Braun: The conservative case to save traditional public schools | NJ.com

Braun: The conservative case to save traditional public schools | NJ.com:

Braun: The conservative case to save traditional public schools

Published: Friday, May 25, 2012, 8:00 AM

As soon as Diane Ravitch finished speaking in New Brunswick the other day, public school advocates left the lecture hall to bring the message of saving traditional schools to other organizations. Deborah Cornavaca of East Brunswick and Julia Rubin of Princeton, among others, had the commitments before listening to Ravitch’s talk, but the imagery was nice: fired-up disciples going out into the world to bring her message of school reform to others.

What was odd about the scene — and what makes Ravitch so powerful an advocate for pre-privatized public schools — is that she is an apostate. The New York University historian worked for three right-wing think tanks. She was an official in the administration of the first President Bush. She embraced choice, testing and accountability.

Diane Ravitch was, in short, a conservative — and still thinks she is. In her latest book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," Ravitch argues she was "too conservative" to 

What Is Campbell’s Law? « Diane Ravitch's blog

What Is Campbell’s Law? « Diane Ravitch's blog:

What Is Campbell’s Law?

from Diane Ravitch's blog by dianerav

Everyone interested in understanding how the ceaseless pressure to raise test scores can corrupt the tests should be familiar with Campbell’s Law.
This is an adage written by social scientist Donald T. Campbell in a 1976 paper. It says:
“The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” (You can google the paper, or find it linked on Wikipedia: Campbell, Donald T., Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change The Public Affairs Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire, USA. December, 1976.)
Campbell’s Law explains why high-stakes testing promotes cheating, narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the 

Romney’s Absurd Claims « Diane Ravitch's blog

Romney’s Absurd Claims « Diane Ravitch's blog:

Romney’s Absurd Claims

by dianerav

Mitt Romney is out on the campaign trail, pushing vouchers and charters and online learning and for-profit schools and larger class size as the answers to our “failing” public schools.
I wish someone would give him some actual facts to work with. Are our schools failing? No, they are  not.
According to the latest federal data, the high school graduation rate is now at the highest point in our history for every group: for white students, black students, Hispanic students, low-income students, middle-income students, and high-income students.
According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, test scores in reading and math are at their highest point in our history. Forgive me if I quote an earlier blog from this site:
“Proficient [on NAEP] is akin to a solid A. In reading, the proportion who were proficient in fourth grade reading rose from 29% in 1992 to 34% in 2011. The proportion proficient in eighth grade also rose from 29% to 34% in

Profits, Not Better Education

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 31 minutes ago

An article in a publication called “The Financial Investigator” took a close look at K12, the for-profit online “education” corporation whose growth had made it a darling of Wall Street. The article paid particular attention to the “churn rate” at K12 online schools. That is, how many students left in a given year. In the [...]

Romney’s Absurd Claims

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 hour ago

Mitt Romney is out on the campaign trail, pushing vouchers and charters and online learning and for-profit schools and larger class size as the answers to our “failing” public schools. I wish someone would give him some actual facts to work with. Are our schools failing? No, they are not. According to the latest federal [...]

Is School Retention Child Abuse?

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 21 hours ago

When I spoke earlier this year to the National Association of School Psychologists, I listened to introductory remarks by Philip Lazarus, the president of the organization. In talking about the role of school psychologists and reviewing the many problems that students have today, he mentioned that there were three things that students feared most. Number [...]

The Charlie Rose Show: Reflections

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 23 hours ago

I was on the Charlie Rose show last night. I was very excited to be there. Here is the interview. Over the past two years, as the debate about education has gotten more and more heated, I have had many opportunities to express my views on the radio, especially on NPR, but not so many [...]

What is NCTQ?

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago

Several months ago, U.S. News & World Report announced that it planned to rank the nation’s schools of education and that it would do so with the assistance of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Since then, many institutions announced that they would not collaborate. Some felt that they had already been evaluated by [...]

