Writer: Toxic reform movement demonizes teachers
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch speaks with Governor Chafee in Providence Tuesday.
The Providence Journal / John Freidah
PROVIDENCE — To Diane Ravitch, one of the nation’s most influential writers on education, nearly everything about Rhode Island’s current path of school reform is wrong. Worst of all, she says, the debate over how to improve schools has turned toxic, “demonizing and belittling” teachers.
Ravitch came to Rhode Island Tuesday to say so — privately to Governor Chafee, who urged the state’s teachers union leaders to invite her — and publicly to nearly 500 teachers who turned out to hear her speak at Rhode Island College.
Expanding charter schools isn’t the answer, she says.
Nor is paying bonuses to the best teachers, or tying standardized test scores to teacher evaluations and certification.
In fact, she thinks American students are tested too often.
And the real problem plaguing schools is not bad teachers, she says, but the insidious impact of poverty.
In short, Ravitch soundly rejects Rhode Island’s education-improvement plan, which is supported by a $75-million Race to the Top federal grant.
The policies embraced by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and by his ally state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist have