KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

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

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

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Peter Greene’s Rules for Life

by dianeravitch / 11min

I never thought about sitting down and writing out my “rules for life,” but Peter Greene did. They are good as anything I could write, actually better, so I share them here with you.

If Hedge Funds Gobble Up the Free Press, Will Freedom of the Press Survive?

by dianeravitch / 1h

The New York Times reported on a huge merger of newspapers. In August, Gannett, the parent company of USA Today and more than 100 other dailies, and New Media Investment Group, the owner of the newspaper chain GateHouse Media, announced their intention to join forces. Over the next two months, the plan breezed through the regulatory process, winning approvals from the Justice Department and the E

YESTERDAY

Tom Ultican: I-Ready Sells 50-Year-Old Educational Failure

76by dianeravitch / 22h

Tom Ultican writes here that the i-Ready program is “Outcomes Based Education” in a new dress. It is, he writes, a fake innovation. He writes: i- Ready sells digital math and English lessons to school districts. It provides diagnostic testing which recommends interventions for struggling students that it then provides. i-Ready’s pedagogy embraces competency based education (CBE) a theory promoted

Evgeny Morozov on the “Moral Bankruptcy of Techno-Elites”

by dianeravitch / 23h

Evgeny Morozov writes about the political and social implications of technology. In this fascinating article, Morozov reveals and condemns the moral and intellectual vacuity of the leaders of the tech sector. For all the growing skepticism about Silicon Valley , many still believe that the digital revolution has a serious intellectual dimension, hashed out at conferences like Ted, online salons l

John Thompson on Natalie Wexler’s Book

26by dianeravitch / 1d

John Thompson is a historian and a retired teacher in Oklahoma. He writes: I have very strong, positive and negative feelings about Natalie Wexler’s The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to Fix It. For better and/or the worse, the Oklahoma State Department of Education has committed to what Wexler calls science-based reading instruction and what many exp

Robert Kuttner (and I) Challenge the New York Times Slant on Charter Schools

88by dianeravitch / 1d

Many people have written to me to complain about an article that appeared Wednesday on the front page of the New York Times , saying it was pro-charter propaganda. The article claims that black and brown parents are offended that the Democratic candidates (with the exception of Cory Booker, now polling at 1%) have turned their backs on charter schools. This is not true. Black parents in Little Ro

NOV 28

Happy Thanksgiving: A Meditation on Religious Liberty

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

Happy Thanksgiving! Today is a day when we pause and give thanks to whatever deity we worship (or not) for the blessings we enjoy: our freedom, our family, our friends, and our good fortune to live in a democracy where we are all responsible for making it better for our brothers and sisters. I want to share with you a profound speech delivered by our good friend Rev. Dr. Charles Foster Johnson ab

NOV 27

Peter Greene: Finn and Hess Make the Case for Tenure

by dianeravitch / 2d

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the firing of a charter school founder who had written an essay that offended some students and/or teachers at his charters, who accused him of “white supremacy.” At the time, I commented in response to my own post that Steven Wilson of Ascend should be more sympathetic to teacher “due process rights” (tenure) in light of what happened to him. Checker Finn and Rick

Jan Resseger is Thankful for #Red4Ed—So Am I

38by dianeravitch / 2d

Jan Resseger gives thanks for the teachers and other educators who boldly walked out and went out on strike over the past two years. So do I. These courageous educators challenged the national narrative that had been so deviously cultivated by billionaires and Wall Street about “failing schools” and “bad teachers,” in an effort to destroy public faith in public schools and promote privatization o

New Orleans: Parents and Students at Two Low-Performing Charter Schools Fight to Keep Them Open

23by dianeravitch / 2d

The superintendent of the New Orleans’ all-charter school district recommended the closure of two charter schools that received a grade of F, but parents and students turned out at the Orleans Parish School Board meeting to demand that the board override his decision and keep their schools open. Students, parents and leaders of two Orleans Parish charter schools turned out by the dozens on Thursd

Scandal: College Board Sells Student Data for $$$

100+by dianeravitch / 2d

The Wall Street Journal published an expose of the College Board’s practice of selling student data, which is illegal in some states. The colleges buy the names and addresses of students, encourage them to apply, then reject them so they can claim they are “exclusive.” It looks good on the US News phony ratings when colleges have a low acceptance rate. For 47 cents, the College Board will sell an

Mercedes Schneider: Big Money Buys Key Elections in Louisiana

by dianeravitch / 3d

If anyone doubts that big money is buying our democracy, read Mercedes Schneider’s post about the recent election in Louisiana. Anyone who doubts that ueber-wealthy ed reformers are purchasing elections in other states need only consider this November 10, 2019, campaign finance report for the Louisiana Federation for Children (LFC) Action Fund PAC. Even so, as one quickly realizes when following

Research: Teacher Effects on Student Height: A Cautionary Tale

53by dianeravitch / 3d

A group of scholars collaborated to write a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that studies how teachers affect student height. It is a wonderful and humorous takedown of the Raj Chetty et al thesis that the effects of a single teacher in the early grades may determine a student’s future lifetime earnings, her likelihood graduating from college, live in higher SES neighbo

