Diane Ravitch's blog
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DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG
Why You Should Not Teach to Tests
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 28 minutes ago
A reader shares her experience grading tests. I am not a teacher, but I admire them. I attended public schools in CA in the 1950s. Our class size was around the 20′s. We were integrated. We did fine. I am absolutely opposed to standardized tests. I used to grade the old TX TAAS tests. I [...]
Friends of NCLB Quarrel Over Waivers
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 hour ago
No child Left Behind is without question the most destructive, the most intrusive, and the most misguided federal education legislation in history. It has undermined federalism and put the federal government in charge of very public school in the nation, a role unimagined when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965 or [...]
Will This Historic School Live or Die?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 16 hours ago
DWC High: How A School Can Teach Us All (Trailer) This is a preview of a new hour-long documentary about the fight to keep New York’s DeWitt Clinton High School alive. Based in the Bronx, home of the NY Yankees, “The Bronx Bombers” It has educated more than 200,000 students over a hundred years. It [...]
Good News! Texas Republicans Turning Against Testing Fever
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 19 hours ago
Texas Republicans are hearing from their constituents–in the grocery store, at the barber, wherever they go. People think that testing in Texas is out of control. The last state commissioner Robert Scott said so. He called the testing obsession a “vampire,” sucking the life out of education. More than 80% of local school boards agree. [...]
Why We Need Public Schools!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Why do we have public schools? Would we be better off, as certain reformers now think, if everyone had school choice and went to a charter or used a voucher to go to a private or religious school? Do we need public schools? I asked Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville [...]
Jeannie Oakes Answers the Teacher’s Question about Diversity and Grouping
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
On January 20, I published a post by a teacher who asked about how to deal with the heterogeneity of the student population. She said that charters appealed to parents who wanted less heterogeneity. Here is an excerpt: “We complain that charters are skimming the top, we have to take all comers and we can’t [...]
About This Blog
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Thank you for reading the blog. Thank you for joining what must surely be the liveliest discussion about education issues anywhere on the Web. I did not know how this blog would evolve when I started it on April 26 last year. Since then, it has had more than 2.7 million page views. So I [...]
Strange Bedfellows Oppose Common Core in Indiana
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
Glenda Ritz, the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana, thrashed reform idol Tony Bennett last November. She received more votes than anyone else on the ballot except the Attorney General (she ran ahead of the governor). Tony Bennett, who famously supports free-market solutions to education problems, is an advocate for charters and vouchers, [...]
The Invasion of the Charter Schools and the Parents Who Fought Back
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago
The Village Voice has a fascinating article about the battle between the charter schools that moved into the gentrifying neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn and the parents who resisted. The “Superman” story goes out the window. The schools are not broken, and parents are not crying out to be “saved” by Eva Moskowitz and her [...]
What Happens When TFA Takes Over Vegas and Nevada
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
EduShyster tells a fascinating story about Nevada’s love affair with TFA. It is humorous but not funny. Nevada has large numbers of non-English speaking students but does not want to pay what t csts to help them learn. Nevada has the lowest graduation rate in the nation, worse even than Michele Rhee’s D.C. Schools. Las [...]
Milwaukee: Charter Schools No Better than Public Schools
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
The Forward Institute sent me their latest study of charter school performance compared to public schools in Milwaukee. Here is the takeaway: There is no significant difference between the performance of public schools and charter schools. However, public schools in Milwaukee are more successful with the poorest students than are charter schools. None of this [...]
A Compleat Guide to the Corporate Reform Movement
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Leonie Haimson, who leads Class Size Matters in New York City and was a co-founder of Parents Across America, has worked with other parents and with educators to compile a comprehensive list of corporate reform organizations and to identify the lingo of the reformers. She asks your help in reviewing the list and letting her [...]
Uncommon assessments for common core?
garyrubinstein at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Guest Post by Gary Rubinstein garyrubinstein.teachforus.org ‘Rigor’ is in, and the common core standards promise to raise the achievement in this country by raising expectations which students always rise to meet. As a staunch “status-quo defender,” it might surprise ‘reformers’ that I have some pretty radical ideas about how I’d change the math curriculum in [...]
Charter Schools and the New Segregation
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
A reader offers his observations: Charter Schools, a failure that cannot be measured. January 12, 2013 by Joe Hernandez As I drive happily and optimistically through our South Florida roads, I can’t fail to notice the familiar signs we are all accustomed to viewing, the burger chains, gas stations and the strip malls. As an [...]
Silence of the TFA Lambs
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Gary Rubinstein wonders why so many of TFA’s new teachers have been so quiet, not blogging about their first-year experiences. He gets a ton of responses. Is this, he wonders, the silence of the sacrificial lambs?
