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EduShyster: The Secret Ingredient in the Secret Sauce
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 21 minutes ago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel memorably said on video that the Noble Street charters in Chicago have a “secret sauce” that makes them successful. They have high test scores and high graduation rates. They are each named for rich and powerful sponsors. Count on EduShyster to discover the secret in the secret sauce. She gets many tips, [...]
Ohio Teacher: Bravo to Teachers of Seattle!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 30 minutes ago
Maureen Reedy sends congratulations, praise, hugs, and high-fives to the teachers at Garfield and Ballard High Schools in Seattle. May their message resonate in schools across America. Dear Ballard and Garfield High School Teachers in Seattle, Your proclamations ring true as patriots of public education! Your proclamations proclaim our right as educational experts to independently [...]
Obey or Quit
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 59 minutes ago
A teacher sent me this post, which has generated lots of discussion on Facebook. She said that the discussion on this blog shows a widespread bullying of teachers by administrators, who are in turn being bullied to produce “results.” Everyone is under pressure to meet demands created by politicians, economists, and statisticians who never spent [...]
Support the Teachers of Seattle
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 hours ago
The teachers of Seattle ask that you sign this petition to support them. Please be careful when you go to change.org and do NOT sign any other petition as you may be duped into becoming a member of StudentsFirst.
Ballard High School Teachers Say NO in Solidarity with Garfield Teachers
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 hours ago
The revolt against the inappropriate use of standardized testing is spreading in Seattle. Teachers at Ballard High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test and to support their colleagues at Garfield High School. “Whereas The MAP test is a resource expensive and cash expensive program in a district with very finite financial [...]
A Letter About Gun Appreciation Day
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 11 hours ago
Tonight, I watched a lovely tribute to Joan Baez on PBS. Joan is a pacifist, a wonderful human being, and a great singer. She is also very courageous. She put herself in mortal danger as a fighter for human right. Minutes after turning off the television, I received this email. It upset me. I thought [...]
A Lovely Memory on Who I Was
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 12 hours ago
Someone I do not know sent me a surprising gift: a memory of what I said, who I was. Memory plays tricks on us, and sometimes I learn things about myself from people I met or knew many years ago. And I wonder, “did I do that? Did I say that?” Here is my gift [...]
Adell Cothorne Contacted Me
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 13 hours ago
I received an email from Adell Cothorne, who was a central figure in bringing the DC cheating scandal to light. She is now running a cupcake shop in Ellicot City, Maryland. She told me she misses education and wants to get back into the schools. I asked her to write for the blog and hope [...]
This Superintendent Is Doing It Right
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 14 hours ago
Last week, Wendy Lecker wrote an article in the Stamford Advocate saying that she was in search of one superintendent in the state of Connecticut who was doing the right thing for kids, teachers, and the community. Wendy had read here about the courage of Joshua Starr of Montgomery County, Maryland, and Heath Morrison of [...]
Maine Rejects Gulen Charter School
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 17 hours ago
I wrote earlier that the governor of Maine was angry about the rejection of four of five charter applications by the state authorizing committee. He said he wished they would just “go away.” Two of those rejected charters were for-profit online corporations that have hired well-connected lobbyists, their usual method of operation. A third was [...]
Vouchers Do Not Reduce Educational Inequity
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 21 hours ago
Vouchers were once thought to be a dead issue in US education. Voters have turned them down again and again. The public dislikes them so much that even Republicans are afraid to use the V word. Instead, voucher programs–always enacted by legislation, not by voter referendum–are always called, euphemistically, “opportunity scholarships.” When GOP governors like [...]
What’s Great About Our Public Schools
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 23 hours ago
Jersey Jazzman reports a true story about students in New Jersey. It is about character, not test scores. He writes: “I’ll say it until the day I die: I am proud to be an American public school teacher. I am proud of the great kids of this country. I am proud to be a part [...]
Test Scores at DC School at Epicenter of Cheating Scandal
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
The D.C. Inspector General is satisfied that there was no systemwide cheating. The office investigated Noyes campus and found that maybe there was a teacher or two who might have cheated. The U.S. Department of Education seconded the nearly clean bill of health offered up by the DC IG. But here are the actual scores [...]
