Public School Haters: Their M. O.
Diane Ravitch recently asked: "What kind of a strategy causes a general to turn his artillery on his own troops?" She was referring I believe to the group of State Superintendents who have named themselves the Chiefs for Change to promote the implementation of the most radical parts of today's education reforms in their states. Ravitch was referring to the destructive use of inaccurate VAM systems for evaluating teachers and the promotion of vouchers and charter schools which take away critical resources from public schools. John White who has proclaimed himself one of the chiefs for change has set a quota of 10% of VAM rated teachers to be found ineffective each year, no matter how much student test scores may improve. The VAM system picks mostly a new batch of teachers to rate as ineffective each year because the VAM rating system is very erratic and unreliable. VAM ratings change drastically for a given teacher from year to year even if the teacher continues to teach exactly the same in successive years. According to an email I got from White, he and BESE intend to impose the 10% failure factor on Louisiana teachers indefinitely or until BESE chooses to end it. That's what Ravitch is talking about when she questions why a general would fire on his own troops.
But this is all part of the Modus Operandi of what I call the public education haters. One of the basic assumptions of the public education haters is the idea that most of the low performance of some of our public
But this is all part of the Modus Operandi of what I call the public education haters. One of the basic assumptions of the public education haters is the idea that most of the low performance of some of our public
