"We" not "Me"

Moral choice

            Arthur H. Camins, director of Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, ask if new school reforms have negative moral and ethical consequences? Camins focuses on the dilemma of self-interest driven reforms and how they affect society as a whole. Camins explores, in his article, at what point should we make decisions based purely on how it affects the individual, and to what cost on the community?

Camins focuses on collective bargaining, charter schools and performance based teacher salary. His main argument is that current reform in these areas has promoted a “me” instead of “we” attitude. The individual teacher or parent has to make a decision that benefits themselves with no regard for others. For example, a charter school, on the surface, gives a parent the option of giving their child a better education by removing them from a failing school. Camins sees this as a way of merely, “permeated popular thinking, promoting false hopes, while maintaining the very privileges its supporters disingenuously or illogically claim to mediate.” Essentially it is masking inequity by creating the illusion that the poor are offered the same choices as the rich. The fact is the rich have the mobility of choice that the poor do not. A rich person can opt to move into the best neighborhood and choose to send their children to private schools. These individual choices, do not, however, negatively impact the other rich people around them. Conversely, moving poor children out of failing schools only further decimates the school, adversely affecting the neighborhood and neighbors, who may not have the same mobility and choice.

Camins point about morality in school choice is not necessarily something commonly associated with reform. I think his perspective would be a positive addition to restructuring school reform policies. In fact, Camins goes on to offer solutions to getting "me" back to "we." He suggest changing school funding from property tax to capital gains and corporate tax. This forces those who benefit from an educated work force contribute to the development of that workforce. He also suggest changes in mobility (school districting), mixed housing incentives for integration, and collective teaching which will encourage students helping students. Camins focuses on and address these with the community at the front of the argument.

Camins bring his argument back to morality as a whole. He reinforces moral and ethical choice by reminding his reader of the effects of civil rights in the US from the 1930’s to the 1970’s. The main theme of this historical reference is “we” and not “me.” Social changes helped the community not necessarily just the individual. With this in mind, Camins ask us to consider the good of the whole when really considering the consequences of government reforms in education. He asks us to stop, “de-moralizing and start re-moralizing education policy,” so that we invest back into the “we.” Camins final plea asks us, “if not now, when.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/26/education-reform-and-the-corrosion-of-community-responsibility/