A Youth Activist in New Orleans Speaks Out for Public Schools
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Not everyone in New Orleans is pleased with the loss of public education. Youth groups are speaking out and organizing. In this article, Jacob Cohen shows how the state board, operating with “God-like” power, closes and opens schools as if they were chain stores, not community institutions in which people’s lives are invested. The Times-Picayune [...]
Weep for Detroit
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Detroit is the saddest school district in the United States. It is a petri dish for every failed corporate reform idea. The schools are at the bottom on federal tests. The city has suffered de-industrialization, unemployment and extreme poverty. And the state’s answer? Privatization and budget cuts, merit pay and testing.
Maine’s Tea Party Governor Has Hissy Fit
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Maine’s Governor Paul LePage is really upset. The state’s charter school commission turned down four out of five applications. Two that were rejected were online schools. LePage has benefited in the past from campaign contributions from this sector. If you really want to know why the governor was upset, read this expose published last year [...]
A Charter Teacher Asks for Advice About TerraNova
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
A comment came in last night from a KIPP teacher in DC. She provides interesting insight about how charter schools can manufacture high test scores. She asks for advice about the TerraNova tests. Can you help her? I teach Kindergarten at a “no-excuses” charter school in Washington, D.C. The accounts of cheating on which you [...]
Ex-DC Principal Is Happy Baking Cupcakes
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
In case you wondered what Adell Cothorne, the star of the PBS Frontline special about Michelle Rhee’s cheating scandal, is doing now, she is very happy making gourmet cupcakes. Thanks to reader Linda of Connecticut for finding her on the web. I wish we lived close to Ellicott City, Maryland, so we could sample her [...]
A Teacher Has a Question for Hari Sevugan
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Hari Sevugan, the ex-Obama spokesman and ex-StudentsFirst spokesman, has twice commented on this blog in defense of charters and high-stakes testing. In his comments yesterday, he pointed to Florida as a model of excellence, while putting down Massachusetts as not all that it claims to be. In my response, I compared Florida’s NAEP scores to [...]
Teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle Say No!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
By unanimous vote, the entire faculty at Garfield High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test of reading and mathematics. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the faculty of an entire school refused to give mandated tests. The action of the Garfield High School faculty could have national ramifications [...]
How Bill Gates Wasted $50 Million
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
The final MET study supposedly show that value-added modeling really does work and that test scores really do show who the best teachers are. But Bruce Baker says the study is full of holes and circular reasoning. When Bill Gates and the top executives at Microsoft put their own children in schools that use test [...]
Report: Heroic Teacher and Guidance Counselor Save Lives Today
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
There was a school shooting in a California high school. One student was shot by another student, who was wielding a shotgun. A teacher and a guidance counselor persuaded the student with the shotgun to put down his firearm. We don’t yet know their names. They put themselves in harm’s way and saved the lives [...]
N.C. State Board Caves to Online Lobbyists, with Restrictions
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
North Carolina is a plum market for the online for-profit charter industry. Today, the state board of education agreed to allow them to open in the state but set some limits. Here is a link to a report on the decision by North Carolina Policy Watch: “Virtual charter schools will face restrictions if they want [...]
Paul Thomas: Et Tu, Liberal Media?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Paul Thomas recognizes that the big corporate media have bought into the corporate education spin and hype. But he was baffled that PBS used most of an hour to recycle Rhee’s self-promotion. By the way, our one consistent ally on national television is the great Jon Stewart. His mother was a teacher, and he knows [...]
The Daily Howler On PBS On Rhee
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
The Daily Howler is a tough marker. He reports on how the media reports on events. He was not happy with the PBS show about Rhee. He thought it was dated and failed to ask important questions. By the way, if you haven’t seen The Daily Howler reports on how the media fumbled the latest [...]
Paul Thomas: What is the Difference between Service and Self-Serving?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Paul Thomas taught high school in rural South Carolina for nearly twenty years. Now he teaches at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. He writes here about what it means to have a life of service, in contrast to a life devoted to self-service in a celebrity culture, a life adorned with press conferences, self-promotion [...]
The Ordeal of the D.C. Whistleblower
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
If you have followed the story of the D.C. Cheating scandal, you know that suspicious test scores were flagged at a large number of schools in the district during Michelle Rhee’s tenure. Rhee met with every single principal and got a commitment to raise test scores or be fired. This pressure was effective in perverse [...]
