I’m sorry if you interpreted that as a blanket condemnation of everyone who works with spreadsheets. If anything, it’s a blanket condemnation of those who fail to see words as the blunt instruments they can become when carelessly wielded.

When I was teaching, I sat through a preservice workshop with an avuncular old veteran teacher, who told the now-familiar tale of the young man standing among countless starfish stranded by the high tide, pitching them one by one back into the see. Told he’s wasting his time, there are too many starfish and he can’t possibly make a difference, he replies, “It made a difference to that one,” and continues his work.

Go ahead, smirk. Roll your eyes knowingly at the sentimentality of the treacly tale. But for those of us who have come to know children by name and not as data points, it’s a tale that resonates.

So it is with vouchers. It makes a difference to that one. And that one. And that by the way, is how I tell the difference between people who are serious about education reform and those who are not. They consider the impact of their policies on individuals–people with names, faces, hopes and ambitions who will forever remain silent and invisible on spreadsheets.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to concerning myself with my long list of things that don’t really matter.

It seems that the charter movement is the most logical adaptation for a system in place, offering the same opportunities the vouchers might.

Then to feel better for ourselves we toss $20-30 billion over to the poor for food stamps and people think we’ve done our part to help make their lives better. Good for us!

That would be like Wal-Mart handing out cash coupons to people well above the median income level then charging everyone else for that service.

Then again, Wal-Mart wouldn’t survive for long if we did that. There is always Target, and Vons, and Best Buy, and Food Lion, and Costco, and….