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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Robin Lithgow: Boys’ Acting Companies Launch “the Golden Age”

by dianeravitch / 49min

Robin Lithgow, former director of arts education in Los Angeles, is researching the history of children’s theater. This is Part 3 of Lithgow’s series on boy actors . She begins: If Charles William Wallace, in The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare, is to be believed, it was at Blackfriars Theatre, in the early 1580s, that the Golden Age of Elizabethan Theatre was launched. He makes

YESTERDAY

Margaret Raymond of CREDO: Markets Don’t Work in Education

29by dianeravitch / 21h

Margaret Raymond is the director of the Center for Research in Educational Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, which conducts studies of charter schools, funded by the Walton Family Foundation. On December 10, 2014, she addressed the Cleveland City Club. About 50 minutes (and a few seconds) into a 56-minute talk, she gave the following response to a question about charter school policy: “Thi

Did You Know This About the Famous Sojourner Truth Speech?

by dianeravitch / 21h

I recently read a short book by the classicist Mary Beard called Women and Power, in which she writes about the long history of silencing women. She gives examples from antiquity. In “The Odyssey,” the faithful wife Penelope of the long-absent Odysseus comes down from her private quarters to tell the assembled suitors to sing a more cheerful song. Her son Telemachus steps forward to rebuke her fo

Joanne Yatvin: Phooey on Phonics!

42by dianeravitch / 22h

Joanne Yatvin was a teacher, a principal, a superintendent, and president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She was a member of the National Reading Panel in 1998, which endorsed phonics, but she wrote a dissent. I am posting her views to generate a healthy discussion. I have never taught anyone to read except my own children, who were reading before they started school, mostly I th

Education Law Center: The Failure of Vouchers in Texas and of Voucher Expansion in Arizona

97by dianeravitch / 23h

It has not been a good year for vouchers. The research continues to show that they don’t “save poor kids from failing schools.” They are in fact more likely to cause their academic performance to decline. Pastors for Texas Children has led the effort to block vouchers in Texas and SOS Arizona led the effort to block voucher expansion in Arizona. Voucher advocates (Koch-funded) are coming back wit

Bob Shepherd: Why You Should Move to Florida

by dianeravitch / 23h

Bob Shepherd surprised me with this post . I thought he was going to write that you should move to Florida to vote out the scoundrels now running the state and destroying public schools. I thought he would say to move to Florida because it is 75 degrees there today. But he has other reasons for you to join him there. Here are two reasons of his reasons. Open the link to learn about the others. Ec

Robin Lithgow on Boy Actors in the Court of Henry VIII

by dianeravitch / 1d

Robin Lithgow, former director in charge of arts education in Los Angeles public schools, has written an engaging series about the history of “boy actors.” This is Part 2. She begins: The day of the old morality plays ended in 1514, when the young King Henry VIII stood up in the middle of one, yawned, and walked out of the room. Two years earlier, during a celebration of Twelfth Night (the holida

DEC 26

Garrison Keillor Remembers the Devastating Tsunami of 2004

by dianeravitch / 1d

At his website, “A Writer’s Almanac,” Garrison Keillor writes: On this date in 2004, a tsunami devastated coastlines along the Indian Ocean . It was triggered by an earthquake in the middle of the ocean, 160 miles west of Sumatra. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 , the quake was the third strongest ever recorded on a seismograph, and it lasted for up to 10 minutes. It occurred when pressur

William Webster: The Danger to the Rule of Law

27by dianeravitch / 1d

William Webster served as director of both the FBI and the CIA. From the New York Times: The privilege of being the only American in our history to serve as the director of both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. gives me a unique perspective and a responsibility to speak out about a dire threat to the rule of law in the country I love. Order protects liberty, and liberty protects order. Today, the integr

Jere Hochman: The St. Louis Story

by dianeravitch / 1d

Jere Hochman was most recently the superintendent of the Bedford Central School district in New York State (his third superintendency). He then became the education advisor to Governor Cuomo, where he seemed to have a calming effect on the governor. He went home to St. Louis and took a position within the school system. He writes here about what he sees as the success of what was once a very trou

NEPC Review on Academic Progress of Children of Color

21by dianeravitch / 1d

The National Education Policy Center publishes reviews of research and reports from think tanks and advocacy groups. In this post, Professor Jaekyung Lee of SUNY, Buffalo, reviews a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on the academic progress of children of color. To the surprise and delight of many, including me, TBF concluded that poverty reduction played a role in the academic gains in

