Diane Ravitch's blog
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Diane Ravitch's blog
Good News from NC
A judge in North Carolina turned down K12″s application to open a cyber charter in that state. In doing so, the judge sided with the North Carolina Department of Education, which did want to approve the request. As the story explains, there were many questions about the cyber charter, including the fact that its educational [...]
Who Else Belongs to the Corporate Reform Fight Club?
After reading about the corporate reform “fight club,” Imagine Wisconsin writes: Add to the fight club the Education Action Group that is anonymously backed by Tea Party funding. This group works hand-in-hand with breitbart.com, MacIver Institute, & Heartland Institute. EAG is Michigan based, but with a national mission to bring down public education. They messed [...]
Little Signs of Disrespect
A 16-year teacher wrote to say he had just completed his professional development course for the Common Core. He got a certificate “honoring” him for having done so. It was co-signed by someone from the New York City Department of Education and someone from “Pearson/America’s Choice.” Why a private vendor that is making a profit [...]
The Reformers’ “Fight Club”
Back when I was on the right side of the political fence, I was on the editorial board at Education Next. It is supported by the Hoover Institution and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, both conservative think tanks with which I was affiliated. The journal, which is based at Harvard and edited mainly by Paul [...]
The Paradox of Education and Jobs and College
In response to my blog about “A Confusing Job Market,” a reader proposes that the Department of Education merge with the Department of Labor. Maybe the U.S. Dept. of Labor and the U.S. Dept. of Education should work together. In order to save money and improve test scores my suburban/urban ring high school has eliminated [...]
A Confusing Job Market
We have all heard the stories about how American workers don’t have the skills to get the good jobs there are waiting for them, so American businesses have to hire people from other countries. This is meant usually as an indictment of public education, although it is really quite a stretch since the skills that [...]
Advice for Bill Gates
A reader with an engineering degree read my blog about Bill Gates’ ideas for reforming American higher education, and he offered his advice to Gates: I’m sure that everyone who has felt the sting of the Gates approach to k12 education will really love his cavalier, innovate, make mistakes and learn approach. How nice for [...]
This Iowa Parent Wants Real School Choice
I received an email with a copy of this blog by a parent in Iowa who happens also to be a law professor. He is justifiably incensed that the people, the policymakers and the legislators who love choice have taken away all his choices as a parent. He wants his kids to go to a [...]
Is This the Future of U.S. Education?
I received a notice of a major conference of equity investors in the for-profit education industry. It will be held on July 26 at a private club in New York City. Tickets are $1,195 for the day. The invitation to purchase a ticket came from the respected K-12 journal Education Week, which is a “media [...]
A Change in Policy
Dear Readers, As you know, I have been posting about four to ten blogs every day since I started doing this at the end of April. There are now more than 300 blogs in the archive. This summer, I am trying to do something I have never done before. I am trying to write a [...]
Some Things You Need to Know about This Blog
I wrote something the other day to the effect that anyone can reproduce whatever they want from the blog. I write the blog to speak my mind, to open up discussion, to get people thinking, to encourage those who need encouragement, and to shine a light where it is needed into some dark corners of [...]
Lessons from Apple?
A reader urged me to write about this story that appeared in the New York Times about the Apple corporation. We all know that these are tough times for the economy, and many people are out of work. But Apple is a company that makes great products and is doing exceptionally well. Apple is one of [...]
A Handy Guide to What Politicians Say and Do
Here is a valuable thumbnail description of the New York state policy agenda. Review this list and you will see why politicians think and act as they do in New York state. Do similar lists exist for other states?
A Frightening Vision of the Future
A reader sent me a very provocative blog about the future of education by David Warlick, who has long experience in education and technology. The blog begins with the startling statistic that six media giants control 90% of what we see, read and hear. He goes on to ask whether the time might come when 90% of [...]
Bill Gates Turns His Attention to Higher Education
American higher education is generally acknowledged to be the best in the world. It offers elite colleges and universities where great thinkers and researchers have freedom to teach and study and where young people can learn from them and even work with them. It offers great state universities where students can learn what they need [...]
Who Defines “the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time”?
One of the ironies of corporate-style reform is that the reformers like to pretend that they are leaders of the civil rights movement of our day. Arne Duncan says that closing low-performing schools, firing staff, and turning around schools is the civil rights issue of our time. Mitt Romney says that supporting vouchers and charters [...]
Our Most Brilliant Scholar of Education?
I read this post by Yong Zhao when it came out 18 months ago. I remember thinking that his was a new and important voice in our debates about American education. Others discovered him long before I did, and I am glad I did too. I devour whatever he writes because he is not only [...]
The Spruce Goose of School Reform?
New York State had the misfortune to win that pig in a poke known as Race to the Top. The state got $700 million. Our political leaders licked their chops, thinking that this was new money that could be used to offset budget cuts. Silly them. Every dollar of RTTT must be used for designated [...]
