Now that President Obama has been re-elected, supporters of public education must redouble our efforts to end educational malpractice and rejuvenate American education.
It’s time to stop the privatization of public education.
It’s time to stop using invalid methods to judge teacher quality.
It’s time to stop high-stakes testing.
It’s time to stop closing schools.
It’s time to stop teaching to the tests.
It’s time to end the obsession with data and test-based metrics.
It’s time to support students and teachers and public schools.
It’s time to enrich the curriculum with the arts, history, civics and foreign languages for all children.
It’s time to think about what’s good for children, what will really improve education, and what will truly encourage creativity and ingenuity.
It’s time to think about reviving the spirits of educators and the joy of teaching and learning.
The election is over. The struggle for the heart and soul of American education continues.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m in! I just don’t know how to go about helping to change what’s going on. Any ideas?
I believe the biggest battle is and has always been on the state and local level. We must engage our state legislators as they increasingly give more control of education to the states. As far as Race to the Top is concerned, we have to fight against our districts as this is now a district by district grant instead of a state thing. If/when our unions successfully defeat district proposals for this grant, we need to battle the disinformation that ensue saying that the union blocked X million dollars from the schools. We need to let our communities know that blocking Race to the Top actually results in net savings for our districts.
disinformation that WILL ensue…
Why can we expect change now, Diane? Congress & reformers are knee deep in money made capitalizing on education data.
I wish I could feel optimistic that suddenly kids will be at the center of education. I wish I could feel optimistic their lives won’t be documented from birth to work.
I don’t feel optimistic at all. I am realistic & know my concerns about education are only going to get worse. if you read the education laws passed during Obama’s first 4 years & look at the money invested in education companies how can expect things to change for the better?
It’s a double edged sword. Protect data about children or make money.
Who is going to protect kids over making money? Certainly not Wall Street or its investors. Protecting student data is bad for the economy.
Sorry to bum out on your blog. Just saying what I think.
Certainly someone will respond ‘But what about Romney? He would have been worse.”
We don’t know that. We only know what Obama has done since 2008. FWIW, his actions haven’t been in the best interest of students & there are no indications this will change.
I would like to finish my work regarding children’s privacy & move on.
Only parents can protect their children. It’s not going to be the government, that I know for sure.
I have no idea how parents can protect their children as long as they are in public schools that conform with education laws that fund schools in return for student data.
I am so bummed out I mis-spelled my name. Sheila
With Obama’s team believing their secret to election day success was based on data-mining and data-crunching, it may be difficult to sway him and his cronies away from focusing so strongly on data in education. I knew something was up, because I got several emails from party people alluding to the “secret” –which is now out of the bag: http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/
In the big picture, having more Progressives do what Broadies, TFAers & ALEC have done may be necessary to counteract the non-educator stranglehold on education across the nation, i.e., get them elected and appointed to positions of influence. May need deep pockets though.
Now that Obama has won, maybe we can approach people in the media who were previously afraid of addressing education issues for fear of jeopardizing Obama’s campaign, such as folks at MSNBC and PBS. I would hope individual journalists will now be willing to address education policies, corporate influences and the push to privatization honestly, instead of promoting Education Nation type propaganda.
Data is just data, and there’s nothing wrong with it.
The key is to change what data is considered to something that we all find more meaningful.
Let’s talk about hours that kids spend in science labs. Let’s talk about how many kids met 4-year college requirements. Let’s talk about how many years of math kids complete. Let’s find meaningful data and metrics – as they are attempting to do in the medical field as well – that have the nuance we need to find the large trends we want to correct, while still meeting the needs of the individual kids in front of us.
Data *is* good for many things, especially large trends. That fewer students of certain demographics go on to college, and that it varies by feeder school – that’s something we need to know.
I don’t think the emphasis on “data-driven education” over the past decade has dramatically improved schooling or outcomes for students. Much of the data collected just tells us what we already knew, including “That fewer students of certain demographics go on to college, and that it varies by feeder school.” We have long known that it varies primarily by family income at feeders.
Instead of spending billions of dollars on high-stakes testing so we can learn the same thing over and over again (outcomes), I think our limited resources should be targeted to processes (instruction), which would free up teachers to be creative and implement innovative approaches.
However, now the policy is to collect MORE data and, specifically, more quantitative data. I think qualitative data better reveals nuances and identifies individual differences, which is important because people are idiocyncratic and children are not just little adults, so what works for them can differ greatly –and what worked for Obama in this election is not going to be effective with kids.
I’d prefer to see a de-emphasis on quantitative data and increased recognition of the value of qualitative data, including student portfolios.