The Saudi Trial for Khashoggi Murder Was a Cover-Up

by dianeravitch / 1d

Robin Wright describes the phony trial in Saudi Arabia intended to punish the assassins who killed journalist Jamaal Khashoggi. its real purpose was to shield MBS, the tyrant who ordered a team of 15 hit men to murder an dismember Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Everything that happened was videotaped by Turkish Intelligence. She begins: On Monday, the authoritarian kingdom of Saudi A

Robin Lithgow: Boys Theater Companies During the Tudor Age, Part 1

by dianeravitch / 2d

Robin Lithgow, former director in charge of arts education in Los Angeles public schools, has written an engaging series about the history of “boys’ theater companies.” This is Part 1. She begins: “Harken, I do hear sweet music: I never heard the like” and “we shall hear [in the choir of Saint Paul’s] the fairest voices of all the cathedrals in England … and to tell the truth, I never heard bette

DEC 25

Garrison Keillor: Harper Lee’s Best Christmas Present Ever

66by dianeravitch / 2d

I recently subscribed to Garrison Keillor’s free website called”A Writer’s Almanac.” He told this wonderful Christmas story today: It was on this day in 1956 that novelist Harper Lee ( books by this author ) spent Christmas in New York City with friends , and received a gift that changed her life. In 1949, Lee had dropped out of a law program at the University of Alabama and moved to New York Cit

Merry Christmas!

by dianeravitch / 3d

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanakuh, Happy Kwanzaa. Whatever you celebrate, have a great day! Make it a great day by doing something kind for someone else. Diane

DEC 24

How to Talk to Your Family About Charter Schools During the Holidays

54by dianeravitch / 3d

Jeremy Mohler of the nonpartisan “In the Public Interest” wrote a clear summary of the reasons to be concerned about charter schools: The holidays are a time of joy and relaxation but also uncomfortable conversations with family. Will Uncle Tommy go on another rant about windmills causing cancer? Does grandma still think Russia is the only reason Trump won? So, what should you say when someone st

Stuart Egan: A Christmas Lesson for Our Time

by dianeravitch / 3d

Stuart Egan, National Board Certified Teacher in North Carolina, is aware that he is surrounded by piety, not all of which is sincere. In this holiday season, he calls on his fellow citizens to recognize that the best way to be pro-life is to care for children who are already born. Why are we not protecting the lives of those who are already born? I feel that being “pro-life” is not a matter rese

A Plea to Arkansas Officials to Keep Hands Off Little Rock Public Schools

23by dianeravitch / 3d

Dr. Anika Whitfield is a leader of Grassroots Arkansas. She recently posted an open letter to key state officials, including Governor Asa Hutchinson and State Commissioner Johnny Key. She wrote: Open Letter: State Oppression Denying Independence The State of Arkansas continues to strong arm the LRSD with unwelcomed and unsolicited changes that continue to be forced upon us. As three persons who h

Ellen and Michelle Obama Give a D.C. Elementary School $100,000, But Valerie Strauss Asks Why the City Does Not Fund D.C. Schools’ Needs

by dianeravitch / 4d

Michelle Obama surprised the staff and children of Randle Highlands Elementary School in D.C. by bringing them a box filled with $100,000 cash to buy whatever they need for the schools. Valerie Strauss wondered why the school is unde-resourced, why teachers have to dig into their own pockets, when the city has a large surplus. What about the schools where Ellen doesn’t send a gift of $100,000? It

DEC 23

Robert Kuttner: NY Times Brands Sanders and Warren “Far Left”

43by dianeravitch / 4d

Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect takes the New York Times to task for its coverage of progressive candidates. DECEMBER 23, 2019 Kuttner on TAP The Times Brands Sanders and Warren as Far Left . The sheer ideological bias of the mainstream press continues to astound. Today’s offender is a piece in The New York Times (page B2 of the Monday print edition) with the headline “Democrats Are Cauti

Mormon Women Support Impeachment

31by dianeravitch / 4d

The Mormon Women for Ethical Government issued a thoughtful and clear-eyed endorsement of impeachment. After listening to the impeachment debate, where every Republican claimed that Trump did nothing wrong, that the issues were trivial, that the process was illegitimate, that it was….blah, blah, blah, it is refreshing to read a commonsense explanation of why impeachment of a lawless president is