Expert: Why Cheating in DC Was Never Investigated
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Mary Levy is a veteran civil rights lawyer and budget analyst in Washington, D.C., who has reviewed developments in the D.C. Public schools for more than 30 years. She wrote the following description of the D.C. cheating scandal, which was revealed by USA Today in March 2011 but never subject to a full and independent [...]
To N.C. Board of Education: Please Vote NO Today
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Today, the North Carolina Board of Education will vote on whether to permit for-profit online corporations to enroll children as young as five. I hope they reject this terrible proposal, for the following reasons: 1. Online home-schooling is developmentally inappropriate for young children. 2. Study after study has shown that students who get their schooling [...]
John Merrow: D.C. Whistleblower Under Attack
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
If you saw John Merrow’s program “The Education of Michelle Rhee,” you will remember that there was one educator willing to go on camera and say, “Yes, I saw cheating. I locked the tests up and the scores dropped.” That principal is now under attack by Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s successor. I urge you to read [...]
The Key to Understanding Corporate Reform
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
If you want to understand what is happening in state after state, district after district, read Lee Fang’s article here. I have read it again and again, and every time I read it, I see something I didn’t see before and understand the national picture better than I did before. I have published this before. [...]
Is Corporate Reform Like Vietnam?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
I hesitated to post this because it refers to me. But I decided to post it because the author, Mark Naison, makes a powerful point about the present moment. What is happening in education today is ignorant, willful, and dangerous. Thoughtless politicians and self-seeking entrepreneurs are hurting children, damaging public education, and demeaning the teaching [...]
Will Massachusetts Open a Charter to Skim $$ from a Great Public School?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Brockton High School has been hailed as one of the best high schools in the nation, celebrated for its excellent programs and high test scores. What makes its success especially impressive is that the school has 4,100 students and a large immigrant population. Now enters the SABIS for-profit charter chain, seeking to compete with Brockton [...]
Bruce Baker on Rheeformy Logic & Goofball Rating Schemes
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Bruce Baker has prepared what may be the most devastating critique of Michelle Rhee’s absurd state rankings. The criteria are without merit, as are her policy ideas. Best of all, Bruce says he is eager to see some well-known reformers move to Louisiana to take advantage of the schools that Rhee gave top billing in [...]
Hari Sevugan Responds: UPDATE!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
A few days ago, I posted a letter from Hari Sevugan on this site, in which he defended Michelle Rhee’s agenda of privatization and high-stakes testing. Sevugan was (according to Wikipedia) the former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and was the senior spokesman for the Obama campaign in 2008. In June, 2011, he became [...]
Georgia Has a Group Supporting Public Education
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
After I wrote about a new parent group in Tennessee, I received a comment about a similar group in Georgia, protesting budget cuts and legislation hostile to public schools. Be sure to checkout their website, which has excellent resources for parents, educators and other concerned citizens: http://empoweredga.org/ “Here’s a similar group in Georgia, where we [...]
Philadelphia Parents Say No to School Closings
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
More than 1,000 parents and students turned out to protest noisily against the closing of 12 neighborhood schools. The new superintendent Willam Hite says the closings are necessary to save money and to adjust to declining enrollments. But nowhere does he address the cause of declining enrollments: the proliferation of charter schools. Take this example: [...]
Leave a Comment on PBS Frontline Page
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
If you watched the PBS documentary on “The Education of Michelle Rhee,” you should let PBS know what you thought of the program. You can leave a comment here or elsewhere on the website.
The (D)Evolution of Denver’s Pay-for-Performance Model
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Jeannie Kaplan is an elected member of the Denver school board. Denver is one of the major sites for corporate reform. Several commenters have asked about Denver’s pay-for-performance plan. I invited Kaplan to explain how it works and with what results, which she does here: The (D)Evolution of Denver’s Pay-for-Performance Model This is a story [...]
The Paragraph that PBS Dropped From My Commentary
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Last night, I posted the commentary that I wrote after seeing a preview of the PBS Frontline show on Michelle Rhee. This morning, I realized that my favorite paragraph was deleted, presumably to save space. It was this: ” She leads by threats and coercion, never by inspiration or example. She personifies the Ice Queen, [...]
