Rick Hess is from Venus. Teachers are from Earth.

Rick Hess’ blog from EdWeek:

Achievement gap mania has signaled to the vast majority of American parents that school reform isn’t about their kids–that they’re supposed to support “reform” because it’s the right thing to do, even when it will cost their child. Actually, given that only about one household in five even contains school-age children, 80 percent of households have been asked to back an agenda that focuses on urban centers where they don’t live or on serving children who likely live in other neighborhoods. If we consider that two-thirds of families with children don’t stand to benefit from the gap-closing agenda, the result is a coalition that represents about 5 percent of households.

Rick Hess’ home is the right-wing think tank of the American Enterprise Institute.

Ed Week has provided Hess with a second home.

Why?

Couldn’t tell you.

His column this week attacks what he calls The Achievement Gap Mania.

What is that? The Gap is the persistent failure of public policies aimed at narrowing the differences in educational opportunities and results between the white and the wealthy on the one hand, and the poor and children of color on the other hand.

For Hess, The Mania is the concern over the widening gap expressed by those who care about social justice and equality.

A University of Chicago study out this week provides evidence of 20 years of failure to successfully address the achievement gap problem in Chicago schools.

Hess thinks The Mania undermines reform efforts because white parents don’t care about other people’s children.

I live in a different world than Rick Hess. The very essence of teaching is caring about other people’s children. The very essence of a democratic society is the belief in what John Dewey said: that what is best for our own children we want for all children.

Whatever it is you want to call what Hess believes, it can’t be called democracy.