Here's Looking at You, Kid Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Here's Looking at You, Kid Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Florida: State Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Challenge to Third Grade Reading Test: Kids Lose, Stupidity Wins

1by dianeravitch / 1h

Peter Greene writes here about the latest setback to Florida parents challenging the state’s law requiring that students take and pass the third grade test or be flunked. Peter explains why this law is useless, although it does have the result 

Why Are These People Allowed to Tell Schools What to Do?

4by dianeravitch / 1h

Politico discusses the state plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act and raises the question: Why are these uninformed, distant, unqualified people allowed to tell schools what to do? Betsy DeVos and everyone she has appointed 

Do You Want to Host a Community Screening of “Backpack Full of Cash”?

5by dianeravitch / 24min

Sarah Mondale, Vera Aronow, and Stone Lantern Films have created an excellent professional documentary about the fight to save our public schools from corporate reformers. It is called “Backpack Full of Cash.” They have been 

Arizona: Advocates for Public Schools Collecting Signatures to Block Voucher Expansion

4by dianeravitch / 35min

Good news from Arizona. Supporters of the state’s underfunded public schools say they are on track to collect enough signatures to block the expansion of vouchers and force a referendum. “Save Our Schools spokeswoman Dawn 

Mississippi: The Only Majority-Black District That Earned an A

2by dianeravitch / 24min

A reader who grew up in Clinton, Mississippi, shared this story, which appeared in the Hechinger Report. She was in third grade when the district integrated its schools and made the fateful decision to pursue equity for all students. In 2016, half of all black students in Mississippi attended school in a district rated D or F; 86 percent of the students in those districts were black. In districts

Jan Resseger: The Sordid Story of ECOT and Its Ripoff of Taxpayers in Ohio

4by dianeravitch / 1h

Jan Resseger writes in The Progressive about the biggest charter scam in Ohio . When a charter operator gets a lot of money from the state, and selfsame charter operator gives generously to legislators, how can said charter operator ever be held accountable? In Ohio, the press got fed up with ECOT and started paying attention to charter frauds. Politicians cannot tolerate constant negative press.

Florida Editorial: Will the Fight to Save Public Education Spread?

6by dianeravitch / 2h

Congratulations to the editorial board Of the the Sun-Sentinel in Broward County, Florida, which published a strong editorial lambasting the Legislature for passing HB 7069. Several school districts are planning a lawsuit to stop the law from being implemented. The law will do massive harm to the state’s public schools while diverting millions to the charter industry. Several key legislators have

Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris: A Critical Review of the PBS Special “Schools, Inc.”

32by dianeravitch / 3h

Between April and June of this year, PBS distributed a three-hour documentary called “Schools Inc.” to its member stations. I was invited to comment on the program by WNET, the PBS station in New York City. It was a 10-minute interview , and not nearly enough time to respond to all the issues covered in a three-hour narrative. I was certainly grateful to WNET for inviting my response but thought

YESTERDAY

Texas: Special Session of Legislature Opens Tomorrow, to Restart Voucher Debate

7by dianeravitch / 22h

Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session of the Texas legislature, beginning tomorrow, which will consider a school finance reform bill and vouchers, among other things. The public schools of Texas are underfunded. In 2011, the legislature cut the public school budget by more than $5 billion. Despite a growth in enrollment, that money has never been restored. Sensible leaders recognize t

Betsy DeVos and ALEC in Denver This Week

23by dianeravitch / 23h

Betsy DeVos will be the keynote speaker at the ALEC annual meeting in Denver this week. Protestors will be there to greet her, although the U.S. Department of Education is keeping silent about which day she will appear. ALEC has been promoting deregulation and privatization since the early 1970s. It is funded by major corporations and has nearly 2,000 members who are state legislators. It writes

Trump and the Russian Mafia: A Cautionary Story

3by dianeravitch / 1d

Craig Unger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, published an article about Donald Trump’s relations with the Russia mafia. It is called “Trump’s Russian Laundromat.” Remember when Trump said he had no connections to Russia? That’s not accurate. His connections go all the way back to 1987, when he first flew to Russia to discuss building a luxury hotel in Moscow. All expenses paid. The hotel wa

Betsy DeVos Tells Senators She Will “Return” Office for Civil Rights to a “Neutral” Role

62by dianeravitch / 1d

A group of Democratic Senators wrote a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to express their concern that she was abandoning civil rights enforcement. DeVos wrote back to say that she was “ returning” the Office for Civil Rights to its role as a “neutral” investigative agency. It is at a time like this that DeVos’s ignorance of education policy and history becomes embarrassing. OCR is the

Gary Rubinstein: Does KIPP Deserve to Expand in Philadelphia?

4by dianeravitch / 1d

Gary Rubinstein learned that KIPP plans to add more schools in Philadelphia and nearly triple its enrollment. So Gary did what he always did: he checked the public data for KIPP in Philadelphia. He found that KIPP has one high school in the city. “ That school got the lowest possible rating, essentially an F. Not only were their test scores low, but they also got the lowest possible rating in ‘gr

Philadelphia: KIPP Gets Whatever It Wants, Despite Poor Performance

30by dianeravitch / 1d

Despite lackluster results at some of its Philadelphia schools, KIPP plans to increase the number of itsschools in the city and more than double its enrollment, from 1,770 to 4,400 students. Current plans call the growth of K-12 networks of KIPP schools. Apparently, the KIPP Network will accept students in the early grades but not in middle school or high school. KIPP wants to create its “culture

New Jersey: Linda Weber, Candidate for Congress, Thanks You for Your Help!

4by dianeravitch / 1d

Linda Weber is running against a Republican incumbent in New Jersey. Hers is one of the districts that Democrats hope to flip, so as to gain control of the House in 2018 and stop ztrump’s plans to defund public schools, environmental 

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