ambivalence aka applied research

genevieve patthey-chavez (ggpcinla who-is-at yahoo.com)
Tue, 21 Sep 1999 18:06:12 -0700 (PDT)

I'm with Bill - I want to go beyond lamentations &
hand-wringing about educational policy. The problem
for me has been how to work with, well, other
bureaucrats as well as teachers, students, and all the
good people that affect the actual delivery of
education in one specific place (my version of think
globally, act locally). The program that originally
hired me for my bureaucrat day job is a program
dedicated to improving the educational experience and
the educational success of students. No place is it
more needed than in Central Los Angeles. It's also a
program shot through with deep contradictions, and, do
I even need to say it? it doesn't do much for
anybody. Yet it has been unbelievably difficult to
make even minor adjustments and to try and recalibrate
ANYTHING, even something as stupid as 'dump this
diagnostic test, switch to that one.'

I've been paying attention to the ones who do manage
to make changes, hoping to learn from them, hoping to
bottle their secrets. And there it is again, the
'more better faster' agenda, more education, faster
education, better education, more services, better
services, faster services, efficiency, efficiency,
efficiency! Of course the students here deserve more
& deserve better (thumbs down on faster), but I can
just see little improvements getting snapped up and
hijacked and held up for the world to see, 'Look here!
Improvement can come cheap!'

genevieve

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