In the ongoing standoff between the Brookline Educators Union and the Brookline School Committee, the School Committee has framed the dispute as one of making do with limited resources and ensuring equity for all students. But in fact, fundamental choices about how we educate our children are also at stake. The teachers are asking for more time to spend with students and more control over their own teaching. The School Committee, on the other hand, appears intent on investing teacher time and town funds in a management system aimed at top-down control of educators through data collection and high-stakes, standardized testing. The differences are not about the value of equity but how best to achieve it.
The conflict between these two very different approaches to education management will be familiar to those who have followed the clashes between the advocates of the Common Core program and its critics across the nation over the past six years. Here in Brookline, it is vital that we approach this debate about education policy with the interests of families and voters of Brookline foremost in mind.
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