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Week 11: Michelle Rhee and “Blowing it Up Reform” Jal Mehta

Week 11: Michelle Rhee and “Blowing it Up Reform” Jal Mehta National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education February 19, 2010. The Dream of Rational Administration. The Dream: (social) science + social policy = social progress. Science, Rationality and Progress: A Thumbnail History.

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Week 11: Michelle Rhee and “Blowing it Up Reform” Jal Mehta

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  1. Week 11: Michelle Rhee and “Blowing it Up Reform” Jal Mehta National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education February 19, 2010

  2. The Dream of Rational Administration The Dream: (social) science + social policy = social progress

  3. Science, Rationality and Progress:A Thumbnail History • The dream: scientific knowledge + policy = progress • Examples: • Public health – vaccines • Education – Progressive era schools “outside of politics” • Urban planning and design – planned cities (e.g. D.C.) • Social policy – war on poverty • Professional schools: Kennedy School, GSE • Techniques • Cost-benefit analysis • Policy analysis

  4. Do you believe in the dream?* *More precisely: Do you believe that public policy, guided by scientific knowledge and reason, is our best hope of achieving progress?

  5. Strengths of the Dream: Hallmark Virtues of the Enlightenment • Truth: Science/data preferable to supposition, ideology • Reason: Science preferable to naked power/politics • “Climate change” • Progress: Public policy leverages “what we know” for improvement at scale

  6. Weaknesses of the Dream: Hubris (!) (and Vietnam)

  7. 2. Challenges to the Dream

  8. Four Limits of the Dream 1. Values 2. Politics & claims of expertise 3. Knowledge 4. Policy & implementation

  9. Limit #1: Values(People disagree with the dream…)

  10. Limit #1: Values(People disagree with the dream…) • Science cannot settle questions of value • “Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to the only question important for us: ‘What shall we do and how shall we live?"‘ -- Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” quoting Leo Tolstoy • Post 60s -- cultural and social conflict • Busing, abortion, crime, welfare – not by data alone

  11. Limit #2: Politics(And not only do people disagree, they have the right to have their voice heard)

  12. Limit #2: Politics(And not only do people disagree, they have the right to have their voice heard) • Dream “depoliticizes” politics* • Expertise vs. democracy • Public policy schools lack “jurisdictional claim” of other professions *

  13. Limit #3: Epistemology/Knowledge

  14. Limit #3: Epistemology/Knowledge(Even if people would listen to us, what we could tell them is limited and often fallible)

  15. Limit #3: Epistemology/Knowledge(Even if people would listen to us, what we could tell them is limited and often fallible) • Limits of predictive social scientific knowledge • Social science vs. natural science • R2 often less than 10 percent

  16. Limit #4: Limits of Policy

  17. Limit #4: Limits of Policy(Even if policymakers did what we wanted, top-down policy can be a weak tool for changing human behavior)

  18. Limit #4: Limits of Top-Down Policy • Difficulty of changing behavior of agents of the state • Discretion & street-level bureaucracy (Lipsky) • “Seeing like a State”: • Inability to see how things look on the ground • Difficulty of changing client/citizen behavior • Society & culture

  19. Four Limits of the Dream of Rational Administration 1. Values – Science cannot settle questions of value 2. Politics – Experts cannot settle questions of democracy 3. Knowledge – Knowledge is finite and limited 4. Policy – Policy is a limited tool for changing human behavior For more, see Jal Mehta, The Chastened Dream, book manuscript, in progress.

  20. So how does this apply to D.C.?

  21. So how does this apply to D.C.? • Detractors of Rhee would say: • Caught up in the technocratic dream • Values -- No realization that others’ values might differ • Politics – Experts seek to circumvent democracy • Knowledge – Will differentiated teacher pay really improve schools? (Problems in the theory of action) • Policy – Do D.C. schools, by themselves, have the power to substantially change student outcomes?

  22. So how does this apply to D.C.? • Supporters of Rhee would say: • Reinventing the Dream to achieve results • Science – Plan built on research about impact of high quality teachers • Politics -- • Naïve to bow to self-serving political interests • Some remove from politics needed to pursue the common good • Race – If more kids get educated in D.C., then there will eventually be a more racially even playing field.

  23. So how does this apply to D.C.? What do you say?

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