Dear Readers,
I can’t bring myself to say “Merry Christmas,” because this Christmas season has been blighted by the tragedy in Newtown.
We are still in mourning for the twenty babies who were lost there, the precious children who were so cruelly taken from their families.
We are still in mourning for our brave colleagues, the educators who died defending the children, their children.
Let us all this holiday season stop to honor their memory.
Let us rededicate ourselves to do what is right for the children of our nation.
Let us promise to stand fearlessly for the values of compassion, kindness, and fellowship.
Let us reject the culture of violence and death.
Let us embrace the meaning of the words: Peace on earth, goodwill towards all.
Because so many who share in this community are educators, let us continue to educate, to lead others from ignorance to knowledge, to educate the public, to bring light where there is now darkness and despair.
Know that you are not alone.
Peace to you all,
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
Thank you for being there every day, keeping us informed and allowing our voices to be heard. And simply, thank you for giving us a space to reach out to one another.
Peace to you as well and much hope for 2013,
Peggy
Thank you for sharing from your heart. Thank you for helping us in the teaching profession to continue on will our callings, despite the current struggles.
I have not felt alone since I met so many kindred spirits on Twitter and here within your blog comments. You have united us and encouraged us to raise our voices, Diane, and for that I will be forever grateful.
Let us focus on honoring the dear ones of Sandy Hook Elementary and their community. We are all their legacy.
Diane,
Thank you for your thoughtful post After reading your original kerfuffle tweet, I understand how others felt it. It was inappropriate to even mention union at all. I don’t remember and police or firemen spokespeople after 9/11 mentioning their union in their statements online or in the media. I understand what you were trying to say, but sometimes in the defense of unions, silence is a stronger show of strength – especially when it comes to national tragedies. Sure, our opponents use every opportunity to denounce us as a union of professionals, but do we want to stoop to the same tactics?
Thoughtful holidays to you,
Dan
I am not a union teacher and I completely disagree with your assertions. There was no vilification of police and firefighters who belong to unions prior to 9/11, whereas union teachers have been repeatedly attacked over the past several few years, including in the corporate sponsored Hollywood propaganda movie Won’t Back Down, which Michelle Rhee made sure was shown at both political conventions this summer.
People expect police and firefighters to risk their lives on the job. Few realize that teachers are also willing to lay their lives on the line, especially union teachers, due to the smear campaign against them.
I thought it was perfectly appropriate for Diane to point out that, contrary to all of the negative characterizations of union teachers and the misinformation that has been spread about them by corporate “reformers”, the brave educators at Sandy Hook were in fact union teachers who were willing to give their lives to protect children.
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I agree. And it seems people do forget too easily. I remember watching on tv and reading in the newspaper the police and firefighter unions honoring their members who died on 9/11, most prominently in some of the funeral processions. No one, at least that I can recall, raised any objections to those unions literally injecting themselves into the grieving & mourning process.
And why should there have been objections? The police and firefighters were honoring their own. It is only fair that we can honor our own too, even if just to mention that they ARE one of our own.
A year ago I was “dialoguing” in the comments section of the local Patch news site. The subject was unions; the majority of comments were rabidly anti-union, saying that union people are lazy, thugs and incompetent and that they are protected by bully unions and corrupt union leaders. I had enough of that and stated that the 9/11 heroes were all union people. They were outraged that I would make such a statement. At that point there was such a howling and screaming against me for using the terrible tragedy to make a point, they claimed I was using dead heroes to make a point. And this was more than 10 years after 9/11. It seems it’s never the right time to point out that union people are NOT lazy, are NOT thugs and are not incompetent. The same thing happened last week when I pointed out in another discussion that the teachers who died at Newtown were union people, I was chided, lambasted and scolded again for my supposedly “outrageous” comment. This country is anti-union and unions are an endangered species.
Well said, Diane. And may the coming year bring you peace and happiness. The tragedy in Newtown has made people think deeply about the value of teachers and about the need for a discussion on guns in our society. I know of several people, my daughter included, who have begun 26 random acts of kindness in remembrance of those poor women and children killed. Let’s hope we can learn from this tragedy and make our society a better one.