The Billionaire Boys and Girls Club

by dianeravitch / 4d

NEW YORK — The Bloomberg Billionaires Index tracks the world’s 500 richest people on an almost continuous basis. The number and power of billionaires became an issue in the 2020 campaign, because both Senators Warren and Sanders have proposed a wealth tax aimed at billionaires to pay for their expansive social programs. Bloomberg News updates the figures that feed its list after the close of ever

Mercedes Schneider: Betsy’s Backpack Full of Cash

21by dianeravitch / 4d

Mercedes Schneider writes here about Betsy DeVos and her not-innovative idea of a “backpack full of cash.” Betsy used the metaphor to refer snidely to a disguised voucher. It is a common metaphor among rightwing advocates of privatization. Betsy didn’t realize she was using the title of a popular documentary, shown in hundreds of communities across the country as a warning about privatization. (I

Education Law Center: A Graphic Display of the Battle to Preserve Public Funds for Public Schools in 2019

61by dianeravitch / 4d

The Education Law Center created this graphic and explanatory information about the battle to keep public funds in public schools. The graphic shows the state of the voucher movement and identifies which states have advanced or repelled efforts to privatize public funding to religious and private schools via vouchers. It is heartening to see the number of states that rejected voucher legislation,

Peter Greene: The True Purpose of Reading

by dianeravitch / 5d

Peter Greene reveals here why he loves to read . What is reading for? It is utilitarian, to be sure. It would be impossible to make your way in the world without knowing how to read nowadays. This post focuses on the author Rebecca Solnit, who writes about reading and its pleasures. Greene writes: It is easy in the ed biz to get caught up in things like the reading wars and test results and argum

DEC 22

Angie Sullivan: The Charter Industry in Nevada is Asleep at the Wheel, Gone Off the Road, Crashed into a Ditch

by dianeravitch / 5d

Angie Sullivan is a teacher in a Title 1 elementary school in Las Vegas. She regularly writes the members of the Nevada legislature to share her outrage about the underfunding of the state’s neediest schools and the state’s waste of money on charter schools, which dominate the state’s list of the lowest performing schools. Here is her latest: Peter Greene in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/pe

Still Asleep At The Wheel: An Indictment of the Federal Charter Schools Program

45by dianeravitch / 5d

The Network for Public Education recently released its second report on the federal Charter Schools Program, and the results are not pretty. It is titled Still Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Results in a Pileup of Fraud and Waste. The report has received national coverage, in newspapers large and small. The CSP was created in 1994 as part of the Clinton administratio

ProPublica: A User’s Guide to Democracy, #2

by dianeravitch / 5d

This set of directions was tailored for me because ProPublica has my zip code. If you sign up with your zip code, ProPublica will tell you what your member of Congress is doing. A User’s Guide to Democracy LESSON #2: WHY CONGRESS SEEMS SO STUCK Hi there, Today, we’re going to talk about the biggest job Congress has: lawmaking. Made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate (which together

Vicki Cobb: Great Stuff for Kids for FREE

70by dianeravitch / 6d

Vicki Cobb is a very successful author of children’s books and is active in promoting children’s interest in reading and in science. She writes here about a wonderful FREE resource for children. No catch. Wonderful reading online at no cost. She begins (open the link to read it all!): In my recent post Why Education Should Always Be Nonprofit I examined some opportunities for corruption. First, i

DEC 21

Texas: State Takeover of Houston Schools is an Outrage

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas AFT, writes here about the state’s determination to take over the Houston Independent School District because ONE SCHOOL HAS LOW TEST SCORES. The State has failed in other takeovers, and its only plan in Houston is to usurp the elected school board. Capo believes that the goal is to allow charter operators a free hand in the state’s biggest school district. He wr

Peter Greene: Ohio Plunges Districts into the Voucher Disaster

400+by dianeravitch / 6d

Peter Greene writes here about Ohio’s headlong expansion of vouchers for private and religious schools. The enlarged voucher program will hurt the budgets of some of the state’s best school districts. The only evaluation of Ohio’s voucher program, carried out at the behest of the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, determined that kids who took the vouchers actually lost ground academically as

Buffalo, New York: Parents and Teachers Sue School District for Failing to Offer Equitable Music and Arts in Schools

37by dianeravitch / 6d

Parents and teachers filed separate lawsuits against the Buffalo Public Schools, complaining that the school system has failed to provide equitable music and arts programming. Both parents and teachers are filing separate lawsuits against the Buffalo Public Schools, citing a lack of access to music education. The legal papers claim a legally-required arts sequence is only provided at two district

Leonie Haimson: Why Did the de Blasio Administration Drag Its Feet on Investigation of Yeshivas?

by dianeravitch / 6d

New York City investigators began examining the city’s yeshivas in 2015 in response to complaints from graduates of the Yeshivas that they had not received an education that met state requirements. It is 2019 and there is still no report. Leonie Haimson writes about the growing suspicion that the de Blasio administration sat on the investigation in order to win key votes from Orthodox Jews and th

Four Views: Why Mayoral Control of the NYC Schools Should Be Ended or Modified or…..?

