Deborah Meier has been blogging recently with Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Deb is known as a progressive, Mike as a conservative. Deb was one of the founders of the small schools movement and a leader of opposition to standardized testing through her involvement in Fairtest. Mike strongly supports standardized testing, charter schools, and competition a drivers of change.
In his previous post, Mike asked Deb whether she was part of the problem (because of her opposition to standardized testing and her general skepticism towards what is called “reform” today, I.e., No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top).
This is a good exchange. I wonder if they can bridge their differences.
Deborah answered here. I won’t begin to summarize what she said. Let me just say that she is at her best and what she wrote about children, about the shrinking middle class, and about what schools can and cannot do. Please take the time to read what she wrote.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for posting this interesting exchange. Here’ what I just posted in response:
Deborah, like you I have worked in public school options. When we proposed them in Minnesota, we were told that we were helping to destroy public education. Actually, I think options such as you created in NY and Boston helped strengthen public education. Do you agree?
Are the exams schools that you have in NYC, and that many large cities have – part of the solution or part of the problem? These schools will not accept students who do not score well on the standardized tests that you oppose.
Many (not all but many) charter public schools were started by frustrated public school educators. Are they “part of the problem?”
What about the low income inner city parents who are frustrated with district public schools and have enrolled their children in charter public schools? Are they part of the problem?
All good questions, but I suspect you will wait long for any answers.
Part of Deborah’s experience was in Boston part in NYC. Here’s something I just learned – the Boston Public Schools use the same exams to help determine entrance into their elite “Exam” schools as are used by independent (also know as “Private” schools).
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/exam
What does that tell you about these exam schools? Tells me they would more property be seen as private schools. I know some of the people who post here have sent their children to such schools. I didn’t and wouldn’t.
I will read the exchange between Deborah and Mike but with just the few words written I know where I stand. In a way, exams are a bit of goofiness. A necessary evil. If Deb is a progressive, what does that mean? Protecting the status quo? We need change, dramatic change.
Diane buys into the rhetoric; “poor children”, “shrinking middle class”, while the public school system is failing.
Dickvelner, be sure to read my new book this September. You will learn something.
I read somewhere that the public and politicians have said American public education has been failing for about a half century. (I don’t have the actual citation for that, but I do know around 1983 with a Nation at Risk we were worried America would get out maneuvered by other countries. So that’s 30 years ago.)
So if American public education has stunk real bad for a few dacades, why is America still around? Why didn’t….Japan take over by now?
Hi,
A Nation at Risk was wrong. We were not at risk. We outperformed every nation with higher test scores over the past fifty years.
Why are chinese students lying cheating plagerizing and hiring consultants to get into our schools if they are so bad? Why afe all our colleges and high schools filled with foreigners? Oh of course no Finns, their system is so perfect and we just fail miserably compared to all 5 or so million of them, total pop of north jersey. Also no Finns allowed because they do not appear to be of a protected class color or disadvantage. Sorry, no visas. Go to the back of the line. Statistics are funny when you compare apples to oranges, and the press loves only one.
Hi
I will have been teaching 30 years this fall and most of my teaching has been under the ill-fated “No Child Left Behind” era. I have had much time to reflect on our nation’s public education system. I think that the beginning of what was ” a call to arms for standardized testing for all” was the beginning of a downfall in our public education system. Don’t get me wrong, I used proficiency tests in Ohio to look at myself as a teacher and assess progress every year, but they didn’t tell you much. And with the onset of so much testing and preparation for testing, we lost the “creative” part of our great education system that I was brought up with and loved.
Dona Givens
3rd grade teacher in Ohio
Exams are both a “bit of goofiness” and a “necessary evil” – can you defend that a little? What exactly is necessary about goofiness?
Please dickvelner, use your own words and experience, not the usual reformer phrases like, “the public school system is failing”, “protecting the status quo”, and “we need dramatic change”. Frankly, those are so trite.
If you want concrete examples, there are a number of students in my local high school who have had to look outside the public K-12 system for appropriate classes. Often this resulted in them going to the university to take courses, increasingly it has involved them taking some type of online class.
If creating schools in which low-income minority succeed is protecting the status quo, than yes she is, as her work has shown. But the use of standardized testing to rank schools, teachers and students is the best way to make sure that the rich continue to succeed and those of other backgrounds fail–it is a rigged race, as has been shown by the research on the construction of and results of standardized tests.
What a fine post.I really enjoyed reading Deborah’s response.
Thanks, Diane.
M. Schneider: I agree.
And the answer to the question is: Deborah Meier is definitely a part of the solution.
Do you think that lottery admission to more specialized schools like the Central Park East school as opposed to traditional geographic admission is part of the solution? If so I think we are in agreement. If you believe that schools like Central Park East destroy communities and should be baned, we must disagree on this issue.
the intended consequences of mixing political witchery with education.
see Swarthmore. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348110/swarthmore-spinning-out-control-videos
That behavior is typical today and eminates from curriculum born of the religion or worship of social justice. The moral relativism that permits antisocial behavior and calls it self expression. Wearing pants under the behind so the underwear shows and the crotch is at the knees, meaningless tatoos, self mutilation, men walking down the street with hand on crotch. Oblivious. Self expression. Just like the swarthmore kids. Accepted by authority. Kids weRing pajamas to highschool every day, disorder, chaos. Uncivil. Culture and curriculum confusing and manipulative, permissive purposeful authority. Progresdives hoping for legions of these to break down society. Through media and education. We have popstars with songs like ” bow down bitches” by beyonce and”slut like you” by pink, both new mothers. We have Kesha and gaga and rhianna promoting suicide
and death, their song lyrics considered in common core LA curriculum. not only is the testing system too much and corrupt in its design and intentions itis administered by teachers who are forced to sign non disclosure contracts. I asked to see my childs and was told i was forbidden to see it. sorry ladies and gents this is not reform it is assault on humanity.
Given that I have faith that Deb Meier is not going to sell out, they will not bridge their differences, because Petrilli is paid to profess to believe what he professes to believe — as is the case with all the reform mouthpieces. So obviously, changing their tune would amount to quitting their jobs.