A Letter to John Merrow
Since I started this blog, I have periodically named people as heroes of American education because they have been courageous in standing up for the rights of children, for good education, and against powerful and misguided policies that do harm to children and public education. Some have risked their careers and liivelihoods. They deserve recognition. Now along comes John Merrow, whose work I hav
Diane Ravitch Is More than a Writer of Books
On Diane Ravitch: A Brief EssayJim HornOn September 18, Joe Bowers listed 33 reviews of Diane Ravitch’s new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Since then, many other reviews have appeared, including a very substantial one by George Schmidt at Substance News. Please see Joe’s list for some very good play-by-play reviews.
What Albert Einstein Said About Standardizing
Thanks to Robert Shepherd for sharing this great quote: “I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.” —— Albert Einstein, Saturday Evening Post interview, 10/26/1929″
A Young Teacher-in-Training, Making Sense
The author of this email requested anonymity, for obvious reasons. I started reading your blog recently and it has been a lifesaver. I was a participant in the (as I learned) corporate-reform-driven Teaching Fellows program in XXXXX, and I was cut at the end of the their pre-service training. This was, as it turned out, a good thing, since I wasn’t ready to teach (nor was anyone in the progra
DC Insiders See Bleak Future for CCSS
This poll of DC insiders shows a deep pessimism about the prospects for Common Core and reauthorization of NCLB. Most interesting observations: • “Any bandwidth Congress has seems to be devoted to re‐litigating the health care act.” • “There’s no sense of compromise and no incentive on either side to try to compromise.” • “Arne Duncan has so mangled federal education at this point that it’s going
US DOE Suspends Research Website on “What Works”
This is truly astonishing news. Valerie Strauss reports today that the U.S. Department of Education sent out an email announcing the suspension of the “What Works Clearinghouse,” a site where the Department publishes reports about research and shows “what works.” Valerie Strauss notes: “I won’t mention the irony in the fact that department spends millions on school reform that has no proven record
Florida Will Drop Common Core Tests
The architects of the Common Core standards wanted to rush them into implementation, and Arne Duncan used the federal government’s billions to coerce states to “voluntarily” adopt the standards, if necessary, sight unseen. Now they are paying the price of their haste. There is very little buy-in. The Tea Party on one side, and critics of standardization and scripted curricula on the other, are att
Major Corporations Fighting Common Core Backlash
I am not happy with the way that Common Core was developed. Very few people were involved in this effort to develop national standards. Once a document was in hand, the Obama administration made adoption of the standards a condition of eligibility for participation in its $4.35 billion Race to the Top. Since then, adoption of the CCSS has become a condition to receive waivers from Arne Duncan from
Here is a Good Turnaround Story
Murkland Elementary School in Lowell, Massachusetts, has seen a remarkable improvement in its test scores. The local newspaper reported the story. Nothing was said about firing the principal, firing the teachers, firing the entire staff. Nothing was said about turning the school over to the state or giving it to private entrepreneurs. Something else happened. Teamwork, collaboration. What a fresh
Perdido Street Reviews “Reign of Error”
Blogger Perdido Street School reviewed “Reign of Error” and said that he would be giving it to his friends and family who got their views from Oprah and the Today Show. He might have added NBC’s “Education Nation” and many other outlets in the mainstream media that spread misinformation about our nation’s public schools. He writes: Those are the people we want to read this book and to become fam
The Failure of Charter Schools in Ohio, $7 Billion Later
This is an important summary of the failure of the charter school movement in Ohio, from the Ohio Coalition for Education and Adequacy: A “noble” experiment to force the improvement of the public common school: Fifteen years and $7 billion dollars later the charter school gamble has not made the grade. 9/24/2013 The Department of Education’s ranking of schools and districts reveals that 83 out of
Latest Census Shows Poverty Remains at High Point of Past Half Century
So many reformers tell us that charter schools will end poverty, or that we should “fix” the schools before we even attempt to “fix” poverty. We have a lot of fixing to do, even without thousands more of those miracle charter schools staffed by TFA ingenues. The latest figures from the U.S. Census show that poverty remains stuck at 15%, about 46.5 million Americans. In the past half-century, the p
Why Does the Chicago Tribune Want Vouchers?
Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, is a strong supporter of public education. Surprisingly, the Lab School is private but has a teachers’ union. That is the school where the children of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan were enrolled, as are the children of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Horton here tries to figure out why the Chicago Tribune is so eager to promote vouchers in
Does “College-and-Career Readiness” Begin in Pre-K?
When should children get on track for college and careers? Is third grade too late? How about kindergarten? Or pre-kindergarten? Or in the womb? It is never too soon, according to those with products you must buy now. This teacher describes the latest sales pitch: “The other day I received an email from Pearson promoting their PreK curriculum: OWL: Opening the World of Learning (2011). While the
Gary Rubinstein Reviews “Reign of Error”
Gary Rubinstein has written a wonderful, thoughtful review of “Reign of Error.” There are many highly quotable observations in his review, I liked this one best, because it goes to the heart of why we educate. If you get that wrong, then you can’t get anything else right. He writes: “For me, my favorite section was an eight page chapter, chapter 24, called ‘The Essentials of a Good Education.’
Bruce Baker Demolishes Hanushek’s Latest Crisis
Bruce Baker is really ticked about Erik Hanushek’s new video promoting the “education crisis” and asserting that money is definitely not the answer. Hanushek holds up Florida as a model and points to Wyoming and New York to make his point that money doesn’t matter. Baker doesn’t agree, and he assembles data to make the following points: *States with weaker unions (higher number in ranking, meaning
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 9-23-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Tests Are Loaded with ErrorsHeather Vogell, a stellar reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has done in-depth investigative reporting on the standardized tests that now are used to determine the fate of students, teachers, principals, and schools. She has found a surprising number of error