Biden’s Message: Government Must Work for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden’s Message: Government Must Work for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden’s Message: Government Must Work for the Common Good

Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter expressed my reaction to President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress. No boasting. No narcissism. A strong assertion that government must work for the people and use its resources to improve the lives of the people.

The most abnormal thing about Biden’s speech, however, was how normal it was. After four years of Donald Trump spewing his particular brand of dyspeptic, self-absorbed oratory, it felt a bit unfamiliar, and a bit exhilarating, watching Biden calmly discuss the challenges and the opportunities facing the nation, and discuss how he proposed to confront the one and exploit the other. A sense of déjà vu does not usually mix with the emotions kindled by promise, but when they do, the experience is centering. The speech felt like the country was getting back to normal. 

The United States, in normal, pre-Trump times, believed CONTINUE READING: Biden’s Message: Government Must Work for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog

Buying into the Social Contract is Different from Buying Education with a Public Tuition Voucher in a Privatized School Marketplace | janresseger

Buying into the Social Contract is Different from Buying Education with a Public Tuition Voucher in a Privatized School Marketplace | janresseger

Buying into the Social Contract is Different from Buying Education with a Public Tuition Voucher in a Privatized School Marketplace

For a quarter of a century, Ohio has pursued the accountability-based “education reform” strategy that was formalized in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act.

Ohio holds schools accountable for raising students’ scores on high-stakes standardized tests by imposing sanctions on schools and school districts unable quickly to raise scores. Ohio identifies so-called “failing” public schools, ranks them on school district report cards, and locates privatized charter schools and voucher qualification within the boundaries of low-scoring districts.  Additionally, the state takes over so-called failing school districts and imposes Academic Distress Commissions as overseers. Ohio’s students are held back in third grade if their reading scores are too low, and high school seniors must pass exit exams to graduate.

After more than two decades of this sort of school policy, student achievement hasn’t increased and test score gaps have not closed.  Ohio is a state with eight big cities—Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Toledo, Youngstown, Akron, and Canton; lots of smaller cities and towns; Appalachian rural areas and Indiana-like rural areas; and myriad income-stratified suburbs. Just as they do across the United States, aggregate standardized test scores correlate most closely with family and neighborhood income, not with the characteristics of the public schools. In the fall of 2019, the Plain Dealer’s data wonk, Rich Exner, created a series of bar graphs to demonstrate the almost perfect correlation of school districts’ letter grades on the state school district report card with family income.

But while Ohio has punished so-called “failing” schools, it hasn’t done much to help the public schools in Ohio’s poorest communities. In profound testimony before the Ohio State Board of CONTINUE READING: Buying into the Social Contract is Different from Buying Education with a Public Tuition Voucher in a Privatized School Marketplace | janresseger

Speduktr: We All Pay for Public Services and Public Goods, for Our Common Benefit | Diane Ravitch's blog

Speduktr: We All Pay for Public Services and Public Goods, for Our Common Benefit | Diane Ravitch's blog

Speduktr: We All Pay for Public Services and Public Goods, for Our Common Benefit

The privatization movement is built on the ideology of “a backpack full of cash.” Give the money to the family and let them spend it where and how they want. The money is not actually in the child’s backpack, but handed out to families to spend as they wish. If they want their child to attend a religious school or a private school or a for-profit school or a virtual charter school or home school, here is a voucher worth $5,000.

This approach discounts the obligation of the community and society to provide certain basic goods and services that are available to everyone. We have public beaches, public parks, public transportation, police, firefighters, and other goods and services that are the responsibility of government. We pay taxes to maintain public schools, even if we don’t have children ourselves. We pay taxes to maintain public schools, even if our own children are grown and are no long in school. We pay taxes to maintain public schools, even if our own children attended private schools. That’s what a community does to make sure every child is educated. It is the job of the CONTINUE READING: Speduktr: We All Pay for Public Services and Public Goods, for Our Common Benefit | Diane Ravitch's blog

Saving the Commons: This I Believe | Diane Ravitch's blog

Saving the Commons: This I Believe | Diane Ravitch's blog

Saving the Commons: This I Believe

Privatization of important parts of the public sector is a great scourge of our times. No institution is more fundamental to the American Dream than public education, and it is under assault by powerful and well funded forces. By billionaires who have dreams of lower taxes and libertarians who want to destroy whatever government provides. We must fight privatization of the goods and services that belong to us.

Frankly we should join together to fight for a society where there are no billionaires and no poverty. Let us agree to take care of one another and have a fairer society, where everyone has a decent standard of living, where there is no hunger or homelessness. I recommend a book called The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, in which two British sociologists-Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett-demonstrate that societies with more equality are happier than those where great inequality persists. By contrast, scan Bloomberg Billionaires Index. I am not a socialist, but I don’t believe we should have either billionaires or poverty.

The pandemic impoverished millions of people. But the billionaire class got richer, much much richer. Senator CONTINUE READING: Saving the Commons: This I Believe | Diane Ravitch's blog

Common Good, Community and UTLA - LA Progressive

Common Good, Community and UTLA - LA Progressive

Common Good, Community and UTLA

Following is a recap of the first State of the Union address given by Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles at the  UTLA Leadership Conference in August. The theme for the conference is “We Rise Together”.

Here is what Ms. Myart-Cruz had to say:

I recognize the shoulders in which I stand on as the 3rd woman to ever lead UTLA in it’s 50 year history and its first woman of color. Here I stand as biracial Black Latina leading this organization. I pay homage to both Judy Solkovits who was elected UTLA President in 1970 and Helen Bernstein who was elected in 1990 for paving the way for me.

I laid out five priorities that we as UTLA will need to collectively come together around to really build power.

Our Union must take on racial justice, unapologetically, understanding that our schools are not free of systemic racism and fully understanding that racial justice is educational justice.

1. Make crisis distance learning work as well as possible through site organizing.

2. Any and all MOU talks of in-person school reopening must be guided by science and safety.

3. We must fight for new revenue streams to public education and pass Schools and Communities First in November

4. We must advocate for the communities we serve including bringing forward common good demands that will uplift us all.

5. We must win the school board election in November.

These five priorities will be the guiding light of our work but you, the members are the North Star. We must have strong sites, where we bring back the joy in our craft. The joy CONTINUE READING: Common Good, Community and UTLA - LA Progressive