Philosophy

1. The study of the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience

2. A theory or attitude held by a person or organization that acts as a guiding principle for behavior

Google Dictionary

Last week on Twitter I got caught in the cross-fire of someone “twitter spewing” on Diane Ravitch. I won’t dignify the “spewer” by naming them here as they need more attention like Lady GaGa needs more publicity. But, the encounter was interesting for one point…the person’s insistence that Dr. Ravitch had “no educational philosophy”.  Dr. Ravitch has been accused of not having a fully-formed education policy, (a charge I think is irrelevant) but that is much different than saying she has no education philosophy.

It was telling however, and says something about the mindset of reform-y types. They do not have an education philosophy as much as they do a political and economic philosophy. They mistake the policies that come from those philosophies for a philosophy of education. They are not the same thing at all. Educators recognize this, ed reform-y types do not. So they are arguing about how flight attendants are passing out snacks, while we discuss the aerodynamics of the plane. Only one of those discussions is pertinent to making sure you can fly. Those discussions are barely on the same planet, and are not even in the same time-zone as each other.