Deborah Meier comments on a post about efforts in Philadelphia to weaken or eliminate collective bargaining:
INTERESTINGLY, ALMOST NO ONE FEELS OBLIGED to defend their strategies, etc in terms of its impact on a democratic society! IF, just suppose, it raised test scores we seem prepared to dump democratic norms on the behalf of test scores. The grand old USA is–might we mention–an experiment in democracy! (It was not primarily founded on the principles of the market place–that was true, after all, of the decadent European nations we were breaking away from as well.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Corporate aristocracy does not have to defend their strategies, they are the aristocracy after all.
Critics of the Youngstown Board of Education (and its overseer, the Youngstown Academic Distress Commission) object to the perpetuation of “third class citizenship.”
What is the history of Forum for Education and Democracy (FED) or NCUEA (NEA’s urban affiliates) preparing students for first class citizenship?
Those charged with fulfilling court orders to protect urban schoolchildren could use some help. Perhaps successful case studies or even an annotated bibliography would be good first step.
Ohio politicians who have accepted help from FED strayed from the path that Sandra Day O’Connor or David Souter would choose and found themselves on the path Bill Ayers prefers. Ohio has yet to recover from the damage inflicted on its state superintendency.
When a federal judge signs off on a settlement to raise test scores for urban schoolchildren, how have educators responded to the rule of law and the imperative for first class citizenship for a rising generation of voters?
how can a federal judge sign off on a plan to raise test scores? that makes no sense. Judges can’t raise test scores. did he order smaller class sizes?
did he order smaller class sizes?
Not as I recall, but this may have happened with Abbott in New Jersey. These decisions are valuable because judges are reading education reform literature outside their field but nonetheless do a fair job weighing evidence. Justice Greaney (Massachusetts’ Hancock lawsuit) even suggested that insulation from politics put the judiciary in a better position for weighing policy options than governors and legislators.
FWIW, Linda Darling Hammond testified in the New York funding case regarding the reading level necessary to understand ballot language. That may correlate to a test score (but fifth grade reading level was deemed good enough–as I recall).
Yes, federal judges do sign off on settlements containing promises from school boards to plaintiffs that won’t be kept. Not especially surprising; see more below.
Here’s what takes my breath away: Secretaries of State make commitments like this to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
“Race to the Top … is designed to provide incentives to states to implement large-scale, system-changing reforms that improve student achievement, narrow achievement gaps, and increase graduation and college enrollment rates.”
Click to access UPR-USA.pdf
The new and improved RttT formula resembles the judge-approved 2002 formula, except test scores are now used to judge teachers instead of improving student work. (Perhaps Arne could have Secretary Clinton explain just how that works to the UN OHCHR.)
Back to the judge:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/education/entries/2002/04/16/
April 16, 2002
The settlement shifts the focus from racial balance to the quality of education in Dayton with a five-year plan for improving academics, estimated to cost $30 to $35 million. …
Four mandated “improvement strategies” in the court documents signed Monday match the board’s four “critical initiatives” that are the core of its reform plan…
– heavy emphasis on reading and math
– better training for teachers
– focus on improving student behavior and family involvement
– using test data to improve student work.
The settlement also gives the district cash – $32.3 million the state promised to pay last year if the case was resolved.
Note this policy churn occurs a few miles north of the Kettering Foundation, where David Mathews (former Secretary of HEW) leads efforts to help communities do the work of making choices necessary to address such challenges.
Thanks Deb Meier for bringing up what probably should be the most basic question we should be addressing: What is the fundamental purpose of public education?
I believe I wrote the following in response to an earlier post (a couple of months ago) in response to something Diane wrote-first quote below.
“What is the primary goal of education? To assure that the younger generation is prepared in mind, character and body to assume the responsibilities of citizenship in our society.”
Not quite. There are thousands of missions statements out there, probably at least one for every district and school and more likely than not those are “secondary” statements. What is the primary goal of public education? And where can it be found?
To answer the second question first, in each state’s constitution in the article that authorizes public education. So in essence there are 50 different goals/purposes although I suspect that they are similar in nature to what Missouri’s constitution has to say: Article IX, subsection 1a: “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law.”
I’ll let you decide what “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. . .” means. But I do not see anything about “preparing students to assume the responsibilities of citizenship”-whatever those “responsibilities” may be. We have assumed a purpose that may or may not be in concert with what the constitution says so I have concerns with these mission statements that go beyond the basic purpose as delineated in the constitution.
Now the “prescribed by law” part can be a problem in that some laws made may be unconstitutional, e.g., segregated schools. And I believe that when we sort and separate students using grades and standardized tests to name a couple of nefarious practices, some of whom then receive rewards funded by the state-scholarships, special treatment, awards, etc. . . , or vice versa, are sanctioned, not getting scholarships, held back, not given a diploma but a certificate of attendance, etc. . . , then we, the public schools are discriminating against a certain class of student, those who through no fault of their own (in essence like skin color) don’t “live up to the standards”. And in doing so we are contravening the fundamental purpose of education and causing harm to some students.