Diane Ravitch's blog
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH ALL WEEK LONG
Diane Ravitch's blog
Which CEO Made $5 Million Stealing Your Kid’s Lunch Money?
At last, someone who knows and cares about public education has made a Youtube video that tells the story of ALEC and the privatization movement, linking them to the outpouring of legislation against teachers and public education. Share this with your friends and neighbors. The narrator is Julie Mead, the dean of education at the [...]
How Schools Are Like and Not Like Business
A reader comments that schools are “a business” but that their ultimate goal–unlike a business–is not profit, but education: Education is — and must be — a “business”. Schools are a business — they have employees, labor costs, capital costs, and budgets. Schools are a subset of businesses — the service subset; that is, schools [...]
Study Says Teacher Churn Hurts Student Achievement
This study by a group of prominent researchers will not be news to teachers and principals, but should be a revelation to the U.S. Department of Education, to Secretary Arne Duncan and to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Here is the summary. It says that teacher turnover harms student test scores in both mathematics and reading. It [...]
Does the Market Model Improve Schools?
A reader responds to an earlier post on the question of whether schools can operate successfully as a market: The reader comment you include in your post points to one of the essential conflicts underlying the whole school “reform” debate. The conflict is this: what system produces better outcomes – community decision-making, or market competition? [...]
Kindergarten Madness
You may recall that ACT is developing a test for college-and-career readiness for children in kindergarten. And a number of districts and states are developing tests for kindergartners to test their cognitive skills. The U.S. Department of Education is promoting these assessments, as there can never be too much data to go into the vast [...]
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
You may recall that I wrote about a “brilliant and hilarious” article that compared Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Mitt Romney and found them to be strange bedfellows. The cartoon that illustrated the article showed them joined at the hip. Well, if you don’t remember, please read it again. It’s funny scary. I neglected to mention [...]
Did You Say Cut the Arts? Watch both videos!
If you think it is okay to cut the arts and make more time for test prep, watch this and this. It could change your mind. It could change your life. Smile. And make sure that everyone has the chance to sing and dance!
Those Insane and Demoralizing Evaluations.
A teacher faces the state’s new evaluation with anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and confusion. She has a great idea about how to game this invalid, meaningless, absurd and punitive system: It’s not just in LA that teachers are afraid. VA is implementing new eval requirements that must include student progress worth 40% of a teacher’s overal [...]
Kudos to Jennie Shanker! Debate Ended.
If you have been following these posts for the past few days, you will recall that New Jersey Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf claimed that legendary union leader Al Shanker would be on his side, supporting more of the (non-union) charters that Cerf wants to open all over New Jersey. I wrote a post pointing out [...]
Will Test Scores Go Up if Teachers Live in Fear?
A reader sends a description of a teacher’s life in Louisiana, where a new state law changed everything, including tenure, evaluation, charters, vouchers, and whatever else the reformers could throw into a law that was passed without input from educators or any deliberation: So here in Louisiana we get ready to start the new school [...]
Jeb Bush and Business Leaders Support Common Core
At the GE Foundation’s Summer Business and Education Summit in Orlando, 150 business executives heard former Florida Governor Jeb Bush strongly endorse the Common Core State Standards. He predicted that when they are fully implemented, everyone would see what a disaster American education is. This, one assumes, will facilitate his agenda of getting rid of [...]
The Last Living Defender of NCLB Speaks
I should have titled this “one of the last living defenders of NCLB speaks,” but it required too many characters for a headline. I am sure that in addition to the author of this article, NCLB is still defended by Sandy Kress, Margaret Spellings, and others who designed it. Maybe there are another 50 or [...]
In What Other Profession?
Is it possible to be a classic if the thing is only two years old? Well, this post is a classic. It’s by a teacher who sometimes calls himself a “union thug.” I met him last year, and he is one smart guy. He asks a simple question, “In what other profession?” And his response [...]
What Publishers Are Doing About Common Core
As this article shows, publishers are not debating the Common Core Standards, they are trying to figure out how to align their catalogue with the CCSSI as soon as possible. They don’t want to be left out of the national market for materials aligned to the new standards. At the same time, they are more [...]
Bingo! Pattern-on-the-Rug Time
One of the brilliant readers of this blog sent in a comment that made me understand what has been happening to American public education for the past 15-20 years. It is the conscious, purposeful application of a marketing strategy called FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Wikipedia says that FUD is used in sales, marketing, public [...]
A Charter Takeover of Public School District?