The Romney Education Agenda

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 1 day ago

What would education policy look like in a Mitt Romney administration? As the saying goes, people are policy. Romney’s list of campaign advisers was released this week and it is a re-run of the George W. Bush administration. There is Rod Paige, Nina Rees, Bill Hansen, Russ Whitehurst, Bill Evers, Carol D’Amico, and possibly others [...]

Stop the Campaign Against Public Schools!

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 2 days ago

My review of the Council on Foreign Relations’ report on US public schools as a “grave threat to national security” is now available online. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/do-our-public-schools-threaten-national-security/?page=1 I hope it is widely read. I urge everyone who reads it to send it to their friends and colleagues. The report I reviewed was written by a task force [...]

Enroute to Atlantic City

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago

I woke up this morning thinking that today I would be unable to post on my blog. That would be a first, and I was not happy about it. Since I started this blog a month ago, I have posted–let’s see–I think this is blog #89. I didn’t want to miss even one day. I’m [...]

Will Vouchers Fizzle?

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago

The Jindal education reforms include a huge voucher program that had rightwing choice advocates jumping for joy and supporters of public schools trembling. More than half the students in the state are eligible for vouchers, about 380,000 children. But not so fast. It turns out that there are only a few thousand seats available in [...]

Unneeded Charters

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago

Stories like this one from Nashville (http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120509/NEWS04/305090116), or this one from Los Altos, California (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-15/taxpayers-billed-for-millionaires-kids-at-charter-school.html) remind me how far the charter idea has strayed from its origins. Parents in Nashville are fighting the Great Hearts charter because they know it is targeting children who are affluent and white; they know that it will cause their [...]

Corporate Reformers Love Lofty Goals

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago

One of the favorite tactics of corporate reformers is to set lofty goals. We have learned over the past twenty years that you can’t have reform without goals. I remember back when No Child Left Behind was passed, and it included the goal (mandate, actually) that all students in grades 3-8 would be proficient by [...]

Charter Schools Vs. Catholic Schools

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 3 days ago

Charter schools contribute directly to the collapse of Catholic schools in the inner city, according to new research by Abraham Lackman, a scholar in residence at the Albany Law School in New York. With the help of a friend, I got an URL: https://sites.google.com/site/neifpe/home/pdffiles/120307Lackman.pdf. And here is a report of his findings in the New York [...]

Saving Poor Kids from Failing Schools?

dianerav at Diane Ravitch's blog - 4 days ago

Several people sent me a video of Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report skewering Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, and Howard Fuller of Black Alliance for Educational Options as sell-outs for a rightwing agenda. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPACwRgw04 I must say there was nothing in the video that surprised me. Back in the [...]

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Another look at Rahm's Texas model

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Another look at Rahm's Texas model:

Another look at Rahm's Texas model

by Mike Klonsky

"If you start in the Chicago Public School system in kindergarten," offered Rahm, "and your cousin lives in Houston, and you both go all the way through high school, the cousin in Houston spends three more years in the classroom." -- Rahm Emanuel

Romney's ed adviser and former Houston Supt. Rod Paige

Chicago's mayor, in his demagogic appeal for a longer (not necessarily better) school day, is fond ofholding up Houston, Texas as his model. This piece in the Texas Observer details some of the reasons why Houston schools and Texas schools in general, may work for some of their students, but certainly not for poor students or students of color, and why they provide no example for Chicago to follow.

Observer reporter Cindy Casares writes:

People who question the existence of systemic racism need only look at the numbers. Take the emotion out and see for 

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » My new book: World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » My new book: World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students:

My new book: World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students

by YongZhao

I am very pleased to announce that Corwin Press will release my new book World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students in association with the Ontario Principal’s Council, National Association of Elementary School Principal (NAESP) next month, June 2012. The book is about preparing global, creative, and entrepreneurial talents. It is my attempt to answer a number of pressing questions facing education today. These questions are exemplified by two new stories that have dominated the media recently, one around the Facebook IPO and the other the debt and jobs of college graduates.

