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Diane Ravitch Schools Us On Public Education
By on March 3, 2014
Buried under a lot of other news was a conference in Austin at which the invaluable Diane Ravitch gave the keynote address and which was dedicated to starting a national movement to defend the very concept of public education.
"The carrot-and-stick philosophy represents early 20th century behaviorism, and the social efficiency views of Frederick Winslow Taylor... But modern cognitive psychology rejects these ideas," she said, the kind of burn only a historian could lay down. More current thinking, she said, suggests that idealism and the freedom teach well is a much more powerful motivator than fear.... These reformers have the nerve to say they're leading the civil rights movement of our time," she said. But "no excuses" charter schools and miracle school turnaround stories, Ravitch said, only simplify the complex problem of poverty. "Some poor kids nevertheless manage to succeed, but let's not kid ourselves: The deck is stacked against them."
The school "reform" movement, and the grifters getting rich thereby, have had all the best
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| Wendy Robinson discusses the film as other panel members listen. A panel discussed a documentary film "Rise Above the Mark" which is about school reform and standardized testing in Indiana. The film shown and a panel of experts discussed it at Clowes Memorial Hall Friday February 28, 2014. The panel included Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of educaiton; David Harris from The Mind Trust; Wendy Robinson, superintendent of Fort Wayne schools, Robert Enlow from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and Greg Lineweaver, North Central High School. |
It was a two-sided debate in front of an audience hooting for one side.
Opponents and supporters of school reform took to the stage Friday night at Clowes Memorial Hall after the debut Indianapolis screening of "Rise Above the Mark," a documentary examining the impact of privatization and high-stakes standardized tests on public education.
During a sometimes raucous and pointed panel debate, the speakers — two for, two against and one in the middle —found little common ground as they discussed hot-button issues facing education in Indiana and across the country: teacher morale, charter schools, vouchers and other efforts of the school reform movement.
Diane Ravitch, a one-time supporter of school reform but now a nationally heralded critic of the movement, was welcomed like somewhat of a rock star by most of the 1,000 in attendance. Ravitch, an education historian, is former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush.
"I am opposed to testing and accountability. The only thing you learn from testing is what families have the most income," Ravitch said to a roar of applause. She added that teacher evaluations determined by student test scores, like the system used in Indiana, are junk science.
When David Harris, founder and CEO of The Mind Trust and Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, discussed ways