Stupid, redux.

Larry Cuban’s got a new post, titled “Why Do Smart People Do Dumb Things? Thinking about School Reform,” exploring a few historical dead ends in educational reform. Here’s another cul-de-sac to include on Larry’s map, right up the reformer road from Stanford, in San Francisco.

First, we have this November 2012 SF Gate article describing the doubtful graduation of 50% of the class of 2014, “…the first graduating group of students the district will require to pass the academic courses needed to attend state public universities and colleges.”

Second, we have this Debra Saunders’ opinion piece from SF Gate in January, 1997, describing an eerily similar Board of Ed plan to “demand more from students” fifteen years ago.

Next up, this October 2000 SF Gate report describing the Board’s reversal of its position on their new graduation requirements. Jill Wynns (still serving on the Board in 2012, btw) explained back in that long gone decade, “”We didn’t provide the resources. We had trouble providing the classes needed. You need more art teachers, more foreign language teachers and teachers able to teach the advanced math and science.”

So what do we have here? An example of (not so) smart people not only doing, but REPEATING, a really dumb thing? Or a misreading on my part of a well thought out school reform plan?

I’ll phrase the question differently. SFUSD’s previous attempt to implement the graduation requirement ended in failure. What did the the Board and the district learn from that experience and what did they implement to ensure that this time the plan will be successful?

I doubt that we’ll get an answer. As I work with those possible 2014 graduates and their teachers, I will certainly pay attention in my high school to ensure that short cuts like these bogus D.C. “credit recovery” courses do NOT become SFUSD’s response to a repetition of stupid planning.