Rocketship Heads for Milwaukee
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Rocketship will open eight charters in Milwaukee. Local leaders have raised $3.5 million to persuade the charter chain to come to Milwaukee. The city already has a large charter sector and a large voucher sector. The three sectors–Charter, voucher, and public–get about the same results on state tests. As the private sector grows, the public [...]
Gary Rubinstein: Gates’ MET Study Is Wrong
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Gary Rubinstein took a close look at the new Gates’ study of teacher evaluation and says it is wrong. The media takeaway is tat in evaluating teachers, test scores are more reliable than observations. But Gary, who teaches mathematics at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, says it isn’t so. Bill Gates has put [...]
G.F. Brandenburg Was “Rather Disappointed” in PBS Show on Rhee
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
G.F. Brandenburg was disappointed by John Merrow’s profile of Michelle Rhee. Like many others, he had expected that it old be an exposé of the cheating scandal in DC during her tenure. Merrow tried, but no one other than the principal who took over the school at the center of the scandal would agree to [...]
My Commentary on the PBS Rhee Special
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
I was invited by Frontline to offer reactions to the documentary about Michelle Rhee. I was disappointed that the documentary did not mention that Rhee is now working on behalf of a far-right agenda of privatization; that Washington Teachers Union President George Parker now works for StudentsFirst; that Rhee’s “miraculous gains” as a teacher in [...]
Petrilli: What’s Wrong With Skimming the Best Students?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Mike Petrilli at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute has an interesting post about the high expulsion rate in DC charters (72 students are expelled from DC charters for every one expelled from the public schools). Be sure to read the story in the Washington Post that he refers to as well as the short [...]
Do Public School Students in Florida Get Art and Music?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
A reader in Florida saw the description of the Rocketship charters, where students get no art or music. She was not surprised because her child’s school has neither art nor music, just testing: “My children attend a Title I school in Florida called Triangle Elementary in Mount Dora. They have no art class, no music [...]
Local School Board Hijacked in Winston-Salem?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
A reader writes to alert us to developments in Winston-Salem: Diane: Another School Board Scandal is developing in Winston-Salem, NC. The recent long-time chair has been elected to the General Assembly, and the handling of vacancies has been outrageous, particularly in light of the fact that the elections are supposed to be non-partisan! Once a [...]
When Is a Zero Percent Dropout Rate Not a Zero Percent Dropout Rate?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Jonathan Pelto takes a closer look at the media hype surrounding Dr. Steve Perry’s fabled Capitol Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Perry has claimed that the school has a zero percent dropout rate. This claim has repeated again and again by others. But is it true? Read on.
What Did Rhee’s Report Card Actually Measure?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
G.F. Brandenburg, retired math teacher, has done a close analysis of Michelle Rhee’s. state report card. He calls it a “Brave New World-type Orwellian fantasy,” in which words mean the opposite of what they say. Her ranking does not measure whether states have high test scores or high graduation rates. it does not measure whether [...]
Chicago Facing Mass School Closings
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Will Rahm Emanuel go down in Chicago history as the mayor who destroyed public education? Will he take his vengeance on the Chicago Teachers Union by closing 100-140 public schools while opening charters? How will history judge him? A reader sends this comment: We are feeling the pain DC is facing in Chicago as well. [...]
Michelle Rhee’s Upside Down Agenda
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Michelle Rhee issued a report card yesterday that graded states by whether they satisfied her. What she wants is privatization of public education (charters and vouchers); high-stakes testing by which to judge teacher quality; an end to teacher tenure; and the weakening if not outright elimination of teacher unions. Here is what we can say [...]
New Tennessee Parent Group Stands Up for Public Schools
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
A group of parents in Tennessee has formed to support public education and local control. Most of them are public school moms. Their group is “Standing Together for Strong Community Schools.” They oppose vouchers, and they oppose the governor’s plan to create a commission to impose charters on local communities, whether the locals want them [...]
Ironic Twist in Rhee’s Report
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Mercedes Schneider, who has been writing up terrific statistical analyses of Louisiana’s fudging of school data, read the New York Times account of Rhee’s report card on education reforms and makes a great observation: “The ratings, which focused purely on state laws and policies, did not take into account student test scores.” Ironic, ain’t it? [...]
