NYU Prof Says American Education a “Hoax”
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Diane Ravitch
INDIANAPOLIS ― American education has been besieged by an onslaught of “hoaxes” that threaten to undermine traditional public schools and demoralize teachers.
That’s the message that New York University research and education professor Diane Ravitch delivered over the weekend to kick off the annual conference of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
In a far-reaching speech in which she lambasted a variety of players on the educational landscape — from self-styled education “reformers” to Teach for America to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — Ravitch said American schoolchildren are being shortchanged by an inordinate emphasis on testing.
She took particular aim at teacher evaluation models known as value-added models, or VAMs, that seek to measure teacher effectiveness by the test scores of the students they teach.
“For nearly five years, states and districts have been trying to evaluate teachers by test scores, and it hasn’t worked anywhere,” Ravitch said. “It makes testing too important, promotes teaching to the test, and gaming of the system.
“We know all know this. But the policymakers don’t. Where’s the evidence? It’s a hoax.
“By ‘hoax’ I mean a legislative mandate or a program that you must obey that has no evidence behind it,” said Ravitch, who donned a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Where’s the Evidence?” to help underscore her point.
She further criticized calls by Secretary Duncan and others to evaluate teacher prep programs based on the test scores of students taught by program graduates.
“That’s a long stretch and takes ‘value-added’ to a higher level of absurdity,” Ravitch said.
“So those who choose to teach children with the greatest challenges will run the risk of being labeled