This is the man that brought Arne Duncan to the White House, empowered him to do all that he has done to demoralize teachers, give away schools, push tests on children, tests that do not match what chn. are necessarily developmentally able to perform… and, sadly, this man is the better choice. This is the man who had a town hall meeting with high school and college students one of whom asked about the amount of testing being done in schools. The reply was that he didn’t even believe in testing and that his own chn. who go to a Quaker school are not tested regularly. In fact, they are tested ever couple of years. And… this town hall meeting happened the same week as Arne Duncan was giving three-quarters of a billion Federal dollars (approx.) to the “failing” NY schools to purchase the computers that would support the on-going testing to which the student protested (with much applause from the students audience) and to whom an answer was never given. Move forward with education with this man? Not likely in a positive way, that’s for sure.
President Obama has been re-elected, and now its time to organize to defend Social Security, Medicare (and the public schools) when he comes to cut them and open the door to privatization in the name of a “Grand Bargain.”
Bill Black, a Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and who was a prosecutor of white collar criminals during the Saving and Loan Scandals of the late 80’s and early 90’s (in which criminals in 3-piece suits were actually prosecuted and jailed under the first Bush administration, unlike Obama, who has refused to pursue systemic corporate fraud), warns that Obama will pursue a “Great Betrayal,” laying the groundwork for the final dissolution of New Deal and Great Society programs.
Just as you needed a Republican (Nixon) to establish trade with the Godless Red Chinese, so too do you need a Democrat – and especially an African American one, who can split off America’s most politically progressive constituency – to destroy Social Security and begin the process of handing it over to Wall Street.
Watch how Obama responds to all the talk about the oncoming (and bogus) “fiscal cliff.” His true nature and purpose as a Trojan Horse for the Austerity Party will reveal itself.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/bill-black-wall-street-urges-obama-to-commit-the-great-betrayal-html
Yes, Obama could easily destroy the New Deal and his hints about what lies ahead sounded very ominous, but for whom did he mean? The many who are already struggling or the few who’ve never struggled a day in their lives? He could turn around and surprise us all, such as by creating a Newer Deal, including a Public Works type jobs program to repair our country’s crumbling infastructure.
It was reported last night that the majority of folks who voted to re-elect Obama earn under $50K. I’m hoping that as a lame duck, he recognizes that he owes nothing to corporations, appreciates his base and feels accountable to the 99% who are counting on him to ensure our basic survival.
Wishful thinking, I know, but anything really is possible, and now that we know Romney is not going to be leading our country, hopes are all I’ve got right now.
I agree Prof! Wishful thinking , maybe, but one can only hope. :@
“President Obama has been re-elected, and now its time to organize to defend Social Security, Medicare (and the public schools) when he comes to cut them and open the door to privatization in the name of a ‘Grand Bargain.'”
I agree entirely. Too bad you had to follow it up with the musings about Obama as a Black wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Explain please why it was “too bad” I brought that up. Does that make me a racist?
An entire generation of neoliberal African American politicians (Obama, Booker, Ford, et. al.), few of whom have sprung organically from the communities they claimed to represent, has been identified, vetted, cultivated and promoted by those who seek to benefit from deregulation, privatization and the reduction of every social relationship to a market transaction.
Do you think it’s accidental that corporate America has so assiduously courted the Congressional Black Caucus, or created a farm system for developing Black political talent that will serve their interests, and split the allegiances of what has been the most reliable constituency for New Deal and Great Society programs?
If you were in a position to do that, would it not make sense? And if my analysis is so off the charts, please explain why the1% placed its bets on Obama rather than Hillary Clinton in 2008. Or, at a time when the most seemingly cynical interpretations of the the Overclass’ behavior are found to be understatement.
As I write on my students writing, this needs more development.
Honestly not sure where to even begin. You manage to embed about 20 highly debatable assumptions in every paragraph you write. For starters, these include (1) that Obama won the nomination in 2008 because “the 1% placed its bets on Obama rather than Hillary Clinton”; (2) that “the 1%” is a meaningful noun (and it’s not clear to me whether you mean rich people or the shadowy force of “corporate America”); (3) that (assuming it is a meaningful noun) “the 1%” bet on Obama because he is black, and Hillary Clinton is not; (4) that Hillary Clinton, presumably without the support of “corporate America” (or was it only “the 1%” that didn’t support her?), would neither be inclined nor able to destroy Social Security. #4 strikes me as particularly odd given her husband and political mentor’s role as the most important “neoliberal” in our lifetimes.
I don’t know if you’re racist, Michael, and frankly I don’t really enjoy deciding who is and who isn’t racist. I think it’s generally presumptuous and self-serving for one white person to call another white person racist. (For one thing, it implies the speaker isn’t racist, which is usually a complete crock.) The reference to Obama and Booker not having “sprung organically from the communities they claimed to represent” is a (barely) more subtle version of the accusation that a black man’s not really “black” (which itself is a more subtle version of the old “house” versus “field” rhetoric). It’s off-putting enough to hear Sharpe James say something like that, and it’s even harder to take coming from someone like you. It’s probably just me, though. I’m sure black people love to hear it.
