Monthly Archives: February 2008

Deborah Meier – the famed educator and advocate of reformed, smaller public schools focused on students – is speaking at EMU tonight, on “Educating For What? The struggle for democracy in Education.”  She was awarded the MacArthur fellowship (“genius” prize) for her work, and was the founder of the Central Park East school in NYC, where amazing work was done among diverse and mostly poor students.   I urge you to go tonight.  This talk is part of the College of Education’s Porter lecture series.   Meier’s ideas are very important for K-12 schools, and I’d say just as valuable for higher ed.   Part of her argument is that schools should be small enough so that all decision makers know, and are known to the people who are  directly affected by their decisions (students!), and that schools need to be structured around making students responsible for acquiring knowledge and feeling vested in learning, rather than simply being the “targets” of instructors’ efforts. (This wording is my own take on her work – she expresses it better than me, of course.)  Nearly two decades ago, I was briefly involved in assessing the portfolio of a student at Central Park East, as part of her graduation requirements, and all I learned about the school was very impressive to me.  Last week, Governor Granholm, in her state of the state speech, called on school districts to replace large high schools with smaller ones to better achieve educational goals — and that call by our Governor is but one example of Meier’s ideas shaping policy.  A year and a half ago, when Steve Holda, then the boss of all things financial at EMU, faulted me for going to meet my students rather than staying in his office to listen to his defense of the anti-academic spending priorities that he’d imposed on the University, I thought of Deborah Meier’s ideas and wished that they were understood by someone in Welch Hall….