There is a rapidly expanding charter chain in Pennsylvania called Propel. It has charter schools in several districts in the state with a total enrollment of 2,000. They are “no excuses” schools, and they reportedly get high test scores. The Propel charter chain wants to open a K-12 charter school in the small district of [...]
More on the Study of Indiana State Tests
I’m hoping to get a link to the full study by Adam Maltese of Indiana University and Craig Hochbein of the University of Louisville, but in the meantime, here is the abstract. It provides interesting additional details: Abstract For more than half a century concerns about the ability of American students to compete in a global [...]
The Great Muskegon Heights Puzzle
The state of Michigan despatched an emergency manager to take over the public schools of Muskegon Heights, Michigan, because the little district with three schools and 1,400 students had run up a deficit of $12 million. Rather than help the district figure out how to pay off its deficit, the emergency manager decided that it [...]
Why a School Is Not Like a Business
A reader responds to an earlier post. This reader says that schools are like churches; some say they are like families. As the previous post said, they are built on relationships. When a school closes, a community dies. Those in big corporate cultures don’t understand this. They are used to closing down low-performing units, firing [...]
Are the Rich Opposed to Public Education?
There was a time when almost everyone lauded the American idea of common schooling. The ideal of equal educational opportunity was far from realized yet widely shared. It was a goal, an ideal, a vision by which we measured our efforts. It was a standard we strived to meet. Urban districts had a small number [...]
Reality Matters
A smart comment by Dave Reid, a math teacher in California, about meeting the diverse needs of students in an overcrowded, under-resourced classroom: Hi JJ. This is a reply to your July 20, 2012 at 12:41 am comment where you stated: “…any good teacher or administrator knows that placing these [sped] kids in inclusion or [...]
Florida Congresswoman Blasts FCAT
Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson penned an article in the Miami Herald blasting the state’s testing regime. She blames it for destroying the lives of countless young people, who didn’t pass, were labeled failures, and did not get the education they needed to make their way in society. She is a former school principal, and she [...]
The Trouble with Online Education
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The New York Times has a terrific piece today with the title of this post, written by a professor at the University of Virginia. Sure, there are times when it is useful to take a course online. But there is a downside. The best learning is what happens [...]
What is a Highly Qualified Teacher?
A reader gives her view of what it means to be a “highly qualified teacher,” if not by the elastic definition in NCLB, then by her own knowledge of teaching: As many have pointed out, no new teachers are “highly qualified.” While some new teachers may be more prepared than others, many years of teaching [...]
Mother Crusader Rides Again
As I mentioned in an earlier post, a New Jersey reformer came to the defense of Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf and insisted that if Al Shanker were alive today, he too would be an advocate for charters and choice just like Chris Cerf and Governor Christie. No one knows how she came to this conclusion, [...]
“Who Are These People?” Asks Mississippi Legislator
A Republican legislator, Forrest Hamilton of Olive Branch, Mississippi, explained to the local Chamber of Commerce why he opposed charter school legislation in the session just ended. He said, “The most important vote I made in the past nine years was my vote in the Education Committee against the charter schools bill,” Hamilton told the [...]
More about Al Shanker, Chris Cerf and Charters
The indispensable blogger Jersey Jazzman discovered a column in a New Jersey newspaper, chastising me because I gave a history lesson to Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf. The writer feels sure that if Shanker were alive today, he would be supporting charters and the handover of public schools to private entities. I have read all of Al Shanker’s [...]
The States’ Budget Crisis
My ex-husband Richard Ravitch is a brilliant man who has spent most of his life in public service. He was born during the Great Depression, and he grew up idolizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt and believing that the highest ideal was to improve the well-being of the public. We have an informal agreement that he doesn’t [...]
Should Children Eat Tests? Or Should Pearson?
Jason Stanford wrote a blistering critique of the misuse of testing in Texas and Sandy Kress responded. Sandy Kress was the architect of No Child Left Behind, which imposed a testing regime on the entire nation. Kress is now a lobbyist for testing giant Pearson. Stanford summarized his original column, called “Let Them Eat Tests,” as [...]
A Wise TFA Teacher
Whenever I meet young people who have joined Teach for America, I am always impressed by their idealism and enthusiasm. As readers of this blog know, I am not as impressed with the organization, TFA, which is filled with hubris, self-promotion, and ambition. No amount of money ever seems to be enough, as this organization [...]
What Reformers Don’t “Get” about Education
I have so many brilliant readers. I am happy to share this space with them. They understand so much more than the pundits, reformers, think tank experts, and foundation deep-thinkers who are paid six figures to tell educators how to “reform” the schools. When I worked in journalism many years ago, there were two terms [...]