I will say that I don’t think Obama’s race is particularly relevant to the question of what happens to Social Security. Granted, I’m not writing an article for submission to an academic humanities journal. But I could probably talk about the topic all day long before I hit the point where I felt it was really worth noting that Obama’s black.
Reposting this here because of how comically skinny the post appears below:
Honestly not sure where to even begin. You manage to embed about 20 highly debatable assumptions in every paragraph you write. For starters, these include (1) that Obama won the nomination in 2008 because “the 1% placed its bets on Obama rather than Hillary Clinton”; (2) that “the 1%” is a meaningful noun (and it’s not clear to me whether you mean rich people or the shadowy force of “corporate America”); (3) that (assuming it is a meaningful noun) “the 1%” bet on Obama because he is black, and Hillary Clinton is not; (4) that Hillary Clinton, presumably without the support of “corporate America” (or was it only “the 1%” that didn’t support her?), would neither be inclined nor able to destroy Social Security. #4 strikes me as particularly odd given her husband and political mentor’s role as the most important “neoliberal” in our lifetimes.
I don’t know if you’re racist, Michael, and frankly I don’t really enjoy deciding who is and who isn’t racist. I think it’s generally presumptuous and self-serving for one white person to call another white person racist. (For one thing, it implies the speaker isn’t racist, which is usually a complete crock.) The reference to Obama and Booker not having “sprung organically from the communities they claimed to represent” is a (barely) more subtle version of the accusation that a black man’s not really “black” (which itself is a more subtle version of the old “house” versus “field” rhetoric). It’s off-putting enough to hear Sharpe James say something like that, and it’s even harder to take coming from someone like you. It’s probably just me, though. I’m sure black people love to hear it.
I will say that I don’t think Obama’s race is particularly relevant to the question of what happens to Social Security. Granted, I’m not writing an article for submission to an academic humanities journal. But I could probably talk about the topic all day long before I hit the point where I felt it was really worth noting that Obama’s black.
We may not have the deep pockets to fight this, but we do have the truth on our side. Our only hope is to keep the conversation going. We need to get the message out to the public and especially to parents so they can see what the real ALEC agenda is and what this is doing to their children. The media needs to grow a pair and have the guts to reveal the truth behind the money. We also need to hold our presidents feet to the fire. What is good for his girls should be good enough for ALL children.
I agree with Teacher111, we can get to state legislators easier than to POTUS. Let’s organize to make our local legislators aware and accountable! They appoint the state authorities that folded for RTTT money.
Let’s get teachers (educators) reading the books about education that show us the way. I propose education book clubs and 3 authors to start with in my blog at edwardfberger.com. Thanks Diane Ravitch for helping unite educators and parents so that our public educational system can be saved and allowed to evolve. The American Dream is lost if this does not happen.
Here is the comment I posted on our local Patch the day before yesterday.
And so it goes …
It is time to protect and improve public education by denying profits to those who would rob a generation of children to line their greedy coffers.
Obama has not finalized his new cabinet yet. Looks like there will be some major changes, but one of the few remaining in Washington is Duncan 😦 ( http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/obama-cabinet-outlook-hillary-clilnton-geithner/story?id=17654718#.UJsWrGdgKSp ) Any way we could do a letter campaign/twitter blitz to convince Obama to put an educator in that position? This is perfect timing. He’s shed most of the Chicago peeps he brought with him, why keep the super controversial Duncan? Arne once told the WaPo “I’m in it for the long haul…I’m staying, unless the president gets sick of me.” Let’s convince Obama to get sick of him!
I attended an in- service yesterday. The faces of my colleagues said a lot. The agenda tp dismantle is breaking the core of so many great educaors. The Common Core, Keystones are NCLB all over again. It goes on and on. How do we get the public schools to fail? How can we get teachers to break? OBama has done nothing to stop the agendas. I voted for him but am no longer as hopeful. I love my job but I worry about the future for All kids.
I hope every teacher in America forwards that message to the President!
Arthur H. Camins • A Call for President Obama to Change Course on Education
There are a few highly concerned parents in my district that are beginning to wake up and complain about the high stakes testing and the field testing. We will be organizing a round table discussion that will be open to all district parents. Can anyone point me towards some articles about the reform agenda that I can print for parents to educate them on the true nature of these reforms. I don’t want to come off as a conspiracy theorist. I personally am scared of this agenda and I am not so sure the President will change directions. I have already been lied to when promises were made about GMO food. GMO poisoned food for us, deemed healthy by the FDA, while the President and his family eat organic.