How Testing Has Corrupted Education
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
EduShyster has written one of the most disturbing posts ever. It is about the business of raising “achievement.” It is about how “achievement” refers not to accomplishment or courage or integrity or grace under pressure, but….test scores. It is about how the business of raising test scores is very lucrative for a few corporations. It [...]
Louisiana Believes In That?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Crazy Crawfish is after Jindal and White again. And who can blame him? These guys are almost beyond parody. They have another wacky idea about education that will make someone very rich. The kids–not so much.
Who Is Buying Your Data?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
A reader offers these comments: “Teachers are ‘free’ to teach ‘personally’ “… that is if we and our kids are willing to sell their identity for products and to data consolidators. We need to stop web-based education. Period. Dangerous stuff. Incorrect and manipulated numbers that will cause kids to fail, teachers to be fired, schools [...]
When Your Best Is Never Enough
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago
Diana Rogers, a regular reader of the blog, writes about her experience and her school: I’ve worked for twenty years in a district that has a wonderful staff. There have been a few unsuitable teachers throughout the years, and the administration had no trouble identifying them and getting rid of them; a few others who [...]
Susan Ohanian on Common Core Standards
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
If you don’t like the Common Core standards, you will enjoy reading Susan Ohanian’s blast at them. Ohanian thinks that the CC is a massive error at best, a sordid conspiracy by the elites at worst. What do you think?
Deshotels: Telling the Truth about Teacher Reforms in Louisiana
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
My guest blogger today is Mike Deshotels of Louisiana. Deshotels taught Chemistry and Physics at Zachary High School near Baton Rouge starting in 1966. He served as Research Director for the Louisiana Association of Educators and moved to the position of Executive Director for the LAE/NEA before retiring. He now writes a blog called The [...]
Who Abandoned Detroit?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Marcie Lippsett writes about the bipartisan failure to save Detroit. The public schools of Detroit, like those of Muskegon Heights and Highland Park, have been put under the unilateral rule of an Emergency Manager appointed by the governor. In the latter two districts, the public schools were abolished, and the children were given to a [...]
To Gates: What Matters Most about Data Is Who Decides What to Measure
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
Bill Gates wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal last week about how to solve all the world’s biggest problems. The answer he said was: Measurement. This writer, Cathy O’Neill, disagrees. It is not that measurement is unimportant but that measurement is not neutral. What matters most is who decides what to measure. Most [...]
How to Fix Oklahoma’s Report Cards
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago
A group of scholars in Oklahoma have reviewed the state’s simplistic A-F report cards for schools and proposed a better way to look at school effectiveness. The Tulsa World provided a link so perhaps many people in the state will see it. Jeb Bush pioneered this grading system on Florida. It puts far too much [...]
Mercedes Schneider on NCTQ and Wendy Kopp: Part 7
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Mercedes Scneider continues her dissection of the nonpartisan National Council on Teacher Quality. This post examines the qualifications of Wendy Kopp.
Teacher: There Is No Florida Miracle
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
You may have heard that former Governor Jeb Bush regularly parades the “Florida miracle,” perhaps preparing for a 2016 run at the presidency. The formula, we hear, is testing and accountability, grading schools, charters and vouchers, and of course, online courses and schools. This Florida teacher wrote a comment and gives a different view from [...]
What You Need to Know About ALEC
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Want to know who is pulling the stings of he corporate reform movement? Keep your eye on ALEC, short for the American Legislative Exchange Council. This is a secretive group of about 2,000 state legislators, major corporations and far-right think tanks. The goal of ALEC is privatization and advancing the interests of corporations. ALEC drafts [...]
Let Them Eat Cake!
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
EduShyster has generously written a guest post for readers of this blog. She has timed this post with the release of Michelle Rhee’s memoir, which makes its debut today. (No one knows who wrote Rhee’s book, but some Washingtonians think they know.) In honor of the day, EduShyster has collected a recipe from Adell Cothorne, the [...]
Step up and show your support for Seattle Teachers!
jonpelto at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Wednesday, Feb. 6th, 2013 is the National Day of Action to support Garfield High School and the other MAP test boycotters who are facing possible 10 Day Suspensions without pay for refusing to force students to take an unfair, counterproductive and bad standardized test. Information about the Day of Action can be found here: http://scrapthemap.wordpress. [...]
Self-described “radical” Michelle Rhee and her PR machine roll into New York City
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Michelle Rhee will be speaking at New York City’s Cornell Club, to promote her new book “Radical”, on Tuesday Feb. 5, 2013 at 6 PM. (6 East 44th St (between 5th and Madison, map here.) , New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, Class Size Matters and other pro-public education parents and advocates will be there to protest [...]
