Is It Really that Bad? The perception is that education is in a
state of crises in many countries around the world. Is it really
that bad? That depends on how you measure performance. In
Disrupting Class, Messrs Christensen, Curtis, and Horn make a
case that individual teachers and administrators have done a
pretty good job of meeting the general expectations that society
has set for them in the past, and that they’ve always been
motivated to improve. Indeed they point out that throughout the
history of public education in the US, schools have adjusted to
deliver reasonable well against four different sets of
objectives. The objectives they articulated (in summary form)
were i) preserve democratic values, ii) prepare students for a
vocation, iii) keep America competitive, and iv) eliminate
poverty1. Others have articulated the societal intent, and the
resulting objectives, of education in slightly different terms.2
So what are the right measures of performance for the education
‘system’ in today’s post-indust