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

Amazon.com: Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools (9780525655374): Diane Ravitch: Books

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

From one of the foremost authorities on education and the history of education in the United States, "whistleblower extraordinaire" (The Wall Street Journal), former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, author of the best-selling Reign of Error ("fearless"--Jonathan Kozol, NYRB)--an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, activists--citizens--are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are privatizing America's public schools.

    Diane Ravitch writes of those who have privatized the schools, the Disrupters, who believe America's schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized with threats and bonuses, and schools that need to enter into the age of the gig economy in which children are treated like customers or products. She writes of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many more, on the right and the left, as well as corporations, foundations, etc., intent on promoting the privatization of one of our most valued public institutions.
   

Ravitch lays out, in extensive detail, the facts showing that the ideas put forth by school privateers have failed; that their promises of higher test scores have not come to pass; that the "great hope" of Common Core has been a dud.

Arrayed against these forces, Ravitch writes of the volunteer army--"the Resisters"--that has sprung up from Seattle, Texas, and Colorado, to Detroit, New Orleans, and Buffalo, New York--parents, teachers, grandparents, students, bloggers, religious leaders, brave individuals, who, spurred on by conviction, courage, determination, and the power of ideas and passion, are fighting back to successfully keep alive their public schools.


Amazon.com: Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools (9780525655374): Diane Ravitch: Books

How the Flint water crisis set students back – Raw Story

How the Flint water crisis set students back – Raw Story

How the Flint water crisis set students back

When the Flint water crisis took place in 2014 and 2015, one of my graduate nursing students decided to get involved.

Having already worked with me in the Greater Toledo area to screen children at risk for lead poisoning, my student helped conduct blood lead level screenings of the children exposed to the water. Test results later showed that the number of lead poisoned children in Flint had doubled after the crisis.

Since that time, some have worried that children in Flint are suffering academic setbacks as a result of being exposed to high levels of lead in Flint’s water supply.

State officials advised that as many as 9,000 children under the age of 6 in Flint be treated as having been exposed to high levels of lead after the city’s drinking water supply was switched in 2014 from water from Lake Huron to water from the Flint River.

Others, however, have pushed back, arguing that Flint’s water crisis is not the culprit behind any academic losses. Certainly lead was a problem for children in Flint long before the water problems.

But as a nursing professor and parent educator who specializes in treating children with elevated lead levels, I believe that just like in Detroit – where lead poisoned children have suffered academic setbacks after being exposed to lead, mostly from lead paint in their homes – similar academic setbacks are CONTINUE READING: How the Flint water crisis set students back – Raw Story

What If Teachers Didn’t Focus So Much on Individual Achievement?- The Atlantic

Teaching at a Segregated School in Mississippi - The Atlantic

What If Teachers Didn’t Focus So Much on Individual Achievement?

Renee Moore has been working at nearly all-black high schools in the Mississippi Delta for the past two decades for a reason: to raise up the whole community.

Editor's Note: In the next five years, most of America’s most experienced teachers will retire. The Baby Boomers are leaving behind a nation of more novice educators. In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. Less than three decades later, that number had fallen to just three years leading a classroom. The Atlantic’s “On Teaching” project is crisscrossing the country to talk to veteran educators. This story is the sixth in our series.

One late summer afternoon in 1994, Renee Moore—an English teacher at the nearly all-black East Side High School in Cleveland, Mississippi—received a phone call. On the other line was a friend: “Renee, you need to get over here right away,” she said in a hushed tone. “We are throwing away books.”

Moore’s friend worked at Cleveland High—a historically white school with a majority-white teaching staff—located about a mile away from East Side High. Teachers there had just received brand-new textbooks, Moore’s friend explained, and were getting rid of the old ones. Even though the discarded texts were published only four years earlier, they no longer aligned with the latest state standards. Since East Side High teachers, who were majority black, were still working with English textbooks published in the ’70s and ’80s, Moore got in her car, and 15 minutes later was loading the trunk with what she had found in the trash bins.