Waltons Will Spend More to Privatize Public Education
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
The Walton Foundation likes vouchers and charters. It does not like public schools. Last year, it spend $159 million to promote vouchers and charters. In addition, members of the billionaire family have dumped a few million here and there into political campaigns, like the Georgia referendum to allow the governor to create charters despite the [...]
NYC Parent Group Grades Michelle Rhee
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
A Néw York City parent organization has created a report card for Michelle Rhee. Good read.
Parents: It Is Time to Change the Stakes
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Parents across the nation are taking a stand against the use of tests to measure, rate, and rank their children. Local school boards are passing resolutions against high-stakes testing. People are increasingly angry that tests are being used inappropriately in ways for which they were not designed. They are forming groups to protest. One of [...]
Here It Is: The ALEC Agenda
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
This is a point by point replication of the ALEC agenda to privatize public education and abolish the teaching profession. Follow this template and your state will get the same performance as Louisiana and DC.
A Letter to Hari Sevugan
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
The other dy we learned from an article on the Huffington Post that several top Democratic staff members quit Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst. One of them was Hari Sevugan, who had been a leading figure in the 2008 Obama campaign. Sevugan’s departure set off speculation about why he left: was it Rhee’s union-busting goals? Was it [...]
Jersey Jazzman Deconstructs Klein Record, Part 3
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Jersey Jazzman decided to analyze Joel Klein’s claims of compelling progress in New York City during his tenure. In this post, he takes a closer look at how New York City students fared on NAEP compared to other cities. Some gains, but not as large as other, less heralded cities who took the same tests.
Prediction: Score Inflation in Louisiana
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
A reader forwarded this prediction and analysis of the forthcoming manipulation of school grades in Louisiana. We will hear that scores are going up and that the achievement gap is closing. Don’t believe it. It is what as known as gaming the system. This analysis was picked up and amplified by a blogger in Louisiana [...]
Michelle Rhee: The Mask Is Off
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Michelle Rhee issued her report card for American education and now we know what she stands for: privatization of American public education. States that endorse charter schools, for-profit schools, the parent trigger, school closings, vouchers and online for-profit charters get high marks from Rhee. States that bust unions, take away teacher tenure, and use standardized [...]
Start Your Own Business: Make Easy Money
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
This reader learned the secret of charter success. Make money by doing what the local public school did until the budget was cut. Ofer that service but without any of the overhead or services: “After a couple of years in retirement, I decided to take an assistant’s job at a charter school in order to [...]
Randi Asks Mayor Bloomberg to Apologize for Comparing Union to NRA
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
In a gracious and polite letter, AFT President Randi Weingarten asked Mayor Bloomberg to apologize for likening the New York City United Federation of Teachers to the National Rifle Association: January 6, 2013 Mayor Michael Bloomberg City Hall New York, NY Dear Mr. Mayor: There are times when we say things in the heat of [...]
How to Reform Milwaukee’s Schools
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Alan Borsuk is a knowledgeable journalist who has covered education in Milwaukee for many years. He is now professing at Marquette, but still keeps a close watch on what is happening to education in Milwaukee. In this article, Borsuk says that a new vision is needed to get beyond the stale and failed answers of [...]
Tennessee Governor and Legislature: Reformers All
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Tennessee was one of the first two states to win a Race to the Top grant, so of course the governor and legislature are busy thinking of how to privatize their public schools. They heard glowing (if erroneous) reports about the parent trigger in California, so they want one too. They are thinking of vouchers [...]
Is This the School-to-Prison Train?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
A reader offers this comment, responding to the Washington Post article about the incredibly high expulsion rate from DC charter schools: Bad kids need education too. The Good kids still in Public Non-Charter schools need education too. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it seems highly unlikely that you [...]
Mother Crusader Takes on the Center for Education Reform
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Mother Crusader noticed that the New Jersey office of charter schools has a list of important partners. One of them is the Center for Education Reform. Mother Crusader does her customary research and finds that Jeanne Allen, who founded CER, claimed credit for writing the ALEC proposal for the parent trigger. She should not have [...]