Thank you for your thoughts and wishes.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Happy New Year…my resolution is to kill us with kindness.
Diane and Friends,
Thank you for this community.
Thank you for writing from your hearts and your intellects for our children and for the very survival of our profession.
Thank you all for sharing, supporting and grieving together in our shared purpose, passion and dedication in taking care of and educating our children.
Let us continue to honor our 20 dear children of Newtown and their teachers, our colleagues who loved them and devoted their lives to their young hearts, minds and now everlasting spirits.
May 2013 bring us together to carry the loving spirits of our Newtown heroes with us in our journey forward as we find ways to honor each and every one, young and older, both together and alone.
And finally, thank you all for your dedication, your sacrifice, your words, your hope, your commitment and your action in creating a better world and solid, secure and safe lives for our children in our classrooms and in the world beyond our schools’ doors.
Maureen Reedy
Happy Holidays to you, Diane. Thanks for being there for us.
What we know is that the angelic children of Newtown have been taken home
along with their guardian angels, their educators who in life tried to shield them and now forever cradle them. Small comfort for their families and friends but over time a
healing thought. The children of Newtown and their teachers will forever be the
messenger’s and the reminder’s of what life and living is about.
Think of them with kindness for others.
Think of them when anger and hate intrudes into your heart.
Think of them when courage is needed.
Think of them when you look into the eyes of a child and be guided by Do No Harm.
Think of them when you parent, teach and forever mentor.
Think of them and always remember that children are always watching.
Think of them when you sing a song, or read a poem, or write a story, or give a gift.
Think of them as they are us tomorrow……we pray.
And for the children of Newtown and their families and friends we ache.
Thank you Diane. We are forever grateful to you for speaking out.
Peace,
RL
Happy Holidays to you, too, Diane.
I’m very grateful that you are here for America’s precious children and the educators who devote their lives to them.
I received this last night from Rosalie Friend, Save Our Schools. She suggest you insert your city, your reformy names and terms. Thank you Diane and to all a joyous holiday season.
The Night Before…
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the state
Tisch was telling the Regents that she couldn’t wait.
The new year was coming, surely bringing the best;
Every school overflowing with test after test.
The Common Core Standards would arrive any day,
Educational nirvana was well on its way.
And in the Tweed Courthouse joy was also in season.
Tests, yet more tests on top of tests were the reason.
Dasher Klein passed the torch to Walcott, the Dancer;
Year-round testing, K-12 was the obvious answer.
On Bloomberg’s A team was no reindeer named Cupid,
But Polakow-Suransky was left to play stupid,
Explaining how tests were mere all-purpose tools
For holding back kids, judging teachers and schools:
If test prep and drilling took the entire school day,
Such a sacrifice was but a small price to pay.
If History was lost and Music and Art,
Well, you know everybody has to do their part.
If kids are nervous and are sick or are stressed,
That’s kinda sad, but the state and Fed say we must test.
When tests make special need and ELL kids feel dumb and sob,
Again, blame the Fed, we’re only doing our job.
If teachers feel pressured and are tempted to cheat,
We’re sure that’s so rare it’s not worth a tweet.
When teachers are rated by tests that won’t let them teach,
Hmm. I’ll get back to you soon. That’s not part of my speech.
If teachers don’t add value and their names make the press,
I really don’t like that either, I must confess.
When teachers quit because they can’t stand the grinding,
We’ve not done a survey that proves what you’re finding.
And so on and so forth on this Christmas Eve.
Here’s a list to check twice of things I believe:
If children come first, then parents come second.
That’s a clear truth that never gets to be reckoned.
So Albany and Tweed, you must let in the sun;
You and the privateers are not Number 1.
And that goes for Pearson and all of the charters;
We’ll call you if we need you! How’s that for starters.
Don’t keep parents in the dark about testing you’ve planned.
And spring tests on our children with your high hand.
Inform us of field tests and all other exams;
We’re not here to be led around like little lambs.
Let us decide to opt out or give our consent,
If we think taking these tests is time that’s well spent.