Cleveland—a small, rural town of about 12,000 residents in the Mississippi Delta—is divided by railroad tracks that separate east from west and its black residents from its white ones. Back in 1994, when Moore was in her fourth year of teaching, the city was embroiled in a high-profile school-desegregation court case—one that began in 1965 and wasn’t resolved until 2017. In the mid-1990s, the district implemented a “freedom of choice” plan, arguing that it would CONTINUE READING: Teaching at a Segregated School in Mississippi - The Atlantic

Michigan’s School Choice Mess – Have You Heard

Michigan’s School Choice Mess – Have You Heard

Michigan’s School Choice Mess

Have You Heard heads to Michigan to learn about a lesser-known part of the state’s free market education experiment: inter-district school choice. More than 100,000 Michigan students attend school in a district other than where they live. The outflow of students has pushed urban districts to the brink and spawned a competition for enrollment among rural and suburban districts.

Full transcript here. And if you’d like to see (or hear) more from the Have You Heard investigative road crew, consider supporting us on Patreon.

Michigan’s School Choice Mess – Have You Heard

AFT’s Weingarten On Public Service Freedom To Negotiate Act And Protecting Employee Rights | Black Star News

AFT’s Weingarten On Public Service Freedom To Negotiate Act And Protecting Employee Rights | Black Star News

AFT’S WEINGARTEN ON PUBLIC SERVICE FREEDOM TO NEGOTIATE ACT AND PROTECTING EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

[Labor News]

On One-Year Anniversary of Right-Wing Assault on Unions in Janus v. AFSCME, House Democrats Move to Restore Bargaining Rights for America’s Public Sector Workers...

Photo: Facebook

AFT members, including AFT President Randi Weingarten, at townhall with 2020 presidential candidate California Senator Kamala Harris...

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in support of the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, reintroduced today in the House of Representatives, which will guarantee collective bargaining rights for public sector employees across the country:

“Public workers educate our students, treat our patients and keep our communities strong and safe. But in many states, they have been denied their basic freedom to have a real say over the work they do. Their unions have been the target of a decades-long assault by the right wing, who know workers standing together are the biggest threat to the dominance of Wall Street and the wealthy.

“The Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act closes the chasm in public sector bargaining rights, ensuring minimum standards are in place across the nation, while retaining flexibility for states to write and administer their own laws.

“Public sector unions have fought back hard since Janus, emerging stronger than ever. But with our freedom to organize under renewed attack, this bill helps public workers achieve together what would be impossible alone—better and more-efficient services, dignity and a voice at work, and fair compensation and benefits for the work they do. We are proud to support it.”

AFT’s Weingarten On Public Service Freedom To Negotiate Act And Protecting Employee Rights | Black Star News

How Teachers Can Use Drones as an Educational Tool in the Classroom - Teacher Habits

How Teachers Can Use Drones as an Educational Tool in the Classroom - Teacher Habits

How Teachers Can Use Drones as an Educational Tool in the Classroom

By Frankie Wallace

In recent years, drones have shed their military roots and joined the mainstream, used by businesses and individuals alike. Approximately 2.2 million drones were sold across the world in 2016 alone, according to Business Insider, and drone sales are expected to surpass $12 billionby 2021.

Those estimated sales numbers lump the three main types of drones together: Consumer, commercial (also called enterprise drones), and government. All facets of drone technology share similarities and benefit society in a number of ways. At the commercial level, drones have positively impacted many industries, such as real estate, agriculture, and cartography. Drone technology is so useful and ubiquitous, in fact, that it has even entered the classroom. 

Students of all ages are likely to be captivated and engaged by drones, and the academic value of drone technology cannot be denied. Today’s forward-thinking educators view drones as an educational tool that could steer their students toward a particular career path. No matter the age of your students, you can easily introduce them to the principles and applications of drones, and even show them the technology firsthand. 

Integrating Drones within the Classroom

Some educators are so dedicated to the use of drones in the classroom, in fact, that they have become Federal Aviation CONTINUE READING: How Teachers Can Use Drones as an Educational Tool in the Classroom - Teacher Habits

Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless for Evaluating Teachers and Students | Diane Ravitch's blog

Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless for Evaluating Teachers and Students | Diane Ravitch's blog

Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless for Evaluating Teachers and Students

This is a wonderful article that appeared in Education Week, written by Margaret Pastor, a veteran educator in Maryland.

When I started reading, I recoiled at the thought of giving standardized tests to babies in kindergarten. Disgusting. But keep reading, as I did (if you are a subscriber).