100 billion, 900 million, and 28 are three numbers that quickly summarize the story of Facebook Inc.: a 28-year-old CEO who co-founded a company with 900 million users world-wide and is now valued at over 100 billion dollars. The 28-year-old CEO and Co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is worth nearly $20 billion dollars and one of the 30 wealthiest people on earth. He was named one of the 100 most influential people multiple times by the Time magazine. Along with Zuckerberg, Facebook has produced a few other young billionaires and created jobs for thousands of people.

1 trillion, 4.9 million, and 23,000 capture the essence three numbers for the latter story: over 1 trillion dollars in outstanding student loans, with an average of over $23,000, and 4.7 million who had gone or graduated from college are unemployed in the United States. “For the first time in history, the number of jobless 

Daily Kos: of Wall Street and of Bain

Daily Kos: of Wall Street and of Bain:

of Wall Street and of Bain

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

There are two somewhat related columns this morning by two important voices.  Paul Krugman offers Egos and Immorality in which he deconstructs the incredible sensitivity of those in the financial sector to any kind of criticism, and their false assertion that they have created economic good times for the nation.  Eugene Robinson hones in with Why Bain Questions Matter, in which his only criticism of the President is that he wishses the questions about Bain had been raised during the debate on financial reform, since the President is now "posing the kind of fundamental questions that needed to be asked" - which may be why Romney does not want to address them.
Both columns are absolute must reads.
Below the fold I will offer just a few snips from each as well as my probably far less informed personal observations - after all, I have neither  a Nobel in Economics nor a Pulitzer in commentary.

Diary of a Social Art-tivist Mommy: Systems. How they can inspire or burn us....

Diary of a Social Art-tivist Mommy: Systems. How they can inspire or burn us....:

Systems. How they can inspire or burn us....

by ART-tivist Mommy

                Systems. We exist within them, we work in them, we send our children to them. There are systems all around us. School systems, government systems, economic systems, food systems. After my experience working in DCPS for 3 years, I have become ultra sensitive to systems and how they have the potential to make its participants either thrive or wilt. This is one of the reasons I am resigning from DCPS. 


                Currently, I work for DCPS, a system notorious for being highly disorganized, top-down, and distrusting of its teachers. Most of its teacher-directed policies are created with the premise that,  'there are some really bad teachers out there who are not doing their job right and we must weed them out". This was all fine at the beginning of the process, but every year we have what Washingtonians now call, "Churn and burn". Most currently, I have been appalled 

Louisiana Educator: Romney Adopts Jindal Reform Plan

Louisiana Educator: Romney Adopts Jindal Reform Plan:

Romney Adopts Jindal Reform Plan

by Michael Deshotels

IMPORTANT INVITATION: All readers of The Louisiana Educator are invited to immediately join our new data base of email contacts that I am naming The Defenders of Public Education. We need you now! It is 100% free! It is 100% confidential! Just send an email using your preferred email address, and zip code to:louisianaeducator@gmail.com. Your zip code will be used to list you and I hope many others according to legislative district so that I can send you timely, relevant information about your representative or senator's position on key education issues. You will also receive updates on critical BESE actions. From time to time I will ask our Defenders of Public Education to send an email or participate in efforts to influence legislative votes on critical education issues at the legislature. This will be done in cooperation with the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education and the established professional educator organizations of our state. The final decision will always be up to each contact member to do what he/she feels is appropriate. This is a way for educators to more effectively express the concerns of the education profession in Louisiana with greater unity.Through the actions of this group and the unified efforts of our educator organizations, educators could quickly become one of the most influential groups in the state. All educators, (teachers, administrators, school board 

How ed policy is hurting early childhood education - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

How ed policy is hurting early childhood education - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

How ed policy is hurting early childhood education

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Diane E. Levin and Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin. Carlsson-Paige is professor emerita at Lesley University and an author of several books; Levin is a professor of early childhood education at Wheelock College; and McLaughlin is the founding teacher at the Mission Hill School in Roxbury, Ma., as well as the director of the Defending the Early Years coalition and founder of Empowered by Play.
Read full article >>

