Designed to Fail (7): a history of American education

An Afterword: These were never good ideas, and these were never good intentions.

The Carnegie Summit 2024 is about improvement and innovation: We’ll be there with a workshop on how to radically change public schools: Transforming Beliefs, Transforming Practice, Creating Equitable Schools Everywhere

If we never change our underlying beliefs, we will never change our behaviors or results.

Americans, worried about violence, disrespect, and interpersonal cruelty, do not want to face the fact that all of these behaviors begin with the essential American myth that “my personal rights and privileges” — whoever you are — allow us to violate the rights and privileges of everyone else.

If that cultural acceptance of selfishness isn’t enough, it is combined with a hyper-belief in greed — as in “I’ve got mine” and “Get off my lawn.”

Education in America was designed, from the start, to fail children. That is not our fault. It is our fault if we don’t change that system.

Part One — Part Two — Part Three — Part Four — Part Five — Part Six

Our schools have been designed to fail certain children and certain adolescents. That’s the history I’ve been trying to put in front of you.

Conceptually that’s a vital topic, but we need to see the trees in that forest. We need to look closely at the…