Credibility of Florida’s Accountability System Near Collapse
The roiling controversy about the legitimacy of Florida’s testing regime is growing by the day. Many school boards have passed their version of the Texas anti-high-stakes testing resolution. FAIRTest says that Florida may be the worst “misuser” of testing of any state in the nation. Students spend 38-40 days each year preparing to take tests [...]
The Lessons of Louisiana’s Voucher Program
We will have to wait for court challenges to be resolved before we know whether Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan meets the requirements of both the Louisiana state constitution (which says that public money is for public schools) and the U.S. Constitution, which says nothing about education. The U.S. Supreme Court did uphold a voucher plan [...]
A New Teacher Says He Is Not “Highly Qualified”
Dave Reid is an engineer who decided to become a public school teacher after a career of 25 years in the high-tech sector. He has been blogging about his experiences as a new teacher of math in California. He sent this comment to add to our discussion of whether five weeks of training is enough [...]
Bill Gates Says….
Are you ready? Bill Gates says that game-based learning is the future of education. He has a dream. A dream of children sitting around and playing games on their computers or their iPads or their Whatevers. They will be wearing galvanic skin response monitor bracelets, or they will have a little chip in their heads [...]
Report from Florida: Fight Them or Join Them?
A reader reflects on the rapid advance of privatization in Florida, which has been abetted by the hard demands of the state’s high-stakes testing regime: Having been in education in FL for over 30 years, it is gut wrenching to me to watch what is going on. Jeb Bush and his band of merry men [...]
A Veteran Teacher Says 5 Weeks Is Not Enough
A reader states her view of Teach for America’s claim that five weeks of training is enough to make their corps members “highly qualified teachers”: I graduated college in 1965 with a degree in education. My first two years were liberal arts and my last two years were education classes focusing on various subjects like [...]
A Dialogue about Teaching
This is a site to discuss better education for all, so here is a discussion about teaching. As faithful readers know, we have had a discussion here about the Relay Graduate School of Education and its methods. It trains teachers for charter schools. See here and here and here and here. Carol Corbett Burris objected to [...]
Are TFA Teachers “Highly Qualified”?
Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post asks a seemingly obvious question: Should a teacher with only five weeks of training be considered “highly qualified”? The answer is obviously no.. But the question pertains to Teach for America, which has lobbied Congress to make sure that its neophytes are somehow treated as “highly qualified” under the No [...]
Why the Demand for Virtual Charter Schools?
We know from studies and reports that online charter schools provide inferior education. We know that they have lower graduation rates and lower test scores than brick-and-mortar schools. We know that they have high attrition rates, as students enroll and leave within a year or two. We know that children enrolled in virtual charter schools [...]
Not Such Good News from Florida
I said in a post this morning that there was “a glimmer of hope” in Florida because the state board had upheld Miami-Dade’s decision to turn down three virtual charter schools. But Florida parent leader Rita Solnet wrote to correct me. She attended the state board meeting, and she says the state board offered no [...]
New Study Shows Irrelevance of Gains on State Tests. UPDATE!
I am reposting this because I forgot to include a link to the study, its title and the names and affiliations of the authors in the first posting. Pretty awful oversight. Actually inexcusable on my part. I apologize to my readers and to the authors of the study. We have known for some years that [...]
Michigan Plan to Defund Public Education
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has his own plan to hack away at the foundations of universal, free public education. He is vying to be one of the national leaders of the education reform movement. Like Bobby Jindal, his Southern counterpart in the far-right of the Republican Party, Snyder would love to offer vouchers but the [...]
Why Weren’t These Students Taking Tests? Update!
Last night, I watched the PBS Frontline program and saw “Fast Times at West Philly High.” It is a wonderful documentary about the teachers and students at this inner-city high school who entered an international competition to create a hybrid car. It follows them as they build their models, then take them to the competition. [...]
What Do Romney and Rahm Have in Common?
What are the similarities between Mitt Romney and Rahm Emanuel? True, they have different party labels but their education policies are eerily alike. A writer in Chicago showed the contradictions in this brilliant and hilarious article. Historians in the future (the future meaning maybe later this year or next, now that we live at warp speed and [...]
A Report from The Netherlands
We have a tendency in the U.S. to think only of ourselves or to look enviously abroad to wonder what some other nation is doing that we should copy (another way of thinking only of ourselves). Part of this is national narcissism but also incredible naiveté. As Yong Zhao has written in his books and [...]