NOV 26

Chester-Upland Fights Charter Takeover

28by dianeravitch / 3d

Staff and parents of students in the remaining public schools of the Chester-Upland district in Pennsylvania, are planning a rally to protest the charter proposal to take over all the elementary students. The district’s big charter, owned by a for-profit corporation that belongs to a wealthy lawyer, has lower scores on state tests than the public schools it wants to close. Chester Community Chart

Reader Defines “Grit”

by dianeravitch / 3d

Reader C.H. Rubinstein eases into the debate about GRIT. Oy, where have we heard this song & dance before? Grit is something your mom used to yell about, such as when you were playing outside, “Wipe your feet before you come in the house, or take your shoes off! Don’t get that grit all over my kitchen floor!” Or, as my sister would presently yell, “Who got the sink all grit-ty?! Clean it up NOW!!

Paul Waldman Remembers When Republicans Thought Trump Was a Charlatan and a Kook

33by dianeravitch / 3d

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post went down memory lane with prominent Republicans who called out Trump as a phony before he was elected. On Friday, the president of the United States called in to the daily festival of idiocy that is “Fox & Friends,” where he blathered and rambled for an entire hour. He slandered people, repeated ludicrous conspiracy theories, told numerous lies, and devolved i

Audrey Watters: No Plan in Place to Protect Our Democracy

by dianeravitch / 3d

Audrey Watters begins each of her posts at HEWN with a description of a bird. Then she gets into the story, the story in this one being an “epistemic crisis,” a society where truth itself is doubted, experts are dismissed, and everyone is entitled to not only their own opinions but their own facts. I particularly recommend her links. I enjoyed the one about Mr. Rogers. It compels to think about o

Jan Resseger: The Tragedy of “Portfolio Districts”

32by dianeravitch / 4d

Jan Resseger writes here about the damage that “portfolio districts” do to students, schools, and communities. The original concept for “portfolio districts” was developed by Paul Hill of the Gates-funded Center for Reinventing Public Educatuon at the University of Washington. The fundamental idea was that the school board would act like a stock portfolio manager, closing low-performing schools,

News: Big REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Exits the Charter Real Estate Sector

30by dianeravitch / 4d

Carol Burris writes about the latest news from the charter industry. This is the same company that Valerie Strauss wrote about, called “Entertainment Properties Trust.” It’s CEO, Dennis Brain, told an interviewer that charter schools were a sound investment, had long waiting lists, and were guaranteed government revenues. But that rosy picture has dimmed. The long waiting lists are fictional. Cha

NOV 25

Tennessee: “Achievement School District” Continues to Show Very Low Test Scores

55by dianeravitch / 4d

Back in 2012, Tennessee introduced its “Achievement School District” and hired YES Prep charter founder Chris Barbic to run it. The ASD was funded with $100 million from the state’s Race to the Top grant. Barbic said he would take the state’s lowest-performing public schools, hand them off to charter operators, and catapult them into the top 25% in the state within five years. Year after year, th

Steven Singer: White Billionaires Should Not Buy the Charter Debate

200+by dianeravitch / 4d

Teacher Steven Singer writes here about the protest at an Elizabeth Warren debate in Atlanta. He notes that a reporter for The Intercept, Ryan Grim, attended the rally and wrote that the protestors were funded by the Waltons, who have never shown any support for civil rights issues and are actively hostile to unions, which lift low-income workers out of poverty. He also quotes Intercept journalis

The Curious Case of The Century Foundation and Its Charter Advocacy

22by dianeravitch / 4d

The Century Foundation is supposed to be a liberal foundation. I had numerous contacts with it when it was previously known as The Twentieth Century Fund. My most memorable experience involved my membership on a task force in 1983 or so, which prepared a critique of American education and the need for reform. For that era, our task force report was fairly run-of-the-mill. What was remarkable was

Dana Milbank on the Irony of the Impeachment Hearings

by dianeravitch / 4d

This story is probably behind a paywall . If it is not, you will enjoy reading it in full. Dana Milbank is one of my favorite opinion writers. He begins: But his emails! Gordon Sondland, Trump donor and Trump-picked U.S. ambassador to the European Union, apologized to impeachment investigators this week for failing to provide a more complete account of the president’s quids and quos with Ukraine:

California Democratic Party: Charters Should Have Elected Boards

by dianeravitch / 5d

Here is an excellent idea from the California Democratic Party: Charter schools should be governed by elected boards, just like real public schools. California is a bellwether for the nation. This strong stance shows that teachers are reclaiming their profession from billionaires and hedge fund managers. Edsource reports: Taking aim at the majority of charter schools in the state, the California

“Grit” and “Resilience” Are Buzzwords that Blame the Victim for Not Pulling Him/Herself by Bootstraps

