miracleschools - home

miracleschools - home

Welcome to miracleschools.wikispaces.com, a place to gather research about schools that are touted in the media to demonstrate how well the current reform movement is going.

Who maintains this site?
This site was started by Gary Rubinstein and Noel Hammatt, two educators. They were introduced to each other by Diane Ravitch, after each had sent her independent investigations of miracle schools. After Diane Ravitch wrote a New York Times Op-Ed citing the work, Newsweek published a top 10 "miracle schools" list, which made us realize that two people might not be enough to counter the current so-called reform movement. This site is an opportunity to get other people involved.

Why are you doing this? Do you like insulting hard-working kids and teachers?
The current reform movement in education is based on principles that have not been proved. The only 'proof' that the current reformers have of the effectiveness of their policies is a handful of 'miracle' schools. They claim that the only difference between these miracle schools and the failing schools down the street is the hard-working staff. The implication is that if teachers were made to work harder through the threat of being fired -- or actually fired, then eventually all schools could replicate such success.
Since this is the only 'proof' the reformers have, it is important that these miracles be scrutinized. If it turns out that they are not truly miracles, but just pseudo-miracles, it is important for the public to know. And we do not see this as insulting the kids or teachers from the miracle schools we debunk. Just because they are not miracle schools, does not mean that they are not good schools. The point is that there are other schools that are just as good that are getting shut down since they are failing to be miracles. It is important to reveal that the miracle schools aren't that miraculous either.

What is the definition of a miracle school?
It hasn't been officially defined, but we think that a true miracle school would have the following characteristics:
1) A low attrition rate