Report Says K12 Online Charters Lag Behind Real Schools
The National Education Policy Center in Boulder, Colorado, released a report today about the performance of the for-profit online corporation K12. This is the biggest of the online operators, which has been criticized repeatedly for poor academic performance yet continues to expand. Just recently, Ohio and Pennsylvania added more for-profit virtual charters, as North Carolina [...]
Good News from Florida
During the current era of educational madness, we celebrate every bit of good news. In Florida, which is under the control of a Tea Party zealot who is under the control of former Governor Jeb Bush whose brain is fixated on defunding public education and testing everything that moves, there is a glimmer of good [...]
Pearson Wields Undue Power in Britain Too
A recent article in the Guardian explores how the publishing giant Pearson commands the education world in Britain. Pearson not only sells textbooks and testing, but also owns Britain’s biggest national examination system, which is operated for profit. But that’s not all. Pearson is now promoting itself as a policy studies outfit and think tank, [...]
He Reached a Breaking Point
This reader reached the breaking point when he read this post about a planned takeover of Wisconsin education by manufacturers. I’ve been looking at every post here for over a month, reading quite a few of them word for word. For some reason this one packed a wallop. For all the outrages in places like [...]
Experience Matters
In my forty years or so of studying the history of American education, I have learned about fads that came and went, disappeared and returned, over the course of the past century, each time treated as an innovation. It demonstrates to me the value of studying the history of education, so as to be aware [...]
Will Business Own Education in Wisconsin?
Rebecca Kemble, a stringer for the Progressive, covered a legislative committee hearing in Madison, Wisconsin, where business groups lined up to complain that the schools were not meeting their needs. They complained that they could not find workers with the right set of skills. Despite high unemployment in the area, manufacturers say that they can’t [...]
Is This Accurate? Fact-checkers Needed.
I try to be careful in terms of what I write and what I repost from readers. If readers express their personal experiences and strong views, I have no problem with that, and I never repost anything that uses epithets or goes beyond the bounds of civility or fair disagreement. If I err, it is [...]
The Onion on TFA
A reader sent this link. It is hilarious.
Steve Barr Returns to Run More Schools in LA
Steve Barr, who founded Green Dot charter schools but then left under a cloud, has returned to Los Angeles to partner with the school district. This time, however, he is not targeting schools with low-income students, but middle-class schools, including one that he wants his children to attend. It is puzzling why the district is [...]
Stephen Krashen on the Common Core Standards
This letter by Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus of education and linguistics at the University of Southern California, will be posted today on the New York Times website. I just received it: The common core movement seems to be common sense: Our schools should have similar standards, what students should know at each grade. The movement, [...]
Is This Any Way to Improve the Teaching Profession?
This is President Obama’s vision for reshaping the teaching profession. I certainly agree with the idea that entry into teacher education programs should be selective and rigorous, but almost everything else about the program is odious. The administration proposes a competitive grant program that would do the following [my comments are in brackets]: The proposed [...]
Who Should Save Detroit?
Detroit’s state-appointed emergency manager is not only increasing the number of privately managed charter schools, but has imposed a contract that will permit class sizes of 41 in grades K-3 and 61 in grades 6-12. This is a disgrace, as the children of Detroit are being sacrificed to save money. Frankly it is strange that [...]
Why NCLB and Race to the Top Fail
After my last book was published, I did some radio interviews and got some interesting feedback. One of the most informative responses came from a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, Harry Frank, who has written textbooks about measurement and evaluation. His observations about testing and evaluation were brilliant. What he wrote helped me [...]
This Ohio Teacher is Running for Office
Maureen Reedy, a teacher in Ohio for 29 years, was Ohio teacher of the year in 2002. Now she is running for the Ohio House of Representatives. She deserves the support of every taxpayer, parent, and citizen in Ohio. She is angry at the waste of taxpayer dollars for bad, deregulated charter schools. Forget what [...]
John White, Are You Listening?
John White, here is a school that needs your help. Don’t close it. Don’t treat it as a sinking ship whose students should just get out before it’s too late. This is a community school. Do not let it die. Do not make things worse. You are the captain of the ship. If it goes [...]
Another Teacher Beaten Down
The toxic brew called “reform” is ruining public education. But this should not be surprising. This is the intent of the reformers. They never will say so in their public statements. They will say they want “great teachers.” But they demonize and demoralize the teachers we have now. What plans do they offer to [...]
What Is Legal Fraud?
