Countering “Reform Nonsense” with Common Sense
A Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch
By John Thompson.
This post completes a three part series of reviews of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch that seeks to hold both Diane Ravitch and corporate school reformers accountable for their analyses, recommendations, and predictions about school improvement. I have sometimes challenged Ravitch, questioning the use of terms like “corporate reform” and “privatizers,” but a careful reading of this new anthology confirms the pattern I have repeatedly witnessed. When she and I disagree, history repeatedly proved me wrong.
Since I have invested so much time trying to communicate with reformers, I wish I could identify mistakes in Ravitch’s writing that we could acknowledge, rectify, and use as an opportunity for a dialogue with test-driven, charter-driven reformers. But, whether you agree or disagree with Ravitch, there is no doubt that she is a meticulous scholar, and I found no such errors.
On the other hand, as the history of school reform unfolds, it becomes harder and harder to explain how sincere and smart reformers could have persisted so long, defending such a reality-free ideology of disruptive transformation. I used to keep revising my diagnoses, each time attributing the Billionaires Boys Club’s disastrous experiments to a greater and greater capacity for hubris. Now, I even have to accept Ravitch’s harshest judgments. She also acknowledged the sincerity of most of the reform movement’s leaders, while explaining why disruptive innovation “doesn’t produce better education, but it produces profits.” Nearly two decades after NCLB, I must agree with Ravitch’s explanation, “Maybe that is the point of disruption.”
Now that Betsy Devos, a funder and an advocate of Michigan’s “choice” campaign, is the Secretary of Education, we should see that state’s outcomes as a prime case study, documenting the legacy of corporate school reform in that state, as well as predicting future outcomes if we cannot find a new method of school improvement. Ravitch cites an Education Trust study which shows:
Among the 2015 NAEP results highlighted in the report:• Michigan ranked 41st in fourth-grade reading, down from 28th in 2003.• The state ranked 42nd in fourth-grade math, down from 27 in 2003.
Also, I wish I could disagree, but we owe it to our students to join with Ravitch in admitting, “Don’t like Betsy Devos? Blame the Democrats.”
Of course, we can’t fully explain Devos and Trump by documenting CONTINUE READING: Countering "Reform Nonsense" with Common Sense - Living in Dialogue