20by dianeravitch / 6d

Attached are four statements that were delivered (in person or by email in my case) to the New York State Assembly Education Committee Hearing on Mayoral Control. The hearings won’t result in immediate action since mayoral control was recently renewed for three years. It is hard to believe but there was a time, about a decade ago, when corporate reformers believed that mayoral control would lead

Jesse Sharkey: How to Avoid Teachers’ Strikes in 2020

by dianeravitch / 6d

Jesse Sharkey is president of the Chicago Teachers Union. Diane- Last week, schools across the country sat through the most recent episode of a show that jumped the shark years ago: “Test Score Blues.” This particular episode featured the release of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores showing that the U.S. wasn’t at the top (again) of national rankings. Of course, the tes

Nancy Bailey: Students Should Sue Betsy DeVos and the Other “Reformers” Who Ruined or Closed Their Schools

200+by dianeravitch / 7d

Nancy Bailey explains here that if you are dissatisfied with your public school, blame the Disruption Machine, the ones who call themselves “reformers,” like Betsy DeVos. They have run public schools into the ground for the decades. They have imposed their malevolent ideas and policies on public schools, with no accountability for their mistakes. She writes: Frustrated by public schools? Look no

DEC 20

Trump Enraged by Rebuke of Evangelicals

24by dianeravitch / 7d

Trump can’t understand why evangelicals would turn against him. He gave them dozens of federal judges, including two Justices of the Supreme Court. Son they will get rid of abortion, gay rights, Obamacare. How dare they? Trump’s rage at Christianity Today gives away his scam By Greg Sargent Opinion writer covering national politicsEmail BioFollow Washington Post | President Trump just erupted in

Commonweal Endorses Impeachment

by dianeravitch / 7d

The liberal Catholic publication Commonwealth defended the impeachment proceedings. It was right for Democrats in the House to proceed with impeachment, both how and when they did. The articles of impeachment are narrow in scope but nevertheless damning. The first charges Trump with abusing the power of the presidency. In secretly withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine until i

The Most Important Article Written about Common Core

300+by dianeravitch / 7d

Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post interviewed Bill Gates in 2014 and told the full story of the origin of the Common Core “State” Standards. In case the Washington Post is behind a paywall, the full text of the Layton article is here. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and other friends of the CCSS insisted that the standards were developed by governors, state superintendents, education exper

Jan Resseger: Are the Common Core Standards Dead or Alive?

47by dianeravitch / 7d

Jan Resseger is upset that the New York Times posted an article seeking to revive the moribund Common Core standards. Some states dropped the CC standards; some kept them but gave them a new name. Most dropped the CC-aligned tests. In her view, the CCSS died because it was hated by significant numbers of teachers and parents. It launched the Opt Out movement in New York State, which annually enli

Prominent Evangelical Magazine Says It’s Time for Trump to Go

by dianeravitch / 7d

Christianity Today was founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham, the leading figure in evangelical Christianity. Its publication is Christianity Today. CT published an editorial today saying that it was time for Trump to leave. it received national attention. The editorial was signed by its editor-in-chief Mark Galli: Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from

ProPublica: Donald Trump Jr. Visits Mongolia, Gets Special Treatment, Kills an Endangered Sheep

by dianeravitch / 7d

Someday we won’t have to think about the Trump family and their misadventures. I look forward to that day. Donald Trump Jr. went to Mongolia in the summer of 2019, and ProPublica explains what he did there. What did you do on your vacation? Did you slaughter a creature who is part of an endangered species? The rocky highlands of Central Asia, in a remote region of Western Mongolia, are home to a

Houston: Founder of Houston Charter Chain Indicted and Arrested

23by dianeravitch / 8d

For the fourth time in only five years, the leader of a charter school has been arrested for siphoning money away from the school. The Houston Chronicle reports : The founder of a now-closed Houston charter school network failed to 

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