Many of us in education have deep misgivings about the role standardized tests play in our schools. As a principal, I’ve had a front-row seat to incidents that illustrate why we should be seriously concerned. Let me tell you about one of them.

A few years ago, an assistant superintendent approached me about the performance of my kindergarten teachers. He had looked at the school’s scores from a commonly used standardized test and had identified an underperforming kindergarten teacher.

He pointed out that in one of my four kindergarten classes, the student scores were noticeably lower, while in another, the students were outperforming the other three classes. He recommended that I have the teacher CONTINUE READING: Why Standardized Tests Are Worthless for Evaluating Teachers and Students | Diane Ravitch's blog

#NeverAgainIsNow: Fort Sill

#NeverAgainIsNow: Fort Sill

#NEVERAGAINISNOW: FORT SILL

If you're in Los Angeles, join concerned community members in Little Tokyo this Thursday evening to protestthe White House's plans to use Fort Sill in Oklahoma as a detention center for immigrant children and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention practices in general.

Organizers are demanding an end to the inhumane conditions at ICE facilities, an end to family separation policies, and for compassion and humanitarianism toward all people. All who share concern about these issues are invited to participate.

It's happening June 27 at 7:00pm on the plaza of the Japanese American National Museum.



#NeverAgainIsNow

During World War II, more than 700 people of Japanese ancestry were unjustly incarcerated at Fort Sill. Earlier, members of the Apache tribe who had been forcibly removed from their ancestral lands were incarcerated there. Further, Fort Sill was a site where Native American children taken from their families were placed in boarding school -- a government attempt to destroy their identity and culture.

"In 1942, Japanese Americans were incarcerated with no due process and forced into sub-standard living conditions in concentration camps. We know concentration camps and these ICE facilities are indeed modern day concentration camps. The White House's plans must spur us into action. Never again is now!" organizers said in a statement.

"We stand in solidarity with those making the journey to Fort Sill to voice their opposition and we will work not only with our own communities, but with other communities to oppose the White House’s inhumane and unjust detention practices. We call on all people to join us in our efforts to stop these detentions."

The protest is organized by East West Players, JACL Pacific Southwest District, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center - JACCC, Japanese American National Museum, Kizuna, Little Tokyo Service Center, Manzanar Committee, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, Nikkei Progressives, Tuesday Night Project, Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, Vigilant Love, and Visual Communications.

For further information, refer to the Facebook event.



#NeverAgainIsNow: Fort Sill

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Takeaways from yesterday's school board meeting

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Takeaways from yesterday's school board meeting

Takeaways from yesterday's school board meeting

Sun-Times ed reporter Mitchell Armentrout's tweet seems to sum up the first meeting of Mayor Lightfoot's APPOINTED school board,

Mitchell Armentrout

✔@mitchtrout

 · 21h

Lori Lightfoot’s new #CPSboard

Mitchell Armentrout

✔@mitchtrout

A lively meeting for this new crew: grilling CPS admins on changes to school ratings, all seven members asking questions, pushing Janice Jackson to defend proposals — things unseen from the #CPSboard in years.

15

11:32 AM - Jun 26, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Mitchell Armentrout's other Tweets

You'll notice, I put the word appointed in all-caps as a nod to the RYH scribe who felt it necessary to mention it in each live tweet from the meeting. Yes, we know that this board was appointed by the mayor and that we don't have an #ESRBNow. No need to rehash all the reasons why that hashtag is little more than hash. The main one being that after 10 years of struggle for an elected board, Sen. Martwick's bill calling for an ESRB, 4 YEARS FROM NOW, is going nowhere.

Don't get me wrong. As an educator, a CPS parent and grandparent of a student with special needs,  I'm eternally grateful for all the difficult work that RYH and other groups have been CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Takeaways from yesterday's school board meeting

Schools Matter: Research Debunks Mischel's Conclusions from "The Marshmallow Test"

Schools Matter: Research Debunks Mischel's Conclusions from "The Marshmallow Test"

Research Debunks Mischel's Conclusions from "The Marshmallow Test"

KIPP Model schools have long used Walter Mischel's research on delayed gratification among children to justify an indoctrination program aimed to manipulate economically-oppressed children to behave as corporate ed reformers would like: work hard, be nice, use self-control, and wait until your just rewards come to you, even if that happens to be NEVER.  As I wrote in my 2016 book,

[t]he philanthrocapitalists and their think tank scholars quote liberally from the work of Walter Mischel (1989, 2014), whose experiments with delayed gratification among preschoolers provide the dominant metaphor for another generation of paternalist endeavors.  In Mischel’s experiments, children were offered a single marshmallow immediately or two marshmallows later if they could delay their reward.  The test, which came to be labeled “The Marshmallow Test,” represents the potential to delay gratification in order to gain a larger reward later on.