A reader asks a reasonable question, perhaps wondering why states like Ohio and Pennsylvania continue to authorize cyber charters despite their abysmal results. He brings up Michael Milken, who was convicted on charges of securities fraud and tax violation and sent to jail in 1990. According to his bio on Wikipedia, Milken made $1 billion [...]
Good News from New Jersey
Jersey Jazzman reports that New Jersey will not approve the state’s first online for-profit virtual charter school. K12 has been told to come back next year, perhaps on the hope that citizen outrage will have died down by then. Jersey Jazzman, you may recall, memorably referred to New Jersey as “the cesspool of school reform.” [...]
Beaten Down But Don’t Quit
The combined pressures of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been very demoralizing for teachers across the nation. These misguided federal policies have encouraged the most rightwing forces at the state level, and in state after state, Tea Party governors and legislatures are slashing the education budget, attacking teachers’ tenure and [...]
Finding Hope in a Dark Time
A reader sent this comment in response to the moving post by another teacher: Thank you Diane. Your blog gives me hope. As a student, I often had to read books I was assigned. Most of them I disliked but one high school English teacher require my class to read Viktor Frankl’s, “Man’s Search For [...]
Someone Who Could See the Future
A reader sent this comment in response to an earlier post. I jumped when I read it because he was absolutely prescient. Consider this: We hear on all sides that the public schools are failing, declining, etc., that test scores are falling, etc., but NONE OF IT IS TRUE. Test scores on NAEP, the only [...]
What Chris Cerf Needs to Know About Albert Shanker
Chris Cerf, the acting commissioner of education in New Jersey, published an article today defending charter schools, which have become very controversial in his state. They have become controversial because the state is trying to push them into suburbs that have great public schools and don’t want them, and they have become controversial because the [...]
How Could We Not Know What Was Happening?
A reader sent the following comment: For the past twelve years I have been a pre-k teacher in a public urban inner city school. I also owned a business for twenty-five years. I attended a public elementary school and a private high school. I attended public, private, and online universities. I know the difference [...]
New Jersey: The Cesspool of School Reform
Jersey Jazzman describes the web of political and financial connections that are working together to bring for-profit virtual charter schools to the Garden State. This is a must-read. The more I learn about the profits and the political shenanigans that facility profiteering, the more it astonishes me. If the American people ever figure out that [...]
This Is the Most Startling Post of the Day
Darcie Cimarusti is a mother in New Jersey. She is not a teacher. She does not belong to a teacher’s union. She cares about public education. She became active as “mother crusader” in the last year or so, and she has demonstrated the amazing power of an informed citizen. She has a voice and a [...]
Why VAM Is Junk Science
Since Arne Duncan became Secretary of Education and unleashed the Race to the Top, almost every state has adopted laws to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students. Most teachers know that this is unfair because the factors that have the greatest influence on students’ test scores are not within the control of [...]
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul?
Lance Hill of the Southern Institute of Education and Research reflects on the evolution of charter schools in New Orleans. Charter schools that perform better by recruiting and retaining better students don’t exist in a vacuum: skimming the best and most profitable students affects other schools, though it is hard to detect in systems with [...]
The Appropriate Role for Computers
I agree completely with this reader’s comment, in response to the post about Waldorf schools. The computer has a very important role in our lives. We will call upon it daily, and in many cases, hourly, and by the minute. Many of us will spend our waking hours in front of a computer. But a [...]
Annals of Privatization in Pennsylvania
Recently, the FBI raided the offices of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, because of concerns about the intermingling of various for-profit businesses that were created by the school. The school has revenues of about $100 million or more and has spun off a number of other businesses. Apparently, the former governor Ed Rendell made some [...]
Test Scores or Creativity?
The Los Angeles Times notes in an editorial that there must be a balance between testing and creativity. It points out that the Asian nations that we claim to admire for their test scores–Japan, Singapore, China–wish they could unlock the creativity that has long characterized American culture and education. Yong Zhao has made this point [...]
Disgrace in Detroit Is “For the Children”
Remember that the emergency manager in Detroit imposed a new teachers’ contract in which class sizes would be allowed to rise to absurd levels? Remember that the contract permits classes of up to 41 children in grades K-3, up to 61 children in grades 6-12? Remember all that? The emergency manager just said in an [...]
Cyber Scam Expands
The latest news from Indiana is that the state education department–which seems to be in lockstep with the rightwing group ALEC–has given the green light to for-profit online corporations to expand without accountability. The three largest and oldest cybercharters have received a D and two Fs. But unlike public schools, there are no consequences for [...]
