There’s been a ton of good news lately for teachers and for public education. Leading Democratic candidates such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are making schools central issues in their campaigns. Now Senator Bernie Sanders has issued his ten-point “Thurgood Marshall Plan” for improving education. Like my progressive teacher friends, I’m thrilled by these developments. However, as a long-time observer of America’s educational culture wars, I have to ask an unpleasant question: Does Bernie really not care about progressive ed?

Progressive politics, but not practices…?

Let me be clear: Compared to the GOP alternatives, I support Bernie’s plan. For that matter, I like Senator Warren’s plan, too, and Senator Harris’s. I could quibble with various details of the plans, but IMHO we should focus on the huge positive fact that our 2020 candidates are talking a lot about schools and education.

From a historical perspective, however, I can’t help but wonder at the way our progressive politicians seem to have abandoned progressive education.

Here’s what I mean: Bernie’s ten-point plan emphasized the need for American schools to fight racial bias and entrenched economic and social inequality. All to the good. However, when it comes to actual progressive classroom practices, Bernie seems surprisingly unaware.

For example, just like Queen Betsy, Bernie assumes the goal of our education system is to produce a competitive “workforce.”  Bernie also assumes that the primary purpose of good schools is to increase America’s competitive economic advantages in a “highly competitive global economy.”

And how does Bernie know America’s schools need fixing? In his words,

Among the 35 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science. Reading scores for our students are not much better. The U.S. ranked 24th when compared to other highly industrialized countries such as Singapore, Canada and Germany.

For progressive educators, using this kind of standardized-test measure to evaluate our schools is dunderheaded. Making a well-trained “workforce” the main goal of education is backwards. And measuring the quality of schools by the economic advantage they create is absolutely irresponsible. Yet Bernie does not hesitate to do it. Nor does Bernie seem to have his ear to the ground when it comes to identifying the most pressing problems in American education. For example, Bernie laments the fact that

too many Americans end up taking higher-paying jobs on Wall Street or as accountants or as corporate managers simply to pay back their student loans.

…Really? THAT’S what Bernie thinks is the main problem with American higher ed? That too many graduates are taking high-paying jobs?

As progressive ed pundit Alfie Kohn wrote years ago, we shouldn’t confuse progressive politics with progressive education. As Kohn put it,

A school that is culturally progressive is not necessarily educationally progressive. An institution can be steeped in lefty politics and multi-grain values; it can be committed to diversity, peace, and saving the planet—but remain strikingly traditional in its pedagogy. In fact, one can imagine an old-fashioned pour-in-the-facts approach being used to teach lessons in tolerance or even radical politics.

Is that what’s going on here? Is Bernie pushing traditional educational practices in his effort to fight traditional social inequality? Does Bernie not know about progressive pedagogy? Or does he just not care?