AIR: VAM Not Ready for Prime Time
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
We have been saying it for months, no, since 2009, when Race to the Top started. Value-added assessment or value-added-modeling is not ready for prime time. Now we have a technical paper by American Institutes for Research that says it: VAM is not ready for prime time. Here is the takeaway: “We cannot at this [...]
Schools for Other People’s Children: UPDATE: LINK ADDED!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
One of our most perceptive essayists Rachel Levy watched John Merrow’s program about Rocketship charters and recoiled with alarm. She said if she put her children in front of a screen two hours a day, she would be called a bad parent, but the charter does it and it is called innovative. She was distressed [...]
Students Are Not Gadgets. Teachers Are Not Robots.
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Pasi Sahlberg of Finland (author of Finnish Lessons) refers to the obsession with testing, accountability and choice as the Global Educational Reform Movement or GERM. Finland has thus far managed to avoid catching the GERM and places its bets on teacher professionalism, a strong safety net for children, and child-centered education. Eduardo Andere of Mexico [...]
Will Spain Go the GERM route?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
This request was posted. Please feel welcome to post your comments and help our friends in Spain. Dear Mrs. Ravitch, My name is Amadeu Sanz and I am the publishing coordinator of STEPV, a union of teachers in Valencia (Spain). In Spain, just as in the US, there’s a heated debate on the results of [...]
Washington Post: DC Charters Expel Students at High Rate
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
The Washington Post reports what many people suspected: the charters in the District expel many more students than the public schools. The higher expulsion rate allows the charters to get rid of behavior problems and students with low test scores. This makes charters appear more successful than they are. The expelled students, of course, return [...]
Can Rhee Still Pretend to Be Bipartisan?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Jersey Jazzman read Hari Sevugan’s comment on the blog last night and wondered if anyone still believes that StudentsFirst is bipartisan. JJ doesn’t think that any Democrat could sign on to Rhee’s anti-teacher, anti-union agenda. Would a bipartisan group pump money into Republican campaigns? Would a bipartisan group pump $500,000 into the anti-union campaign in [...]
Happy Friday, Muskegon Heights For-Profit Charter School!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
In response to an earlier post about the rocky beginning of the experiment in privatization in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, a reader sent this interesting observation: Well, I hope they had a happy Friday afternoon, and the Michigan Department of Education, as well. For yesterday, I filed a written complaint against the Muskegon Public School Academy [...]
Mayor Bloomberg Compares NYC Teachers Union to NRA
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Mayor Bloomberg is frustrated that the New York City United Federation of Teachers does not agree with his plan to evaluate them by test scores. He has been berating the union, as have the city’s tabloids, for weeks. But now he hit a new low. He compared the teachers’ union to the National Rifle Association. Coming [...]
For-Profit Charter Takes Over Muskegon Heights
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
In Michigan, the state government decided it was tired of all the fiscal woes of certain districts, so it handed them to emergency managers, who gave them to for-profit operators. Michigan Public Radio has been watching events in Muskegon Heights. The word that is most commonly heard is: Chaos. The charter operator fired all the [...]
Uniting Supporters of Public Schools in Tennessee
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Here is a great new parent and community group supporting strong public schools in Tennessee. Please check it out. Are there active parent groups in Memphis? Chatanooga? Knoxville? Other cities and towns? Please write to let us know.
Carl Cohn: The “Parent Trigger” Is Obscene Verbiage
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Carl Cohn is one of our nation’s most distinguished educators. He had led many school districts, received innumerable awards, and now serves as a member of the California State Board of Education. Like many people, Dr. Cohn finds the imagery of the “parent trigger” unseemly. Why suggest that parents take up arms and shoot someone, [...]
The Problem with Choice
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
A reader from Oregon explains the destructive consequences of choice. School choice has been a goal of the right for decades and is now embraced by the Obama administration: “For US education to thrive, charters must go. “Some Win, Some Lose with Open Enrollment”. The headline in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard may seem like an [...]
Learning from Kansas City
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
A reader writes to describe what happened in Kansas City as a warning to other cities (John Covington left the superintendency of Kansas City on short notice to head the Michigan Education Achievement Authority, which was created to oversee low-performing districts across the state): Learn from Kansas City’s mistakes. You spoke – in another blog, [...]