Skip to main content

The Becoming Radical: Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims: A Reader

Jack Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims That Teachers Should Know How to Challenge provides a powerful framework for educators to mobilize our much needed roles as teachers for the wider public.

I want here to use his ten claims as a basis for providing support for anticipating and then challenging the flawed claims and policies coming from the reform movement, primarily driven by political leadership and advocacy without experience or expertise in education. [Each claim is posted below verbatim from Schneider.]

Claim 1: American teachers need more incentive to work hard.

Claim 2: Schools need disruptive innovation. The status quo is unacceptable.

Claim 3: The public schools are in crisis.

Claim 4: It should be easier to fire bad teachers. Tenure is a problem.

Claim 5: Schools need to teach more technology.

Claim 6: Teachers should be paid for results.

Claim 7: We need more charter schools.

Claim 8: We’re falling behind the rest of the world.

Claim 9: Teacher preparation is a sham.

Claim 10: Teachers only work nine months a year.

This blog post has been shared by permission from the author.
Readers wishing to comment on the content are encouraged to do so via the link to the original post.
Find the original post here:

The views expressed by the blogger are not necessarily those of NEPC.

P.L. Thomas

P. L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville SC), taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He...