Media Review: Education Deform: Bright People Sometimes Say Stupid Things about Education

"I'm so out of it. . .All this debate over post-modernism . . .I'm still having trouble with modernism!"(Kudzu, 2002)James M. Kauffman has been (e.g., Kauffman, 1981) and continues to be (e.g., Kauffman, 1999) one of the preeminent leaders in the field of special education. With his recent book Education Deform: Bright People Sometimes Say Stupid Things About Education (hereafter called Education Deform), he provides a searing critique of some of the contemporary thinking about reform in both general and special education. Indeed, he brands much of the recent rhetoric concerning school reform as "school reform disorder" (p. 10). Early in the book, Kauffman defines his purpose:Too much of what is said today about education and its reform is nonsense that shortchanges students and their parents. I have no illusion that what I wrote will stamp out mindless rhetoric about schools and schooling. But, maybe, it will help parents, teachers, administrators, and my colleagues who teach teachers to revisit some ideas they've heard or talked about. If this book helps anyone make more sense in thinking and talking about education, then I'll have achieved my primary objective, (p. vii)The book consists of a Preface, a Prologue, seven chapters (i.e., essays), and an Epilogue in 305 pages. The titles provide insight into the content of the essays: "The Deforming Effects of Nonsense," "The Art of the Stupid," "Slogans and Other Trivialities," "Self-Contradictions, Nonsequiturs, and Denials," "Misleading Statements," "The Unintelligible," and "Making Sense About Education." For each chapter, Kauffman uses a quotation and, in the first six chapters, vignettes drawn from the experiences of teachers, parents, and colleagues. This device functions well as a springboard for his subsequent discussions.Kauffman defines his basic terms early in the book. For example, he characterizes bright people as "those in positions of influence on education, whose statements and judgments may be expected to affect education policy and practice" (p. vii). He differentiates ignorance, which he depicts as not knowing, from stupidity, which he views as "not thinking very well about what we know" (p. 1) and uses this distinction as the focus of the book:My topic is not stupid people but bright ones who make thoughtless statements-specifically, untenable statements about education. And education, perhaps more than any other topic in contemporary American life, seems to be awash in such statements. (p. 2)In Chapter 1, Kauffman briefly discusses some of the philosophical roots of current educational thinking as well as more contemporaneous attacks on the usefulness of assessment and curriculum-based instruction. One of the most powerful messages in this chapter is that rhetoric, particularly frequently repeated and less than thoughtful language, may have deleterious effects on both society in general and the field of education in particular. Expressing his concern over current public discourse, he writes:Mindless rhetoric comes from many sources, including politicians, media personalities, school administrators, teachers, and university faculties-from faculties of arts and sciences as well as of education. Our concern should not be so much who says something as whether what someone says is intelligible, rational, consistent with what we know to be true, and helpful in solving problems, (p. 6)Always the teacher, he provides a straightforward strategy for dealing with "mindless statements" and recommends that readers "ask of any statement about education: What does this mean? Can I make sense of it? What would be the likely consequence of making this statement the basis for policy or for teaching?" (p. 8).He also delineates several common techniques used in contemporary educational arguments, including slogans, self-contradictions, nonsequiturs, misleading statements, and unintelligible statements. …