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Nurture Shock author Ashley Merryman came out in defense of public schools this morning. Her main argument: "US School Kids Are Doing Better Than Ever – But You Never Hear It!"

She takes the doomsayers to task:

Last week, I was at a conference, participating in a discussion on education reform. One of the panelists – the creator of several highly acclaimed [charter] schools – essentially argued that schools are such a mess that we need to throw out the American education system and start over.

Doomsday Talk like that works to galvanize support for his programs, and it's an easy applause line.

But the trouble is that it ignores the fact the millions of kids are thriving in the traditional school system. If we only focus on the disasters, we risk being blind to this success. And the fact is that success – not failure – is actually the American educational norm.

Merryman does overstate the case a bit. She writes that US students' are doing better, but she doesn't note that other countries have improved more quickly and outstripped us in educational attainment. Update: I forgot to mention that she doesn't give enough thought to persistent achievement gaps.

But she does make a good point about the corrosive effects of Doomsday Talk:

[I]f the reformers focus exclusively on the disasters, their approach may be working too well. From their point of view, it may seem like it's the only way to get anger, the money and resources they need to save their kids.

But the problem is that we don't get inspired to follow these leaders. We applaud their efforts, but we don't seem to be joining in their campaigns. Instead, we feel that the problems they've shown us are simply too huge, too overwhelming to fix. So we don't change the bad stuff, and we miss out on how many good things are really going on.

The language of failure and crisis has become de rigueur these days. It works well with foundations and newspapers and can help reformers burnish their own brands. But it can be as just as damaging as complacency, because it breeds public despair, cynicism and battle fatigue.

Even worse, it can open the door to rash decisions. The charter school leader who says we should blow up the system gets attention but, all rhetoric aside, he really doesn't have any reliable alternatives to offer. He can point to excellent charter schools that defy the odds. But we can point to excellent traditional public schools that defy the odds. Blow up the system, and then brace yourself for some horrific collatoral damage.

The trick is to balance urgency and hope, and we can find real hope both within and beyond the current system.