I decided to start my own blog because I was overusing Twitter and treating it as a miniblog, which it isn’t.
My weekly blog at Bridging Differences is great fun for me, and I love the format of exchanging letters with Deborah Meier. That format creates a certain aura of informality and encourages me to speak freely in a non-academic tone, the way one speaks to a friend. So, I don’t know where this will go, and I don’t know if I will succeed in remembering: 1) how to access my new blog; 2) my user name; 3) my password.
But if I can overcome these hurdles, I look forward to writing blogs on a near-daily basis, unconfined by the 140 character limit of Twitter, thus relieving my Twitter followers of the cascade of tweets that now clutter their Twitter feed from me.
Diane
YEA! It’s great to see you in the blogosphere!
Thanks for doing this, and always bringing your voice in support of teachers.
Diane, this is great news. My class of aspiring principals at the University of Northern Iowa has been reading Death and Life. Thanks for your perspective and contributions to schools and school leadership! Looking forward to the > 140 characters!
Looking forward to that Diane, but if I may offer the suggestion to still keep it brief. People have so little time to read at all anymore these days. Often I myself cannot afford to read a very long blog entry, no matter how good it is and I feel bad about it, yet I’m even interested in anything related to education, so if a person like me can be lost to the hidden gist…imagine the many who really should read it, but don’t.
As far as that goes, Twitter has taught me to try to be as much to the point as possible. If it allowed twice the the length we could have the perfect formula. Anyway, good luck! I’ll be happy to share what you share 🙂
I am excited! Thank you for your voice.
I am so grateful to you for your dogged and passionate attention to so many of the issues that threaten our schools, our teachers, and our students today!
I would love to see you tackle “PineappleGate” more thoroughly. I think that it uncovers a critical issue in assessment – the difference between what the public thinks tests are for (and what most teachers and principals think as well) and how they are constructed by test and measurement people.
Most teachers and the public expect that tests give us feedback about the skills that a child can demonstrate. However, questions like the Pineapple and the Hare are really designed to test at the margins – ensure that those students who are most capable of abstract thinking will get it right and those students who are not will get it wrong. That is a perfectly acceptable thing to do when you are interested in ensuring that a test separates students into high, medium, and low scorers for validity purposes. However, if you are expecting that a test will give you usable feedback about student performance (especially if you are trying to connect that student’s performance with the teaching s/he received), then that type of item is not useful.
We need to pay attention to what tests are designed to do, and we violate every type of rule about validity when we design a test for one purpose and use it for another. I really think that with your insight, and your cadre of expert colleagues, you could bring this issue to the wider public.
I’m looking forward to reading your posts, Diane. You’re work has encouraged a lot of people to stand up for public education.
Welcome! Glad you’re here!
Dora
I like your “cascade of tweets” and the letters to Deborah. This blog completes a trifecta of useful communication and thoughtful analysis. Thank you very much!
LIKE.
Welcome to the world of WordPress!
I’d like to share a favorite quote that is a little too long for Twitter. It shows just how much the founding fathers valued this distinctly American concept we call public education:
“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.” – John Adams, 1785
We are the people. It is our duty to foster and defend our precious right to freedom through public education. We owe it to ourselves and all the generations to come.
Thank you for all you do. Please continue, for the people.
[…] Diane Ravitch launched a blog to escape Twitter’s constraints; she’s already posted 6 times. (DR’s Blog) […]
It’s about time! I enjoy mentally sparring with you, but the deluge of tweets is a bit much to handle sometimes, especially since I usually disagree with you.
Remember, some charter schools are NOT evil!
I’ll follow you anywhere. I’ve tagged your blog as one of my favorites. Thank you for fighting all the social injustices that are being thrown on teachers, parents, students and the communities at large.
Awesome. I’m very excited to see you publish a blog of your very own. If you write it, they will come.
Great complement to your conversations with Deb.