What Great Things Happen in Your School?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Every year the sixth-grade students at Albert T. Lawson Intermediate School in Essex Junction, Vermont, build an igloo. It is part of a multidisciplinary study of polar regions in Mr. Gustafson’s class, a tradition for 30 years. Last year, there was so little snow that the students missed out on this beloved tradition. But, this [...]
Is This What Bill Gates Means by Good Education?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Last week, Bill Gates wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he explained how to solve the world’s biggest problems. The article was titled, modestly, “My Plan to Fix the World’s Biggest Problems.” The answer is simple: Measurement. To prove his point in education, he pointed to the Eagle Valley High [...]
Good News: Maine Democrats Slow Down GOP Push for Cyber Charter
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Maine Democrats insist on a more careful review of the evidence about the track record of cyber charters before allowing K12 to open one in their state. Governor Paul LePage is furious! He wants a K12 cyber charter to draw students and funding away from public schools and he sees no point in reviewing the [...]
How Dumb and Destructive Are NCLB’s Metrics?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago
Did you think that NCLB identifies only “failing schools” as failing schools? Guess again. Matt Di Carlo demonstrates that a school can get excellent gains year after year and yet still be a “failing school.” When will Congress wake up?
The inconvenient truth of education ‘reform’
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss picked up an important piece by Jeff Bryant. Jeff’s piece first appeared on the Campaign for America’s Future website. By Jeff Bryant Events this week revealed how market-driven education policies, deceivingly labeled as “reform,” are revealing their truly destructive effects on the streets and in the corridors of government. From [...]
Everything You Wanted to Know about VAM But Were Afraid to Ask
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
The Education Policy Analysis Archives is releasing a series of articles about VAM that you should read. Here are links to the first three. Forgive the formatting. I am copying the email I received. There are more on the way, including a dissection of the much over-hyped Raj Chetty, et al, analysis that made the [...]
Great News: NC Rallies Against Privatization
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
New North Carolina Champions Investment in Public Education Raleigh, NC—February 4, 2013—Public Schools First NC, a new statewide, non-partisan, grassroots advocacy group committed to high-quality public schools for North Carolina, has formed out of deep concern about the growing threat to privatize and weaken North Carolina’s public schools. Despite the fact that most North Carolinians [...]
Mercedes Schneider Continues Series on NCTQ: Part 6
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Mercedes Schneider, Louisiana teacher and Ph.D. in statistics and research methods, has been analyzing the board of the National Council on Teacher Quality. This is the sixth in the series.
From a Market Economy to a Market Society?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
I received the following fascinating email from Ed Johnson, who advocates for quality education in Atlanta, Georgia. “We have drifted [the past three decades] from having a market economy to being a market society.” –Michal Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University In his talk at the 2012 Aspen Ideas [...]
What Happens When the Bills Come Due?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
We have had at least ten years–in the case of Milwaukee, 22 years– of listening to boasting about how choice and competition will change everything. Charters and vouchers will close the achievement gap. They will prepare students who are college-ready. The bottom five percent of schools will be in the top twenty percent of schools. [...]
Is Detroit Shrinking by Plan or by Happenstance?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
The following comment was written in response to an earlier post about the decision by Roy Roberts, the emergency manager of Detroit’s schools, to close many more more schools. I would like to hear what readers think of this issue. My own take is that Governor Rick Snyder is antagonistic towards public schools, that he [...]
Jersey Jazzman Offers Good Advice to Pundits
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Readers of this blog know Jersey Jazzman as one of the sharpest bloggers on the web. I invited him to write something specially for the readers of this blog, and here it is: As an American public school teacher, one of my greatest frustrations is how little our debate about education has been [...]
Who Cut Arts Education in Los Angeles?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
A reader writes: Shakedown Artists A number of billboards have gone up recently in LAUSD board member and candidate for re-election, Monica Garcis’s district two months before school board elections. They read, ‘ Dream Big – Arts education fuels creative thinking’ and include a picture of a thirteen year old Monica Garcia. This billboard was [...]
The Case of the Disappearing Teachers
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
EduShyster has discovered a brilliant program for highly effective teachers who don’t plan to hang around for very long. Read it and get a good laugh, as you always do when you read EduShyster. Here is the sales pitch: Do you dream of CRUSHING the achievement gap but aren’t sure that a 14 hour work [...]
What Lies Ahead for Education in Obama’s Second Term?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Gerald Coles here analyzes President Obama’s inaugural speech to divine what the President has in mind when he thinks about education policy. Coles unpacks the assumptions. The President seems to think of education only in terms of economic needs. He sees children as global competitors. He thinks that schools can overcome poverty. It makes for [...]
