Dive Brief:
- A new piece from NPR delves into the shifting language trends surrounding education, specifically in urban neighborhoods.
- According to the piece, the rise of charter schools in urban neighborhoods has led to vocabulary changes, like calling a school an "academy" and a student a "scholar."
- Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education, says the changes harken back to the days of Plato and encourage a "pizzazz" and "cachet."
Dive Insight:
As Cuban says at the end of the feature, "No word is magical in changing behavior." The idea behind the changes acknowledges this and hopes more than anything that a shift in words will change a belief of what is possible. Basically, if students are told they are scholars, maybe they will start to see themselves that way and work harder — or so the line of thinking goes.
The underlying story here, however, is one about charter schools. Looking through the comments on NPR, there's less about the lexicon and more about charters vs. traditional schools. As one commentator wrote, "How delusional can we get? Let's simply change the label and that will make everything all better. The scientific research is very clear: Charters are no better than public schools. And in New Orleans your child can learn about creationism instead of science. Good luck with that."
Defending the changing names, someone else wrote, "The goal of every school should be to educate and meet the standards set forth by governing entities. If a Charter School or other Private School wants to teach additional things, and it doesn't do it at the expense of the required material - then who cares?"
As usual, everything almost always boils down to the charter vs. traditional school debate.