A lesson in sticktoitiveness — an amusing commencement speech by Garry Marshall

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 3 hours ago

Some commencement speeches are more amusing than others. Here is is one from the 2012 graduation season that stands out for attemping to impart a real life lesson — how not to give up — with humor. It was delivered by Garry Marshall, an award-winning television and film director, writer, producer, and actor, who spoke at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., on Saturday, May 19. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Romney’s education vision

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 23 hours ago

Anybody who thinks President Obama’s education policies have been unfriendly to public education should pay close attention to Mitt Romney’s newly announced school reform vision. Because what you don’t like about Obama’s, you may like even less about Romney’s. Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Ravitch: What is NCTQ? (and why you should know)

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago

This *was written by education historian Diane Ravitch . She is a research professor at New York University and author of numerous books, including the best-selling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” a critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement. This pieceappeared on her blog .* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

Romney’s education speech — text

Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet - 1 day ago

Here is the full text of Mitt Romney’s remarks on education reform as prepared for delivery on Wednesday at The Latino Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit in Washington, D.C.: *Mitt Romney Speech* *As Prepared for Delivery to Latino Coalition* Read full article >> [image: Add to Facebook] [image: Add to Twitter] [image: Add to Reddit] [image: Add to StumbleUpon]

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys - The Bay Citizen

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys - The Bay Citizen:

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys

by Joanna Lin

High rates of chronic absence, suspension and poor academic performance signal that more than half of African American male students in the Oakland Unified School District are at risk of dropping out, according to new research. The Urban Strategies Council, an Oakland-based community advocacy organization, found significant disparities between African American boys and their peers: Fifty-five percent of black boys in the 2010-11 school year were falling off course from graduation or were at risk of doing so, compared with 37.5 percent of students overall in the district. From kindergarten through 12th grade, researchers found that black boys struggled with regular attendance and suspensions and scoring proficiently on standardized tests or maintaining grades above a C average – warning[...]

“If This Is the Best Robinson Can Offer, He Should Resign” | Scathing Purple Musings

“If This Is the Best Robinson Can Offer, He Should Resign” | Scathing Purple Musings:

“If This Is the Best Robinson Can Offer, He Should Resign”

by Bob Sikes

Looks like the editors of TCPalm have had enough of Florida’s test-based education system:

Florida’s public school students aren’t stupid. And, teachers aren’t incompetent.
But, can the same be said for the state’s education bureaucrats who are tasked with overseeing the education system?
The recent debacle related to writing scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is just the latest example of a failure on the part of education leaders and their legislative counterparts to reform Florida’s public system to become the best it can be.
Results from the writing portion of the FCAT showed a massive drop in passing grades for fourth-, eighth- and 10th-grade students, with only about a third of students passing the test statewide.
Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson expressed surprise, saying, in part, “When I saw the 

What Should We Cut? « Cooperative Catalyst

What Should We Cut? « Cooperative Catalyst:

What Should We Cut?

by John T. Spencer

Someone asked me recently how I am able to respond to all student blogs, leave feedback for each child on the Google Docs and analyze which standards students are mastering. It sounds impressive on paper, but here’s a little secret: I’ve made cuts. Huge cuts. Massive cutbacks in what I do as a teacher.
I don’t prep for lectures anymore. Instead, I think about how I will make lessons meaningful for students. I don’t input grades into the computer. Instead, I meet with students and we fill out our assessment grid together. I don’t have stacks of papers when students are working on in-depth projects. I don’t feel the need to do so much differentiated instruction when students are customizing their learning according to identity, interests and level of mastery.
I’m still on this journey of making cuts, but here are a few things I have managed to cut from my own classroom:

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys | California Watch

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys | California Watch:

In Oakland schools, chronic absence, suspension derail black boys

Joanna Lin

arieliona/istockphoto.com

High rates of chronic absence, suspension and poor academic performance signal that more than half of African American male students in the Oakland Unified School District are at risk of dropping out, according to new research.
The Urban Strategies Council, an Oakland-based community advocacy organization, found significant disparities between African American boys and their peers: Fifty-five percent of black boys in the 2010-11 school year were falling off course from graduation or were at risk of doing so, compared with 37.5 percent of students overall in the district.
From kindergarten through 12th grade, researchers found that black boys struggled with regular attendance and 

