPET IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY! Hurray! After reading that, Alfie Kohon’s book was a breath of fresh air. He argues that the goal of education should be for kids to become lifelong learners. His argument is nothing new it is basically just the push for child-centered curriculum, one-one-one instruction, project and discovery based learning, otherwise known as “constructivist” or“progressive” education vs. the “traditionalists” or “behaviorist” push for whole class instruction and verbal instruction, fact memorization, rote- learning, etc. I agree with the “progressives” about instruction, although I tend to agree more with the traditionalists on curriculum- they have a heavier emphasis on the classics which I agree with. Anyway, I could get a lot deeper into this subject if anyone cares. I care a lot about the public schools, even though I am planning to homeschool my own kids, and it has been fascinating to better understand the current debate.