What, No Computers?
Thanks to reader Linda for reminding me of this article in the New York Times about the school that Silicon Valley high-tech entrepreneurs choose for their own children. It is a Waldorf school. It has no computers. The school has 196 students. Three-quarters of them are from high-tech families, deeply involved in the creation and [...]
Charter Chain Evolves
When former City Council member Eva Moskowitz started in the charter school industry, her goals were clear: she planned to open schools in Harlem to save poor black and Hispanic children. She called her chain Harlem Success Academy and it was branded HSA. She said early on that her goal was to open 40 schools. [...]
GERM in India
The Global Education Reform Movement (Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg’s apt term) is advancing privatization, competition, choice, testing, accountability, data-driven decision-making tied to test scores. It’s wreaking havoc in this country and in other parts of the world. Here is a comment from a reader in India: Come to India and see what’s happening. The governments [...]
The Testing Regime and “Cognitive Non-Engagement”
A reader responds to the friendly exchange between Carol Burris and Robert Pondiscio: I think Carol’s penultimate sentence is the critical point, around which all of us should rally. Cognitive non-engagement plagues our schools — indeed, the regnant standardized testing regime demands it — and those in power are promoting it more and more. To [...]
The Philadelphia Solution: Go Broke
Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission has decided that the best way to address its looming deficit is to increase it. With each new charter approved by the SRC, the public schools lose $7,000. The latest estimate is that the public schools will transfer over $139 million in the next five years to new charters. With the [...]
Growing Up in the South, 3
I posted two other reminiscences of growing up in the South in the years before the Brown decision was implemented. I reiterate that I am not suggesting that there is less segregation today than there was in the 1950s; there may be even more. But so much was qualitatively different, and I find it valuable [...]
Why Administrators Don’t Care about Content-and Why It Matters
A reader responds to our discussion about the importance of content and explains how administrators matter in relation to content. If they are indifference to content it shapes their vision and their behavior: I am a professor of educational administration and I’m struck by how little content area knowledge is required to become a principal [...]
Why the Big Investment in Hardware?
The Broad-trained superintendent of Huntsville, Alabama, has purchased 22,000 laptops and iPads for the students in the district. This is the same superintendent who contracted to send recalcitrant students to live in a teepee until they learned to behave. The laptops and iPads are being readied for use this fall. Nothing has been said about [...]
Lighting a Fire or Filling a Pail?
Carol Corbett Burris posted a critique of the Relay Graduate School of Education here. Robert Pondiscio questioned Burris’ metaphor about “lighting a fire” rather than “filling a pail,” on the assumption that she does not care about the content of the curriculum. My view: Curriculum matters; resources matter; poverty matters; and teachers should be free [...]
How to Raise Test Scores Overnight: Two Strategies
I recently wrote about “addition through subtraction.” This is a way in which districts and sometimes states achieve remarkable test scores by manipulating the testing pool. If you can manage to get low-performing kids out of the testing that counts, you get amazing test results. That is addition through subtraction. In Hartford, Connecticut, Steven J. [...]
You Should Read This Article
One of the nice things about having your own blog is that you can do things like recommend an article that appeared last November. I recommend this article by Lee Fang that was published in The Nation. It is a stunning piece of investigative journalism about the corporate reform movement, its leaders, its methods, its [...]
Teaching in a Cybercharter
I have posted a few articles about the sham education offered in cybercharters, which have only one great benefit: They make big money for their sponsors. One of the worst is ECOT–the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow–which rakes in millions despite its high attrition rates and the terrible performance of its students. The owner of ECOT [...]
Does Privatization Help the Poor?
I recently posted about the article and editorial in The Economist praising charter schools. The Economist is a booster of free-market capitalism so it is no surprise that it would admire this venture in privatization. What interested me about the articles was that the magazine quite bluntly described these privately-managed schools as privatization. Charter school [...]
Merit Pay for Congress and State Legislatures?
Some while back, I suggested on Twitter that members of Congress should get merit pay. It doesn’t seem fair that all of them are paid exactly the same, no matter how effective or ineffective they are. The same might be said of state legislators. Why don’t they get merit pay? They are eager to impose [...]
Realism in New Jersey: Can We Face It?
My favorite New Jersey blogger, known as Jersey Jazzman, is a teacher and one smart guy (I’m assuming he is a guy because of his moniker, which is not Jersey Jazzperson or Jazzwoman). He has written a very important post. I urge you to read it carefully. It reflects on where the reform movement is [...]