Amy Prime Reviews “Reign of Error”
Amy Prime teaches second grade in Prime, Iowa. She also writes frequently for newspapers in Iowa. This review of Reign of Error appeared in the Des Moines Register. Prime says that if she had designed the jacket, “it would include an illustration of Diane Ravitch, sledgehammer in hand, smashing a brick wall with the words “Education Reform.” We would see bricks falling down with words on them such
How the NYC DOE Dumped Low-Performing Kids into Struggling Schools
The New York Annenberg Institute for School Reform compiled. Shocking report on the Bloomberg administration’s policy of dumping “over-the-counter” students into struggling schools or schools already set for closure. This as a terrible disservice to the students. For the already struggling schools, it was like throwing a concrete weight to a drowning man. Instead of support, the schools got the ne
Philadelphia Child Dies, No School Nurse Available
Governor Tom Corbett’s budget cuts may have claimed their first victim. Daniel Denvir writes: “Sixth-grader Laporshia Massey died from asthma complications, according to her father, who says he rushed her to the emergency room soon after she got home from school on the afternoon of Sept. 25. He says Laporshia had begun to feel ill earlier that day at Bryant Elementary School, where a nurse is on
Mark NAISON: Test-Related Stress for Students and Teachers
Professor Mark NAISON reports on the conclusions of a social worker who is getting large numbers of referrals of students who are sick with test-anxiety and teachers who,now find they work in a hostile environment due to the stress of high-stakes testing. Here is an excerpt: “In the fall of 2012, I started to receive an inordinate number of student referrals from several different school district
Great News from Toledo
A new grassroots group has formed, created by suburban parents in Ohio who recognize that Governor Kasich’s “reform” agenda is destroying their community schools. Here is a report from a regular reader: Great news from Toledo: http://www.ourtownsylvania.com/Education/2013/10/02/shrinking-school-budgets-reviewed.html “Toledo area school district treasurers Wednesday participated in a panel discu
The Public Educator Reviews “Reign of Error”
The Public Educator is a Néw York City public school teacher. In this review, this blogger expresses chagrin to hear another teacher echoing pseudo-reformer claims. The other teacher disapproved of candidate de Blasio’s plans to alleviate poverty. “Without success, I tried to change her mind by referring to Diane’s book and some of the information contained within it. She did not believe me when I
Gary Rubinstein Analyzes Rhee’s Teacher Town Hall Meeting
Few of us attended one of Michelle Rhee’s “teacher town hall” meetings in Los Angeles, Birmingham, and Philadelphia. Fortunately, the meeting in Los Angeles was videotaped and released. Gary Rubinstein, ex-TFA and current math teacher at Stuyvesant High School, watched the videotape closely and analyzed the exchanges. He shows how carefully stage-managed the event was, and his commentary is both s
Cynthia Liu Urges President Obama to Read “Reign of Error”
Cynthia Liu, the founder of the K-12 News Network and a public school parent in California, urges President Obama to read ”Reign of Error.“ Liu warns him that he won’t like it, but that is exactly why he must read it. He must listen to views other than the ones he gets from his staff and the Department of Education, which no doubt gives him a rosy picture of the great success of Race to the Top. L
Privatizers in Louisiana, Worried That They Are Failing
The blogger Louisiana Educator describes a meeting in Baton Rouge where leaders of the corporate reform movement worried about the progress of their plans to privatize education in the state. Time is running out. This is a chilling post. I hope that its author, experienced educator Mike Deshotels, won’t mind if I excerpt this long introduction. You should read it all. A small private meeting was h
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 10-10-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Andrea Gabor: inBloom, Student Data: Follow the MoneyIn this brilliant and frightening post, Andrea Gabor connects the dots that lead from your child’s personal, confidential information to a data cloud where marketers can hack into everything they want to know about your child. Whose money is behind it? One guess. Who is making mo