This Is Not News

Chris Lehmann at Practical Theory recently wrote a post titled “School 0.5,” about the frustration he feels when he realizes that Philadelphia school just don’t have the resources to implement the technology-driven reforms that he and other education bloggers and thinkers refer to as School 2.0. He also has a follow-up post where he discusses the reasons that a strict comparison of the dollars a district spends won’t tell you what resources they have available to them. In addition to the cost of living issues I’ve mentioned before, there are also issues like interest on debt which mean that missing resources from the past have a negative effect on the present. It’s an interesting set of posts, and they tie into a concept that one prominent urban educator called the “education debt.” I get disheartened sometimes just hearing from some of my colleagues in the certification program about the conditions Philadelphia public schools face. I can’t imagine what it must be like to try and run a school in those conditions.