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Editor's note: This column was written prior to the firing of Education Minister Randy Horton.

The recent flurry of new consultants for the government's education

reform effort may be the most visible indication that the whole

reform process is floundering. Add the missed timetables, the poor

handling of Whitney Institute's re-opening and the St. David's

Primary renaming, and the highly visible ire of teachers, principals

and parents, and we could be forgiven for believing the entire reform

is in disarray.

A recurring question I'm hearing is: Why wasn't the Hopkins Report

team taken on to implement their recommendations? Anyone familiar

with education will know the vast difference between models used in

the U.K and those in the U.S. It does seem therefore incongruous that

reforms designed by a crack team from the University of London would

be put into the hands of a single U.S. educator for implementation. The answers I am hearing are that the government wanted to cherry-pick Hopkins' recommendations and someone high up wanted to make sure the job went to a black male.

Dr. Henry Johnson, hired by the government from the U.S. to oversee

the reform, has had as his main focus the No Child Left Behind law

(NCLB) introduced by President G. W Bush. However, American parents,

teachers, principals and the US National Education Association (NEA)

have united in condemnation of NCLB. Some states in the US are

balking against the NCLB law because in the seven years since its

inception it has failed to live up to its expectations.

One complaint of the programme is that it doesn't allow for

individualized learning. The education-by-testing model assumes that

all children have the same ability and, if properly instructed, will

achieve satisfactory marks on standardised tests. The facts are that

children have abilities that vary by subject, by child, by day,

month, year, and by motivation. Each of these variables influences

the other and need individualized attention if maximum advantage is

to be taken and maximum learning is to occur.

The most serious problem with the NCLB model is that it focuses on

teaching children to take a test rather than teaching children how to

learn. This is a fundamental shortcoming. More than anything else, we

need a population of self-directed learners who continually expand

their ability to process and understand information. But when

teachers are required to have students pass specific tests as a

measure of their teaching proficiency, those teachers who are less

competent can become obsessive about test content to the detriment of

the real educational needs of their students.

This is compounded by the Ministry's unwillingness or inability to

weed out ineffective, inadequate or dangerously ignorant teachers

(there are some, I'm assured).

In fact, implementation of Bermuda's education reforms seems to be

directly opposite to Professor Hopkins recommendations.

As examples: despite Hopkins' assertion that "school principals are

the key to raising students' achievement in Bermuda," principals

report experiencing a lack of respect and a lack of communication

from the Ministry, and are being excluded from the reform process.

Hopkins also pointed specifically to "pockets of excellence" among

Bermuda's schools, and insisted that such success "should be shared

and disseminated." How utterly discouraging then that one such pocket

of excellence was told it's governing structure was going to be

dismantled and replaced with an untried, untested alternative

governance model.

Hopkins also severely chastised the Ministry leadership and

recommended changes and streamlining. Yet it seems that the

bureaucracy has increased and in direct conflict with Hopkins'

recommendation, is leading the reform process.

Meanwhile, those parents most concerned about their children's

education are bailing out to private schools, leaving the public

education system populated by parents least able to push the system

to do right.

Given the Ministry's penchant for power and control over every aspect

of education, I am extremely wary of the Ministry's attempt to form a

National Parents Association. This presents a built-in conflict of

interest and ought to be quashed immediately. Public school parents'

best hope at the moment is to join the newly formed Bermuda Education

Parents Association (BEPA). Headed by Myron Piper, BEPA pledges to be

an advocate for parents' interests. It's what they need most just now.

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