Ronald Wolk has an article in this month’s Teacher Magazine (free registration required) entitled Our Best Hope about how in cities like and including New York have small innovative schools movements — and how this movement is both promising in and of itself, but also threatened by the political educational climate these days. As Wolk writes:

To survive, these schools could be forced to abandon or compromise the very philosophy and practices that make them successful. The Beacon School in Manhattan, for example, has led the nation in the use of student portfolios for learning and assessment. But in the name of uniformity, Commissioner of Education Richard Mills decided two years ago to cancel the exemption from the Regents exams that his predecessor gave Beacon. Now that its students are compelled to take the Regents, Beacon has been forced to modify its curriculum and cut back its portfolio program.

As an old colleague used to say, "If you want exceptional schools, you have to make exceptions."

I think that the "Standards Movement" is on its last legs, but all of the smaller, innovative schools that I know of are trying to come up with strategies to survive until then. To me, that mindset — necessary as it is — is a tough one to live in. It’s hard to think about innovation when you are always battling to keep what you’ve already built.

And with all the problems facing us in education, you’d think our political leaders would support the small schools that work, rather than trying to get us in-line with policies that do not work in our schools.