Teaching innovations and socio-economic status, or something

(Cross posted in a slightly more vitriolic form as a comment to OLPC news) 

There's a swell compendium of different active-learning strategies posted to OLPC news. But the post reads like active-learning propaganda, in a way: the poster claims that these strategies were deeply embedded in the original vision of OLPC, because they have been proven to benefit kids in poor schools to such an extent, and that the current plan pursued by OLPC defaults on that original vision. If nothing else, the post shines light on what, at least in my opinion, made OLPC so outrageous in 2005. (And outrageous, in relation to school and education systems in poor countries, is a difficult pose to strike.)

Here's the money quote:

"They [the active learning strategies outlined in the post] are all being used in environments in which the formal school system has failed or the parents have given the schools a vote of no confidence."

OK, it's impossible to argue with the statement's truthiness: all of these approaches have in fact been used by some teachers in some crummy schools at some time. But these strategies are far, far more likely to be implemented in private and/or elite schools than in failing ones. Whereas in failed schools--whatever they are--and schools censured--however that happens--by parents the outcomes that are by far the likeliest are the introductions of strict discipline, programmatic instruction and increased emphasis on test preparation and improved results (e.g., NYC Dept of Education, or NCLB for that matter). 

In my reasonably direct experience, integrated learning, cooperative learning and PBL were all explored and popularized in schools that were among the elites in their regions--check out the Cherry Creek schools in Denver, for example, or the public schools of Singapore, or the private schools of Turkey and India in comparison to their public brethren. And by comparison, see what's passes for educational innovation in Laos, or west Oakland and East Palo Alto. 

The reasons for this situation are fairly obvious: schools in wealthier districts spend more on teaching (and on teacher development) and are located in communities that demand and can at least occasionally recognize the development of higher-order thinking skills as opposed to mere performance.

Conversely, the single most compelling (indeed the only even potentially compelling) argument in favor of NCLB, which excises all of the active-learning strategies that you outline from the realm of classroom possibility, is that it reduces achievement disparities between schools in disadvantaged schools and schools in better-off communities. (Bravo for that I suppose.)

So, sure, the original OLPC vision was radical, but its radicalness was precisely based on the fact that it purported to infuse learning by poor kids in poor communities and crappy schools with the possibility of real, self-and-peer-driven exploration--something that kids in elite schools can experience in almost any country in the world. But that vision was always suspect, because the main OLPC purchasers, at the outset, were to be the governments that had, prior to that time, created the crappy schools, underpaid and under-educated teachers, and held all kids accountable for high-stakes exams from which only the elites (and, I suppose, the few true geniuses who didn't have their smarts snuffed by malnutrition) emerged victorious.

It was exciting to think of replacing the education system with systems of learning, but the OLPC vision was at odds with the business model. And the pedagogical strategies--effective, adventurous strategies for learning--that you catalog will remain the province of the elites.