NYC Public School Parents: Diane Ravitch on "Frozen Assets" by Marguerite Roza

NYC Public School Parents: Diane Ravitch on "Frozen Assets" by Marguerite Roza

Diane Ravitch on "Frozen Assets" by Marguerite Roza

by Leonie Haimson

Diane Ravitch has a great oped in today’s Times on the “miracle” schools promoted by corporate reformers, that all too often turn out to be based on PR spin, inflated test score results and/or sky high student attrition rates.

She was also asked to comment by Bill Tucker of Ed Sector on a 2007 report, “Frozen Assets”, written by Marguerite Roza, who is now at the Gates Foundation. The subtitle is “Rethinking Teacher Contracts could Free Billions for School Reform.” In Roza’s view, wasteful spending mandated by teacher contracts includes class size limits, pension and health benefits, sick days, and seniority raises – which instead should be used for other purposes like merit pay. In response, Diane succinctly tweeted one word: “unbelievable”.