        At many of the KIPP, Aspire, Achievement First, and Yes Prep schools, children wear t-shirts emblazoned with “Don’t Eat the Marshmallow.” Mischel’s (2014) latest work, The marshmallow test: Mastering self-controlacknowledges KIPP’s prominent role and places it within the context of recent research on improving self-control.  David Levin has made Mischel’s book a central component in his Coursera massive open online course (MOOC), Teaching character and creating positive classrooms, which was first offered with co-instructor, Angela Duckworth, in 2014. 

The Atlantic reported last June on new research showing that Mischel's conclusions were flawed.

. . . .Ultimately, the new study finds limited support for the idea that being able to delay gratification leads to better outcomes. Instead, it suggests that the capacity to hold out for a second marshmallow is shaped in large part by a child’s social and economic background—and, in turn, that that background, not the ability to delay gratification, is what’s behind kids’ long-term success. . . .

. . . .This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Research Debunks Mischel's Conclusions from "The Marshmallow Test"

Another School Year Ends: Time for Teachers to Decompress and Use Those Organizational Skills in the World of Politics | Ed In The Apple

Another School Year Ends: Time for Teachers to Decompress and Use Those Organizational Skills in the World of Politics | Ed In The Apple

Another School Year Ends: Time for Teachers to Decompress and Use Those Organizational Skills in the World of Politics

Did you hear that “whoosh” sound that swept across the city only a few hours ago?  A weather anomaly?  No, the whoosh was 70,000 teachers breathing out – the end of another school year.

Teaching is a complex and enervating task.

For many of us we are the only stable adult in a child’s life. Households can be chaotic, children can have a variety of caregivers, ask teachers of 3, 4 and 5 years old, they hear the stories and they try and respond.

Each teacher is the author, actor, director and critic of a play with a run of one day. One day our play is a hit, the next day a flop. No matter the quality of the script, the lesson plan, there are no guarantees of success. The teaching process might check all the boxes, the object of the process; the children change from day to day.

When the light bulb goes off we give an internal fist bump, when s/he looks at us blankly we snarl: what did we miss, what am I not doing?

With each year, hopefully, we get better, our toolkit get deeper, we become more CONTINUE READING: Another School Year Ends: Time for Teachers to Decompress and Use Those Organizational Skills in the World of Politics | Ed In The Apple

Teacher salary and steps in Kaneland. – Fred Klonsky

Teacher salary and steps in Kaneland. – Fred Klonsky

TEACHER SALARY AND STEPS IN KANELAND.

Kaneland teachers rally Monday evening in Sugar Grove calling for a contract. The current contract between the teachers and Kaneland School District ends June 30. (Linda Girardi / The Beacon-News)

About 125 teachers who work for the Kaneland School District, wearing red shirts and carrying placards, held a rally earlier this week in advance of their school board meeting.

Kaneland is near Sugar Grove in Kane County, west of Chicago.

The current contract expires this weekend.

Currently, new teachers in Kaneland starting salary is around $40,000 a year.

If the $40,000 number sounds familiar, it is because the Illinois legislature voted in the recent session to make $40,000 the minimum salary for teachers in Illinois.

To be enacted in four years.

$40,000 is what Kaneland’s beginning teachers get now.

The $40,000 minimum was Senator Andy Manar’s idea for addressing the teacher shortage crisis. The rest of the Democratic Party controlled state General Assembly agreed with him.

This was not a bold move. Even in rural Kane County $40,000 is barely a livable wage.

Bernie says we should make the minimum pay for teacher $60,000.

Maybe some Illinois Democrats think a livable wage for teachers is socialism and so are CONTINUE READING: Teacher salary and steps in Kaneland. – Fred Klonsky