Where are our leaders? Where are the political leaders with the courage and independence to support the commons against the power of Big Money?
This reader read Gary Rubinstein’s brilliant Letters to “Reformers” and wrote this comment:
“Thanks for making this series more widely known– it is so well done and important for people to see. And as noted in the notes on the Tillson piece, their collective silence is deafening. Rarely is that crowd quiet about anything . . .
“What we need is a politician to spend more than five minutes studying and understanding the real issues of real education reform. Too many fall into the Obama/Duncan trap of nostrums that sound good but don’t work. Most people are busy, don’t have kids in public schools, don’t talk to principals or teachers and don’t even realize they are lining up with the ALEC privateers. Isn’t anyone in DC listening at all? Seems not, and meanwhile the damage being done in the states and in the local schools is tangible and real.
“Where is our champion inside the beltway? A senator, a rep, someone running for President next time . . ? Someone to make this, true and meaningful and effective education reform, a major part of their political identity. They’d start with an enviable base.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m not sure that public educators have anyone inside the beltway who supports us. It’s a lot easier for people in DC to believe that poverty can be overcome by adopting ideas like vouchers (if you’re Republican) or concepts like “no excuses” (if you’re a Democrat “reformer”… and its very easy for both parties to ignore poor people: they make no contributions to campaigns…. and all the data show that the schools that are “failing” are the schools serving children raised in poverty. Parents in suburban districts, the ones who DO make campaign contributions, are happy to buy into the notion that education is a State or local issue. While some of them buy into ideas like “choice”, they don’t want THOSE kids from the housing projects in their neighboring district to attend THEIR schools… and wouldn’t dream of sending their child to a charter school in a less affluent setting, especially if the charter school spends the whole day on increasing test scores. Parents in successful districts like things the way they are and many believe the canard that kids raised in poverty have the same chance as their kids… parents in poor districts have no voice…
Despite the pessimism of this comment, I DO hope we find someone inside the Beltway who will lead a charge for improving schools serving children in poverty, and if we do, we need to amplify their voice!
A painfully realistic comment, but no politician is going to sign on to an unwinnable fight. Both Kennedy (Ted) and Bush got it wrong. Every kid competent, by 2014? It was nonsense then and it’s still nonsense. For every phenomenon known in the universe there is always a bell curve shaped distribution. We should still strive mightily to save as many as we can, but to criticize the privatizers because they consciously decide not to try to save the all, when the public schools can’t save them all either, is embracing a Picasso as if it were reality. Nice idea to leave no child behind, but the stragglers can’t keep up with the achievers when their entire parenting and culture alienates them from the society of critical thinking, flexible upward strivers. They have less opportunity than most of America, but the absence of opportunity arises from the parentally transmitted culture of poverty and segregation. To save them all, you would have to take them away from their parents before they were even conceived. Are you up for that?
The Honorable Senator Patty Murray has been a clear thinking educational leader for a number of years.
In NYC John Liu, Bill Deblasio, Robert Jackson, and Keith Wright, have all spoken out against privatization and the expansion of Charter Schools in public spaces. Unfortunately, under mayoral control, their voices are ignored…
Hillary
?!?!
If we’re going to passively wait for a leader to save us, then we are already lost.
Let’s act, starting with whatever small of acts of kindness (which corporate education reform seems determined to banish from the schools) and resistance in our classrooms, reaching out to our colleagues, school by school, district by district.
Authoritarianism falls apart without the consent and compliance of the dominated. Let’s lead ourselves out of this cesspool of lies, threats and looting.
LOOTING???? The “public” school system doesn’t have a right to tax dollars. Authoritarianism does fall apart without the consent and compliance of the dominated, and that is what is behind privatization, rebellion of parents against the authoritarianism of the public school systems. The money belongs to those who earned it, not to anyone else. There is no “right” to an education if we consider the matter. It may be good public policy to try to give every kid a chance by pooling our tax money and setting up a system that will extend into the poorest communities, but that is NOT a “right” in any meaningful sense of the term. The only rights we truly have are those which impose a negative duty on other people, i.e. the right NOT to be assaulted, the right NOT to be killed, the right NOT to be held captive. Any so called right which imposes a positive DUTY is not a real right. A positive duty is one in which a law requires one to pay money, or provide a service. If every kid has a “right” to an education, then someone must have a “duty” to teach him. I don’t believe that you can argue that anyone has a duty to teach anyone anything. It may be good policy, and we may want to do it, but it isn’t a right inhering in the person.