34by dianeravitch / 5d

The Boston Globe published this opinion piece questioning the validity of concepts like grit and resilience. Author Alissa Quart interviews Christine White, a woman who grew up in extreme poverty yet managed to build a successful career helping people who struggled as she did. But not by coaching them to have more “grit” and “resilience.” Christine White, writes Quart, has written a number of pos

NOV 24

Conservative Lawyers Opposing Attorney General Barr’s Opinions about the President’s Unlimited Powers

48by dianeravitch / 5d

A significant group of conservative and libertarian lawyers, most of whom served in Republican administrations, released a statement taking issue with Attorney General William Barr on several points, but most especially his belief that the power of the president is unlimited. Statement in Response to Attorney General Barr’s Address at Federalist Society November 22, 2019 Statement from co-founder

Mercedes Schneider: After Multiple Failures, Why Doesn’t the Gates Foundation Leave K-12 Schools Alone?

1Kby dianeravitch / 5d

Mercedes Schneider reviews the Gates Foundation’s long and costly list of failed interventions into K-12 schools and points out, quoting the words of the Foundation , that it has never admitted any failure and never apologized. Gates paid for the interventions but the real cost was borne by teachers and public schools. He tried breaking up big schools into small schools, convinced as he was that

New Orleans: Nearly Half of the District’s Charter Schools Receive a D or F from State

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

Ouch! New Orleans is the nation’s first all-charter district. New Orleans is supposed to be the shining star of the charter movement, proving the value of school choice and market-based reforms, closing schools and replacing them with new schools, then closing failing schools, ad infinitum. But newly released state grades reveal that nearly half of the district’s charter schools (49%) received a

Kentucky: Bevin Lost, But His State Commissioner Vows to Stay On

24by dianeravitch / 6d

Defeated Republican Governor Matt Bevin was a huge fan of charter schools. The legislature passed a charter law but never funded it. Bevin appointed a new state board of education, and they appointed Wayne Lewis as state commissioner. Lewis loves charters. A few weeks ago, Bevin was defeated by Democrat Andy Beshear, who ran on a strong pro-public education program. He chose an educator as his Li

Will Pinkston: Time for School Districts To Set Standards for Charter Applications, not the Charter Industry’s Lobbyists

25by dianeravitch / 6d

Will Pinkston, who served on the elected school board of the Metro Nashville school district, writes here that school districts should not outsource their charter application process to the charter industry’s lobbyists. The timing is right because the Koch Network has targeted four states for unlimited charter school proliferation: Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Up until now, many

NOV 23

ProPublica Report on Seclusion of Children Gets Results!

by dianeravitch / 6d

The expose published by ProPublic and the Chicago Tribune about the isolation of students with disabilities in locked “quiet rooms” got immediate response from the Governor and the State Board of Education in Illinois. This is known as seclusion. The governor said he will introduce legislation to end and prohibit the barbaric practice. The Illinois State Board of Education announced Wednesday tha

Sasha Baron Cohen on Hatred, Bigotry, Racism, and Resistance

47by dianeravitch / 6d

This is an important speech by Sasha Baron Cohen to a conference of the Anti-Defamation League. I posted early this morning about this speech but only linked to the written version. Watch Sasha Baron Cohen give the speech. It is powerful.

Bob Shepherd: On Reading Poetry

79by dianeravitch / 6d

Bob Shepherd is a teacher, an author, a curriculum developer, and many other things. On Reading Poems Two thoughts, tonight, about poetry First, a theory of poetry and how it means: Perhaps the most important lesson that I received, in college, about reading poetry occurred on a day when, in a class on nineteenth-century American poets, I commented that unlike just about everyone else, I wasn’t a

Jan Resseger: Why I Will Not Vote for Michael Bloomberg for President

by dianeravitch / 6d

When Jan Resseger writes, she does so with authority and clarity. In this essay, she explains why she will not vote for Michael Bloomberg, based on his record of disrespecting educators in New York City when he was mayor. Bloomberg as mayor employed all the same principles as No Child Left Behind: testing, accountability, school closings, charter schools, school choice, all based on “the business

Jeff Bryant: Why Teachers Are Striking for More Than Wages, as per Oakland

35by dianeravitch / 6d

Jeff Bryant reports here about the recent strike in Oakland. Teachers won concessions from the school board but they were fighting for much more than higher pay. Like their peers in Chicago and other districts, they were striking to fend off the Modern Disruption/Corporate Reform Narrative of failing schools, closing schools, and privatization. Even after the strike ends, the struggle continues.

The Shame of Illinois: “Seclusion Rooms” Where Children Are Locked Up

25by dianeravitch / 7d

ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune collaborated to produce this shocking investigation of the mistreatment and abuse of students with special needs in Illinois. This is a story of shameful cruelty to children. Read it and weep. THE SPACES have gentle names: The reflection room. The cool-down room. The calming room. The quiet room. But shut inside them, in public schools across the state, children

John Merrow: My Breakfast with Ambassador Sondland

by dianeravitch / 7d

John Merrow had breakfast with Ambassador Gordon Sondland! Open this link to find out what happened! And, please know, before you open the link, that I will forever love John M. for what he says inside it.

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