Can Anyone Teach? This Teacher Says No
In Louisiana, as I wrote in a recent blog, the Jindal legislation does not require that teachers in charter schools have certification. Certification is not a high bar in Louisiana, but it does represent a standard: a minimum grade point average in college, a college degree, a passing score on a state or national examination. [...]
Farewell, Nora Ephron
I was sad to hear that Nora Ephron died. We were at Wellesley College at the same time. She was two years behind me, class of 1962. I am class of 1960. I was editor of the Wellesley College News when Nora joined the staff. She was funny and smart. I didn’t know she came [...]
Greetings to Readers Outside the U.S.
I love seeing the listing of where readers live outside the U.S. Of course, I am happy to see friends in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and New Zealand. But special greetings this evening to readers in India, Israel, Chile, Germany, France, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, and Chile. Isn’t the Internet wonderful? Diane
Need I Say More?
Bloomberg News Social column June 26, 2012 Born to Rise’ Jonathan Gray, Blackstone Group LP (BX) senior managing director, was at the IAC Building last night to fete Deborah Kenny, the founder and chief executive officer of Harlem Village Academies, on her new book “Born to Rise: A Story of Children and Teachers Reaching Their Highest Potential.” [...]
Life and Death in a “Turnaround” School
A reader in New York City writes to describe the closing scenes in a Turnaround school. I can’t help but think of the desk jockeys inside the Beltway, the gals and guys who pull down six figures to explain why “turnaround” is a great idea. And all those consultants ready to swoop in for half [...]
Why Due Process (aka “Tenure”) Matters
From a reader: Without due process, I would not put it past local school boards to balance their ever-decreasing budgets on the backs of experienced teachers. Allowing Virginia teachers to be fired without cause reminds me of the times when female teachers could not keep their jobs when they were pregnant. These continual attacks on [...]
How Charter Schools Get a Bad Reputation, part 2
Yesterday I wrote about Juan Gonzalez’s article on Success Academy, which was seeking a 50% increase in its management fee from the state, even though it has a surplus of $23.5 million and spent $3.4 million last year on marketing. The typical charter management organization in New York City has a management fee of 7%, [...]
Marxism in the Classroom?
One of the readers of this blog is worried that teachers and their unions are teaching Marxism in their classrooms. I often quote readers, because there are so many who have important things to say and stories to tell. But in this case, I am going to quote myself, a very odd thing to do [...]
The Root of All Evil
We have known the old maxim for generations. It seems to be truer now than ever. Although maybe they thought that in the past. Remember Jimmy Stewart in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? We need Senator Smith now. A reader writes: The question really isn’t whether Obama or Romney would do worse for [...]
Can You Negotiate with Corporate Reformers?
I love Twitter for many reasons. I have met many friends on Twitter, some of whom I will never encounter in person. I learn from Twitter. People from across the country and even from other countries send me news stories, opinion pieces, blogs, ideas. I received one this morning that I thought was, well, awesome. [...]
Some Turnaround Ideas
Arne Duncan has promoted the idea that the way to turnaround schools is to fire the principal and at least half the staff or to close the school altogether and replace it with a new school, or some variation thereof. It is basically a “wipe-the-slate-clean-and-start-over” approach. Why not think about how that might be applied [...]
Is This What They Teach at Broad Superintendents Academy?
A reader sent this comment: n Huntsville, AL, the Broadie superintendent, Col. Casey Wardynski, has contracted out services for behavior problem and homebound students to a private corporation, The Pinnacle Schools. The contract includes five places in the “teepees” at Pinnacle’s Elk River Wilderness Treatment Program, one of those remote, secured boarding school/mental hospital/detention centers [...]
Take a Stand for Better Education
More than 10,000 individuals and more than 350 organizations have signed the National Resolution to Oppose High-Stakes Testing. More than half the school districts in Texas have signed the original anti-high-stakes testing resolution, which inspired the national resolution. Many districts in Florida have endorsed it, including Broward County. Let’s reclaim as schools as places for [...]
Mayor Bloomberg Is Angry
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York state had a disagreement. The mayor wanted the power to publish the names and evaluations of all teachers in the city, as happened earlier this year when the New York City Department of Education released the single-number ratings of 18,000 teachers, [...]
Which States Are Most Unfair to Poor Kids?
Which states lead the nation is fiscal unfairness to poor children and their public schools? Bruce Baker, the invaluable social scientist from Rutgers, the one who has actually taught in schools, has figured it out by analyzing Census data. Bruce has a terrific blog, where he asks important questions and has the data to support [...]
Thank a Teacher Today
I have written several blogs about how teachers today are under appreciated. I think teachers have one of the hardest and most thankless jobs in our society. Teachers do work of great social value and yet they are paid far less than people in the private sector who sell useless objects or who have desk [...]