Jersey Jazzman Evaluates Governor Cuomo
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Jersey Jazzman has been wondering whether governor Andrew Cuomo would copy the bullying tactics of New Jersey’s Governor Christie or would he adopt the collaborative style of Governor Jerry Brown. Those of us who live in New York wonder why it took our brilliant friend in New Jersey to make his decision.
Why Does Minneapolis Have So Many Segregated Charter Schools?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 5 days ago
Minneapolis is one of America’s prettiest cities in one of its most beautiful states. But it has an ugly secret. It has a charter sector that has resurrected segregation. Myron Orfield of the University of Minnesota Law School regularly tracks segregation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul schools. He says that seeing the charters–one white, one black–in [...]
Mercedes Schneider Continues NCTQ Inquiry: Part 5
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Mercedes Schneider has been reviewing the board of the National Council on Teacher Quality. NCTQ gives grades to teacher training institutions and has positioned itself as a nonpartisan voice on the subject of teacher quality. But what Dr. Schneider finds presents a different picture. Read her earlier commentaries on NCTQ, which have been posted daily [...]
National day of action for Garfield High School and Seattle schools boycotting the MAP:
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
This coming Wednesday, February 6, 2013 educators, students, parents and supporters of public education nation-wide will take action in support of Garfield High School teachers and all teachers in Seattle Public Schools who are refusing to administer the MAP test. Learn more at the Day of Action Facebook event page and on the Scrap The Map [...]
A Letter to Senator Tom Harkin
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
This reader read the article by Professor Helen Ladd and Edward Fiske and decided to write to Senator Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I am so grateful for Helen Ladd’s voice and work. Here is a letter I just sent to Senator Harkin, Chairman of the Senate [...]
Should Select Schools Be Compared to Non-Select Schools?
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
A New Orleans research group says comparing select and non-select schools is wrong. Yet boosters of select charters do it often.
A Billionaire Obsessed by Union-Phobia
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
What do you say about a billionaire in Idaho who sees unions as the biggest threat to the American way of life? As most people know, the number of people who belong to unions has declined dramatically in recent decades. As manufacturing jobs were outsourced to low-wage non-union countries, private sector unions shrank. Today, the [...]
More on Oregon Charter Scandal
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
An earlier post reported that officials in Oregon are trying to recover $20 million from two Oregon charter founders. A reader in Oregon added the following information: In 2010, AllPrep academies, Oregon’s home-grown charter founded by educational entrepreneur Tim King (a former North Clackamas School District teacher) began having financial problems. A decade previously, King [...]
Mercedes Schneider: Who Is NCTQ? Part 4
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
Mercedes Schneider, a teacher in Louisiana who holds a Ph.D. in statistics and research methods, has been analyzing the board membership of the National Council of Teacher Quality. NCTQ is working with U.S. News & World Report to grade every teacher education program in the nation. Dr. Schneider wanted to see the qualifications of those [...]
Louisiana’s Unbelievable State Board of Education
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 6 days ago
The state board of education in Louisiana, the Board f Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) is beyond parody. Just when you think they have hit bottom, they come up with another outrageous idea. BESE Is now talking about abolishing certification for teachers. They want to go back to the good old days when anyone could [...]
How Testing in Virginia Harms Students with Disabilities–And Their Teachers
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
In response to a post about the New York State tests, a teacher in Virginia sent this comment: As a VA public school teacher, let me assure you that the VA state tests are as bad as the NY State tests. I did my undergraduate degree in NY. It was very hard for my university [...]
Beware! Education Reformers Are Coming for Your School Board
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
Jonathan Pelto wrote this guest post. A former state legislator, he blogs about politics and education in Connecticut at “Wait, What?” –which can be found at jonathanpelto.com. I think the title of his blog refers to the fact that what is happening these days is often unbelievable. During the 2012 election cycle, we saw the [...]
Pennsylvania Rejects 8 New Cyber Charters
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
The Pennsylvania Secretary of Education rejected eight applications for new cyber charters. The state already has 16 cyber charters, with 32,000 students, all drawing from the entire state. The 12 cyber charters that have been around long enough to be rated all failed to make adequate yearly progress. The eight that were rejected hoped to [...]
Why Schools Can’t Do It Alone
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
Paul Thomas is one of our most eloquent critics of the idea that schools alone can overcome poverty. In this essay, he explains why. The money quote comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “In addition to the absence of coordination and sufficiency, the programs [addressing poverty] of the past all have another common failing [...]
An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice
dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 week ago
This post is offered in honor of school choice week. We are accustomed to hearing economists lecture on the virtues of markets and choice. Here is an economist who sees choice differently. Here is the money quote: “Today institutions of higher education, public and private, remain largely segregated by race, religion and economic condition. White [..
