Enron Debacle and Peer Grading
...operating "outside the box"
The simultaneous appearance in your paper of George Will's column on the Enron debacle and of the story on the Supreme Court's taking on the issue of peer grading in the public schools was a happy coincidence. Will's position that Enron's failure was caused by its top executives thinking that their corporation's success was the result of operating "outside the box" of traditional business practices parallels perfectly the reason why school reforms of the last 20 years have been on a similar downward path. Top education reformers (Bill Spady, Bill Glasser, etc.) also spoke of a "new paradigm" for education, one that would drop most traditional thinking about the educational process (the teacher's role, use of tests, homework, grades, etc.) and adopt new methodologies for the new millenium (the use of peer grading, cooperative learning, and other "daring approaches.") The results have been similar: the bankruptcy of American education on the international level. Fortunately, some groups and individuals have raised a strong enough outcry to slow down a total collapse. The return of traditional academic standards and thinking, together with demanding testing and accountability, may hopefully succeed in avoiding a similar debacle.