Diane, Could you link Rubenstein’s letter … I must have missed it in the holiday
whirl ….
Sue: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/03/gary-rubinstein-talks-to-the-reform-leaders/
Great piece, please take the time to read it and his blog.
I find it difficult to keep up with the “reformers”. It seems like everyday there is a new non-profit reform group sprouting up.
Here is Gary Rubinstein’s Open Letter to Wendy Kopp. It is brilliant. You can find his letters to other “reformers” on his blog.
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/12/31/open-letters-to-reformers-i-know-part-8-wendy-kopp/
New Senator Elizabeth Warren has been appointed to the Senate HELP committee, which includes education. I think she may listen, and do something. I hope so.
Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a record of opposing Obama/Duncan’s education policies and he’s on the Senate Education Committee. He has gone to bat for educators who lose their jobs due to test scores: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=7ade1257-e717-442b-81a8-724f484f0756
The answer is very simple. They are all bought and sold as are the so called civic organizations and civil rights organizations. Just look at who their funders are and you will have the answers. When civil rights came in the corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals bought positions in all these organizations. If you do not do their bidding your funding disappears to someone or some organization that will do their bidding and they are waiting in line as it is so cheap to buy people and organizations if you are wealthy. Power is on the cheap right now, especially in education as you have the dems and rats in the same place, privatizaton and corporatization. As some political friends once taught me “When there is big money, there is no party.” Also, a friends grandfather taught him ” I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.”
Good to know about Sanders and Warren! MIchael, you’re right , It would be nice to wait and be saved… but we need to keep at it! Thanks Diane for this blog, though it’s hard to read some days, as it defines our fight so passionately.
Waiting for Socialistman???? And CherokeeWoman???? They are the ones public education would want on their side. But in comes socialism (e.g. monopoly state education), out goes freedom. Of choice.
Earlier this week I heard an interview with Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA, now displaced by political redistricting). His lengthy progressive record stands on its own. In the interview he was asked about what he plans to do now, after 40 years of public service. His answer was he wanted to find a way to improve the lives of low-income and neglected people, especially children. He’s not likely to see a request for me to become a major (well-connected) voice on behalf of debunking RttT, charter/privatization, and the demeaning of public school teachers and public education in general. Something tells me, though, that you, Diane, could mobilize a massive effort to recruit him to the fight against the deformers. Care to give it a try?
http://www.petestark.com
Educators/retired educators need to run for office. Same premise as “physician, heal thyself.” Yes WE can!
If you were lucky enough to retire, you have some credibility. Those of us who have been tarred and feathered, are just whiners. We must have been really bad teachers to lose our jobs since the schools are already full of bad teachers (sarcasm). As a nontenured teacher neither of the big unions did anything for me. For those of you in nonunion states, we are kind of the ballast that gets thrown overboard in negotiations. The trick is to last four (in my state) years and be awarded tenure, so they have to demonstrate that you are incompetent (instead of just costing them more) before firing you. Since I sound like I am whining and hung up on my own problems, I am definitely not an effective advocate for positive change.
Sage comment, if I hear the irony (not sarcasm, precisely) correctly. Tenure! The goal of teachers. The Holy Grail. The Heaven. The Rose of God. Like priests of the church. Protected, not fired. What if there will never be tenure for teachers in the K-12 schools again? What if?
You won’t be able to keep staff in the buildings. The turnover is already super high in a down economy. Go research the turnover in charters without tenure. Ask yourself why they can’t keep staff.
One more note about who is/isn’t a leader, and the role of disaster mentality in reforming schools. Alan Borsuk is the education columnist for the Milwaukee Journal, (with whom I rarely agree, since he makes many of the false assumptions and recommends many of the more extreme responses despite his apparent rational approach.) Today’s column suggests we need another Michelle Rhee approach to really “turn schools around” (even though Louisiana has been a disaster).
Diane, could you read it and consider responding?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/education-needs-boldness-of-disaster-response-3a88m1m-185757801.html
I will blog about this as I think you misread Borsuk. He knows that vouchers and charters are doing no better than public schools. He is looking for a fresh vision, not a Rhee-style rhee-form.
Watch for my post about Milwaukee tomorrow morning. Make sure that it gets to the Mayor’s desk.