Website Review: Dr. Seuss Went to War | Mr. D's Neighborhood

Website Review: Dr. Seuss Went to War | Mr. D's Neighborhood:

Website Review: Dr. Seuss Went to War

by ldorazio1

During World War II, everyone played a part.
Everyone…including Dr. Seuss.
Before Theodore Giesel gained worldwide prominence as a childrens’ book author, he was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York magazine PM.  Between 1941 and 1943, Geisel drew over 400 cartoons for the magazine, and also for other publications.
It is a rare moment when an iconic figure shows his political colors–and a unique website allows us access to this part of his career.
The Dr. Seuss collection at the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego

Educating and being educated in world of standardization,privatization,deregulation, and incompetence. « Cooperative Catalyst

Educating and being educated in world of standardization,privatization,deregulation, and incompetence. « Cooperative Catalyst:

Educating and being educated in world of standardization,privatization,deregulation, and incompetence.

by Jabreel Chisley

What is the Condition of Education?

The Condition of Education: 

We are approaching the horizon of a national crisis that is being ignored, blanketed in dissolution of hopes that it will be one of those “work itself out” issues like we hoped with the 2000’s financial meltdown. Our feelings about this crisis are the same as they were in that crisis because the same lack of competence that led up to those events is the same lack of the competence responsible for this disaster. We approaching the horizon of these events of catastrophic failure due in part to the systemic disenabling of regulations, protections, policies, and procedures that have kept incompetence abyss in a system that thrived on a steady supply of competent adults and equally competent children.
We have in the absence of competence and assiduousness only now began to realize that we have created a national crisis that never before existed and in the process of creating such crisis failed to draft any emergent response or prepare for any repercussions that may follow. However, the issue is that we have waited far too long to even think about preparing such plan for drafting because we are already feeling the effects of the disaster we have created. We stood by idly for too long in favor of allocating thousands of millions of dollars at a problem and then pushing it on the bottom of our agendas in the reckless and erroneous hope that this problem was like all the other problems before them that were caused in part by deregulation and incompetence and that since they 

Don’t Grade The MTA | The Jose Vilson

Don’t Grade The MTA | The Jose Vilson:

Don’t Grade The MTA

by Jose

Dear members of the NYC City Councilmembers,
I get it. You want to hold the MTA accountable somehow for their abhorrent misuse of funds, consistently delayed projects, and general failure to produce a good service for the amount of money the average New Yorker pays.  It’s hard to blame the average service worker, but the guys at the top need to hear that we as a city aren’t happy with the mess that often is our daily commute. The smells we endure coupled with the delays and detours only exacerbate what we feel is an inefficient system.
You’re right: the bastards need to pay. Just, whatever you do, don’t follow the public school model.
For now, I’ll ignore that you’re about to give F’s to the A train and C’s to the D train, leaving native New Yorkers and tourists alike confused as is. (Will we have to resort to calling them by their color and express / local? Chill!) If you’re going to grade the trains, please don’t grade them the way your friends at the NYC Department of Education do.
Let me expound.
If you use their system, you’d have to give them a standardized test every three months, usually in an isolated 

School Tech Connect: A Nose For News

School Tech Connect: A Nose For News:

A Nose For News

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet, but I did a little search of the site, and sure enough, I haven't written about it.

This evening I was just reviewing my decision not to attend ISTE 2012 in San Diego, and while I don't regret missing the scheduled video address by Arne Duncan, I do regret missing Yong Zhao's wry observations afterward.  Arne Duncan is a talking-point machine; if he were reciting a poem, it would be about choosing for our nation the road more traveled by --- in China--  as Yong Zhao has been pointing out forever.

It's neither here nor there. I'm really writing about my recollection of ISTE 2010 in Denver, where one of the keynote speakers was the guy who was running the big Hawaiian virtual charter school, Jeff Piontek. He gave a speech that was frankly about what a genius he seemed to be and how his school had the highest test scores, and how he was changing the game, or whatever. Maybe he was raising the bar. I can't remember.