"When one person cries out, ‘The emperor is naked!’—when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game—everything suddenly appears in another light. . . .”
— Vaclav Havel
"The Power of the Powerless"
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Welcome to The Gulliver Initiative
My name is Joan Cutuly. I created this website because I believe that solving the problems in our schools does not have to be as complicated or costly as policymakers lead us to believe. I also believe that my teaching experience is a metaphor for the problems our leaders are refusing to confront.
In 1983, I won an award for my method of teaching writing as a problem-solving strategy. But when my students used what I taught them to end gang activity in our school and inspire respect for education, the principal stifled the effort. I published a book about what happened, and school officials drove me from the teaching profession. The gang members dropped out, and the principal went on to win a $25,000 Milken Educator Award and become a lobbyist for education.
Maybe our education system doesn’t change because the Emperors of Education have no incentive to change it. The system works for them. That’s how they became emperors.
Throughout the fifty years I spent as student, teacher, and advocate for education reform, I saw these emperors denigrate the importance of the arts and humanities and subjugate reason to process. The dehumanization of our education system is a national tragedy and a crime against children. Consider Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s current reform initiative called Race to the Top:
Secretary Duncan claims that his plan will promote innovation. However, the goal of the Race to the Top agenda is to prepare children “to compete in the global economy.” Nothing in the plan offers the kind of education in civic participation and problem-solving that young people will need to solve the problems of a future we can only begin to imagine.
Mr. Duncan’s plan also reads like high-tech recycling of every failed reform going back to 1958. The $4.35-billion in prize money offered by the plan also went to the twelve applicants who did the best job of thinking inside Mr. Duncan’s box.
So, Mr. Secretary, I ask you directly: "What’s different about your plan, and how will giving $4.35 billion to 11 states and Washington D.C. ensure that all of America’s children will receive the education they need and deserve?”
While we await Secretary Duncan’s response,
here are some things you can do:
- Browse this website to learn more about what caused the deterioration of the American education system.
- Visit our blog, The Gullog, for commentary on current efforts in school reform and join the conversation here or at home.
- E-mail President Obama and your
representatives in Congress to express your concerns about education reform in America.
Prisoner of Second Grade:
My Life Under the Thumb of That Other Cold-War Enemy—
The System That Stifled Art, Humanity, and Reason
Read an excerpt / Buy the
book
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Author Joan Cutuly
My Story
“The kind of anecdotal evidence presented here lacks clout in our world of experts and expensive studies. But herein lies my point. When policy is based on bureaucratic benchmarks laid down by legislative decree and
mission statements funded by buckets of money, those implementing the policy become so attached to outcomes that they fail to notice what’s happening to children.”
Joan Cutuly, “Introduction"
Prisoner of Second Grade
Available on Kindle in early April or
Buy Now!
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