Be sure to assess what’s important to measure,
The work kids can do and the growth that we treasure.
Not the bubble sheet tests sold by grubby green vendors
To the grinches on Tweed Street—education’s pretenders.
That’s the kind of New Year that I hope will be seen;
Merry Christmas to all and Happy 2013.
~Fred Smith of Change the Stakes
Peace and Blessings, Diane.
Reblogged this on Continuing Change and commented:
A Holiday Message from Diane Ravitch
I sampled the comments sections of many local and national news sites. OK, comments sections and blogs can become snake pits and may be indicative of nothing but when you make a big sampling over a period of time I think you may get a feeling for what many people are “thinking.” A huge percentage of the comments on mental health, autism and guns were jawdroppingly crude and appalling beyond human belief. I’m not really optimistic that real meaningful gun control will ever be accomplished in this country, at least in the near term. You would be shocked how many people are not willing to budge one iota on their “precious” right to own lethal weapons, I guess that’s redundant. They say there are enough laws, we don’t need any more regulations and if legal gun owners can’t possess guns then only criminals will have guns, blah, blah, blah. This is all very disheartening for me that after this horrific tragedy that we can’t all come together and at least agree to ban or severly restrict semi-automatic guns and those jumbo sized ammo magazines.
I no longer read the comments sections for any online news article because of readers’ lack of civility and their ability to make me question humanity’s evolution. The number of nasty and petty people out there depresses me.
Joe, there are mainstream opinion molding services which skew internet chatter, using software that lets their operators post massive numbers of comments under different aliases. I researched it four years ago, when the online degree mills hired them. I tracked the Washington Post’s contractor (they own Kaplan), but I can’t recall its name right now – it was just three initials.
I’m sure some vile comments are real, but you can’t do statistics on the chatter for a number of reasons. I’m sure the NRA has pulled out all the stops on this one, and they still don’t dominate sites I track, that ask commenters to type in a verification test. Don’t give up on humanity.
Oh my goodness, I found the link to DCI Group! It’s in a 2010 John Lauerman story. I suspect Bloomberg News was busy driving down WaPo’s stock, but Lauerman is a great reporter.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-07/obama-student-aid-rule-riles-for-profits-spurs-most-letters-since-1983.html
I’m afraid my “webliography” on the topic was lost in the crash of a corrupted hard drive, but I found this one link by Googling chemtchr. The Economist keeps logs of reader comments.
Despite the sadness surrounding the events of 11 days ago, this is a time to reflect on the blessings we all have. May the new year be a bright opportunity to make a difference in this world. Holiday greetings to all.
Diane
Spent part of today reading papers of Bank Street students (Future School Leaders..). Many had read your book to reflect upon. It should be required reading of anyone / everyone commenting on any post on your blog.
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch (Nov 1, 2011)
As many pointed out – you remind us all of what this is about. Democracy. And, some courage.
One student wisely quoted you, “Public education is a vital institution in our democratic society and its governance must be democratic, open to public discussion and public participation.”
Not only have we lost our way in the content and practice of public education, the politicians, the publishers, the endless list of consultants (too many of whom have $old out), the wannabees, the quick fixers, the privatizers and profiteers, and the blowhards (with a new low with the NRA) capture the headlines as if they are experts.
Why don’t they quote the kindergarten teachers?
“… its governance must be democratic.”
The students who read your book cited your courage to step back, to rethink views, and to stand up for what you believe at great risk.
Keep writing. Keep inspiring. Keep the hope.
Thank you
Thank you, Jere.
Your students’ words are my Christmas present.
Thank you, Diane, for your knowledge and your experience, leading us to further expose the truth in American education and to work for justice for our children, our teachers, our parents and our communities. Since reading your book when it was first published, I then began reading “Bridging Differences,” and I hoped that you would start your own blog with many short, informative posts, providing a forum for discussion and planning. This is the perfect site for all of us to come together, so that’s been your gift to all of us. FOR all of us I say: STOP. THE. TESTING. in. 2013.
THIS WILL be the year the house of cards collapses and our public schools can be saved. It MUST be.