Op-edsWhy Freer Schools Are Better Schools
Philip K. Howard, Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2010
Philip K. Howard argues that, while “President Obama's proposed overhaul of No Child Left Behind is long overdue," the 2002 law "is not the root cause of school failure." “Public school failure,” he explains, “can be traced directly to the technique of reform: centralized legal dictates. A steady accretion of law since the 1960s has smothered personality and individual responsibility in schools. There's no oxygen left for educators to build healthy school cultures.” The cure, Howard relates, is in giving teachers and principals the authority to run their classrooms and schools and holding them accountable for their results. "America's schools can never be fixed as long as teachers and principals go through the day responding to rules instead of their common sense," he writes. "We must let the humans take charge again. The guiding principle should be to replace legal dictates with individual responsibility."
Time for a Movement for Legal Reform
Philip K. Howard, The Atlantic, March 20, 2010
Philip K. Howard argues that “[m]odern law has severed people from their best judgment.” He relates that, in addition to America's schools and hospitals, Washington is so “paralyzed by the accretion of law” that even President Obama “is powerless in the face of [it]” (noting that an obsolete 1931 law “prevented the President from hiring thousands of people last year”). “Reviving personal initiative is impossible without basic legal overhaul,” Howard writes – but “neither political party in the US has even a glimmer of interest in this issue.” “What's needed here is a movement," he concludes. "People who believe the system is broken have to band together and force change upon a political system that seems content to preside over a status quo of slow suffocation.”
Too Much Law Suffocating America
Philip K. Howard, CNN.com, February 23, 2010
In an op-ed for CNN.com, Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard argues that the partisanship that has paralyzed Washington is “a symptom of a deeper powerlessness" – that "[p]oliticians posture and point fingers because they've learned it's impossible to take responsibility.” “Responsibility is simple,” he explains, but that restoring it "requires a kind of revolution – an organized, coherent movement to replace existing bureaucracy with new goals and individual mandates to achieve them.”
Washington vs. 'Common Sense'
Philip K. Howard, Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2010
Philip K. Howard argues that “common sense is nonexistent” in Washington. Howard cites examples of how law and bureaucracy have stymied schools, American infrastructure, and health care reform, and contends: “What's missing in government is the activating principle of all human accomplishment—individual responsibility. America must shift the goal of reform from desired results—universal health care, effective schools—to a new philosophy that allows people to get things done.”
School Discipline
Philip K. Howard, EducationNext, January 1, 2010
“Strong leadership, respect for authority, and perception of fairness are essential to create a positive, productive school culture,” Writes Philip K. Howard in a piece for EducationNext. “And yet the encroachment of due process into daily discipline decisions has undermined all three.” Howard suggests that educators “reverse course” by re-enforcing the role of teachers as leaders in the classroom, and by fostering a culture that will “encourage all members of the school community to participate in promoting the values and discipline protocols in schools.”
SPEAKOUT: Repair School Culture
Jerry Wartgow, Rocky Mountain News, January 4, 2008
Common Good Colorado Board Member advocates for education reform based on a discipline of patience and persistence and common-sense solutions.
SPEAKOUT: Teachers Crushed by Rules, Regulations
Elaine Gantz Berman And Jerry Wartgow, Rocky Mountain News, October 31, 2007
Common Good Colorado Board Members share findings from "The New Three R's: Rules, Regulations and More Rules" and speak out against the negative effects of paperwork and compliance requirements on Colorado's public schools.
What Matters Most
Randi Weingarten, New York Times, October 15, 2006
Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers, writes about how Common Good's "All in a Day's Work" report illuminates the burden of day-to-day bureaucracy on teachers.
Class War
Philip K. Howard, The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2005
Common Good chair Philip K. Howard calls attention to the "most unappreciated" problem in our public schools: "the general decline in order."
Free the Schools
Philip K. Howard, New York Daily News, May 15, 2005
Common Good chair Philip K. Howard argues that effective schools and real accountability will only be created by abandoning the "bureaucratic structure" of public education.
You Can't Buy Your Way Out of a Bureaucracy
Philip K. Howard, The New York Times, December 3, 2004
Common Good chair Philip K. Howard calls national attention to the "insurmountable legal barrier" that "blocks even the simplest of choices" in today's public schools.
For Their Own Good: Limit Student's Rights
Richard Arum, The Washington Post, December 29, 2003
Asking for Trouble
Diane Ravitch, New York Post, December 19, 2003
An op-ed by Common Good Advisory Board member Diane Ravitch.
The Death of Common Sense
Philip K. Howard, Ob. Gyn. News, January 1, 2003
"For every lawsuit, there are millions and probably billions of decisions made or not made reasonably, every day, because of fear of the system. It has literally changed our culture."
We're Reaping What We Sue
George S. McGovern and Alan K. Simpson, Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2002
Former U.S. Senators from opposite sides of the aisle, George S. McGovern and Alan K. Simpson write, "Lawsuits, a vital tool of justice, support a free society only when judges and legislatures take the responsibility of deciding who can sue for what. Otherwise, fear replaces freedom." Mr. McGovern and Mr. Simpson are both Common Good Advisory Board Members.
Teachers' Rulebook is Killing the Schools
Philip K. Howard, The Daily News, June 11, 2001
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