Education reform views aired

Howard Fuller said he is not part of the "conspiracy that's trying to defeat everything" that President Barack Obama is "trying to do."

He's a supporter who plans to vote again for Obama, yet he said he's "mad as hell" at the president.

Speaking Friday at a summit on education reform sponsored by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative Nevada think tank, Fuller called out Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for hypocrisy in not renewing a voucher program in Washington, D.C., called Opportunity Scholarships, while electing not to send their own children to public schools in the nation's capital.

Fuller said he considers school choice a social justice issue in giving underprivileged children the same access to educational opportunities that are available to children from wealthier families.

Fuller is a former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools and has the distinction to be the first black man to graduate from Carroll College, now known as Carroll University, in Waukesha, Wis.

By school choice, Fuller said he means giving children more options, such as charter schools, home schools and vouchers to go to private schools.

In his speech at The Orleans, Fuller said it was a mistake to limit the definition of public education to the local public school system.

A new book by Diane Ravitch, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," argues that market-based reforms such as school choice are more likely to do harm than good.

Ravitch is an unlikely critic since she's a former education official under presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ravitch once advocated for these educational reforms but has now changed her mind.

Fuller said he could not respond to her criticisms because he had not read her book, but another conference speaker, Jay Greene, a professor of educational reform at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, responded that Ravitch is unhappy because she has been unable to achieve her own goals in setting a single, national curriculum.

As an advocate of "core knowledge," Ravitch has come out against "diversity" in educational subject matter, Greene said.

"I'm surprised she's being embraced by people who would find her preference on curriculum very objectionable," Greene said. "I don't think they realize who their new friend is. ... She's far too right wing for my tastes."

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.