“Do This Or We Will Punish You”
A reader writes in response to the blog about the fraud that teachers are compelled to be complicit in, by passing students who have not done the work, by meeting quotes or face punishment: Our entire school structure is a compliance-based model, where time is constant and learning is the variable. It is based on [...]
CTU Strike Humor: What About Those Greedy Teachers?
Last Stand for Children First is a very funny Twitter site. The person who created it does a great job of impersonating trust-fund babies who know everything about how to fix public schools without ever setting foot into one. Follow the outrageous, sophomoric, enjoyable humor of Last Stand for Children First on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/LS4C1
A Letter to Change.Org
Dear Change.Org, You told the world that you stopped collecting the signatures of unknowing people for StudentsFirst. You didn’t tell the truth. You informed me that I was a member of StudentsFirst because I signed a petition on your website a year ago. I never knowingly signed on as a member of StudentsFirst. I was [...]
How to Rip Off Children with Disabilities and Taxpayers Too
The New York Times reveals today some of the findings of an ongoing audit of New York State’s privatized program to provide special education services for prekindergarten children Thomas P, DiNapoli, the Comptroller of the state of New York, has found evidence of massive fraud. New York’s preschool special education program is a $2 billion [...]
Chicago Democrats and Wall Street at War with CTU
More evidence, this time in the Chicago Tribune, that Wall Street hedge fund managers and Obama Democrats are pouring money into the fight against the public school teachers of Chicago. I know that Republicans get a hearty laugh when they see Democratic mayors like Rahm Emanuel and Cory Booker and Antonio Villaraigosa at war with [...]
The Most Idiotic Reform of the Day
Thanks to the reader who sent me this article about the advent of standardized testing in the public schools of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Many of the worst tendencies of corporate reform are exemplified right here in this article. First, the assumption that standardized tests will tell us what we need to know about individual children [...]
How Charter Schools Get a Bad Reputation
The best investigative reporter in New York City–and possibly in the nation–is Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News. Gonzalez writes about politics and occasionally writes about the politics of education. He has written some of the biggest scoops about the inner workings of the New York City Department of Education. He won the [...]
The Fraud Continues (2)
A reader commented on an earlier blog about the way the system demands a high success rate and will not tolerate honest marking. If a student fails, it will be considered the teacher’s fault, so it is best to inflate the scores. If a teacher is honest–especially in a “turnaround” school–the teacher will be fired. As [...]
More Shame for the College Board
Readers may recall that I posted a blog criticizing the College Board for its shameful campaign attacking American education. The ad says that the education system is “crumbling” and calls on the presidential candidates to talk more about education. The College Board asserts that American education is bad and getting worse. I received two great [...]
No More Kindergarten?
A reader writes: One of the most shocking pieces of news out of the Pennsylvania school funding crisis created by Gov. Corbett was the cost-cutting plan by many districts to ELIMINATE KINDERGARTEN. What an incredibly stupid and short-sighted idea. It would take decades to recover from such a decision. The kindergarten idea was introduced to [...]
How to Strike Terror into Hearts of the Powerful
Parents in Oakland have had enough. They organized a protest march against the closing of five schools in minority neighborhoods, assisted by Occupy Oakland. Hundreds marched to express their reaction to the decimation of their children’s schools. Whose idea was this? The community has a voice and they are learning how to use it.
How Choice May Kill Public Education
A reader posted a comment that I think is profound. The more that people begin to see education as a consumer choice, the more they will be unwilling to pay for other people’s children. And if they have no children in school, then they have no reason to underwrite other people’s private choices. The basic [...]
In Michigan, the Debate Continues
Dave Murray and I are having a great discussion about the future of public education in Michigan. He has been interviewing conservatives about my blogs that describe the death of public education and local control in Muskegon Heights and Highland Park, Michigan, where emergency managers have decided in their wisdom and total control to close [...]
The Fraud Continues
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan likes to boast of the success of the turnaround model, in which the principal is fired along with at least half the staff or the school is closed. “We can’t wait,” say the reformers. Here is a report from a turnaround school. This email came today from a high school [...]
Will This North Carolina Judge Protect the State’s Children?
On Monday, a Superior Court judge in Wake County, North Carolina, will decide whether to permit the for-profit corporation K12 to open an online charter school for the state of North Carolina. K12 received preliminary approval from the Cabarrus school district, after K12 promised the district 4 percent of its revenues. That’s a nice commission [...]
A Scholar in Michigan Defends the Schools
I have been hoping that professors would step up and join the struggle to save our nation’s public schools from the stealth attacks on them. I don’t know if I can use the word stealth any more. It’s out inrt he open, as the privatizers grow bolder and more confident. What other political movement can [...]
Here Are Some Fun Websites
Readers sent these to me. I liked them. I think you will like them too. Daniel Pink says really useful things about motivation here. I enjoyed his book Drive and recommend it. This one explains research showing how people can be identified by the way they fill in their Scantron bubbles. Isn’t it good to know [...]