Tests and gimmicks aren't solutions
Quotable
From the Ravitch book:
- "Sit down and read a textbook in any subject. Read the boring, abbreviated pap in the history textbooks that reduce stirring events, colorful personalities and riveting controversies to a dull page or a few leaden paragraphs."
Diane Ravitch from an opinion column in The New York Times:
- "The news media and the public should respond with skepticism to any claims of miraculous transformation.
- "If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our education problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle."
From a speech at the American Association of School Administrators 2011 Conference:
- "No Child Left Behind has produced teaching to the test, cheating, gaming the system and has turned schooling into a numbers game."
- "Public education is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. If we weaken it, we weaken our democracy. We must improve it, not privatize it. Every neighborhood should have a good public school. Public schools build community. They are part of our democratic heritage as Americans."
Biography
From 1991 to 1993, Ravitch was assistant secretary of education in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She is a research professor of education at New York University, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington.
Diane Ravitch looks around the American school system and sees too many demoralized teachers.
She sees too much testing that can never substitute for the qualities of good education.
She sees simplistic solutions to the difficulties faced in the school system.
And she sees an unwillingness to accept the difficulties of teaching children in a high-poverty neighborhood.
These kids often can't count on reliable meals at home. They often have visited family members in prison. And the idea that they would have reading material at home is pure science fiction.
Ravitch sees the school reform movement that she used to be part of turned into t
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-11-01/story/tests-and-gimmicks-arent-solutions#ixzz1cSOtUzKt