Acknowledgement That Reforms Haven’t Worked

On December 6, the former Director of the Office of 21st Century Education for the Ohio Department of Education made an eye-opening acknowledgement.  In prepared remarks in support of the Public School Deregulation Act (Senate Bill 216), Dr. Robert Sommers testified before the Senate Education Committee that Ohio’s education reforms haven’t worked:

“Our efforts over the last 10-15 years have been driven by our desire to improve educational results.  The reforms we implemented were thoughtful and, at the time of implementation, showed great promise.  But now we know they haven’t gotten the results we wanted.  Thomas Edison famously tested 3,000 different filaments before he discovered the one that made the electric light bulb possible.  Thomas Edison is known for his incredible inventions and for his bringing light and electric power to the world.  But his greatest accomplishments came not from being correct, but being willing to fail 2,999 times, learning from the failure, and moving on to new options.  SB 216 is the first acknowledgement that our current reforms, just like the failed filaments, must be learned from and then let go.  We must move forward into a new generation of reforms.  Passage of SB 216 is the first step in this journey.”