Do You Believe in Miracles?
No, I am not quoting Al Michaels at the end of the Lake Placid Gold Medal Hockey game. Rather, I am quoting my friend Diane Ravitch, for the title of this important blog post
Often we are in education presented with supposed examples of "miracles" - high poverty schools that have a remarkable performance, or so we are told. As Diane begins her post,
One of the central claims of the corporate-reform movement is that poverty is not destiny and that a school staffed with great teachers can eliminate poverty. This is a very appealing sort of rhetoric because we all harbor the hope that every single person can overcome the obstacles of poverty to achieve success in school and in life.
If this remind you in some ways of the earlier mythology of Horatio Alger stories, perhaps it is appropriate.
Diane had previously written about 3 such miracle schools - Urban Prep Academy in Chicago, Bruce Randolph in Denver, and Miami Central High School in Florida.
Gary Rubinstein, as Diane notes,
has just updated the statistics on these schools, and he shows that they continue to struggle despite the accolades of officials in search of a miracle.
(side note - Gary is a former TFAer who has now become an important voice critical of TFA).
Please keep reading. . .
