In his review of Reign of Error in Schools Matter, historian and teacher John Thompson contemplates the urgent issue of whether I hurt reformers’ feelings.
To be precise, the question posed by his review is “Should Diane Ravitch Be More Careful to Not Hurt Reformers’ Feelings?”
This is an interesting question that I have pondered these past few weeks, indeed, for the past few years.
It is true. I heard from a mutual friend (well, not so much a friend anymore) that Bill Gates was very hurt by my comments about his effort to remake American education.
He frankly could not understand how anyone could question his good intentions.
Actually I have never questioned his intentions, but I certainly question his judgement and his certainty that he can “fix” education by creating metrics to judge teachers.
He recently said that it would take a decade to find out whether “this stuff” works; in the meanwhile, teachers and principals are losing their jobs, schools are being closed, communities are being shattered–because Bill Gates got a new idea that he wanted to try out using human subjects.
I have also heard from other sources that reformers say I am “mean” or “harsh” when I say that some “reformers” have a profit motive or that their grand plans actually hurt poor minority children instead of helping them.
They are baffled that I do not admire their efforts to create charters and vouchers to allow poor kids to “escape” public schools.
I confess that I was not aware of their feelings.
As a historian, I wasn’t really thinking about their feelings.
I was thinking about the consequences of their actions.
I was thinking about purposeful efforts to dismantle public education.
I was thinking about the constant repetition of the blatant lie that American public education is a failure.
One of the things that a historian tries to do is to correct the record. When people say things again and again, even though these things are not true, it is the job of the historian to tell the truth. If others disagree, they should put their facts on the table too.
Historians understand that debate and dissent are part of the work of understanding history.
There is not one truth, but on the other hand, you can’t just make up facts and narratives, hire a fancy PR firm, and rewrite history to suit yourself.
Are there profiteers in the business of school reform? Yes, indeed, and I document their activities amply in the book.
Meanwhile, dear reformers, please know that I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
I just wanted to let you know that your efforts to create a dual system of publicly funded schools turns back the clock to the shameful era before the Brown decision.
And I wanted you to know that your reliance on standardized testing is a grand mistake.
I urge everyone of you to take the tests that you think are the measure of all students and publish your scores.
If you won’t take the test, if you fear the results, don’t be so vigorous in using them to label children and evaluate teachers.
And please know that your speculative plans are not “hurting the feelings” of teachers and principals, they are ruining their careers, ruining their reputations, doing real and tangible damage to the lives of real people.
Their feelings are not hurt by your theoretical reforms. Their lives are.
Hurt their feelings? Did anyone ever ask them if they hurt the feelings of the teachers they vilify? Does anyone believe they really might care?
It’s a tribute to you that those who question you understand that you have enough compassion within you to genuinely care about the question.
Terrific post.
I am sick and tired of the whining rhetoric by the reformers. The reformers and 1% are so out of touch and have no clue as to the amount of daily suffering taking place across America due their decisions to reform education. When have they ever considered the feelings of students, parents or teachers?
Would it be “harsh” to state that Bill Gates was disingenuous when he declared enumerable times that “we know what works” at the onset of his involvement in education but now states it will take 10 years or more to find out if true?
Great Point!
You are always such a breath of freshness. I just finished your book. I am not sure what public educators would be doing without your truth telling and in such a readable fashion. You Go Girl!
“It is true. I heard from a mutual friend (well, not so much a friend anymore) that Bill Gates was very hurt by my comments about his effort to remake American education.
He frankly could not understand how anyone could question his good intentions.” This is what happens when you live inside your self-created (Gates Foundation) echo chamber. He has no perspective.
Feelings? Really? I find it really difficult to believe that Gates, or any other “reformer” thought about the feelings, let alone lives and careers, of students, teachers, administrators and so on.
What about the feelings of my 6th-grader who is bored stiff with the repetitious stuff she’s getting that passes for curriculum but is really test prep in disguise? What about the feelings of my 3rd-grader, now in the grade where the testing [poop] REALLY hits the fan for the next 6 years of her life, when she brings me math homework, crying because she doesn’t get it, and it’s freaking ALGEBRA, like I got in 6th and 7th grades and still managed to become a productive citizen with such a “late” start. What about the feelings of the millions of kids who feel like losers because of policies enacted in boardrooms and ivory towers instead of IN SCHOOLS!?!?!?!?
What about the CHILDREN?!?!?!?
Oh, that’s right. Our children are “Other People’s Children.” Their feelings come second to Bill Gates’ feelings. [Expletive]
Opt out your children, do not allow them to abuse him, Demand that they not be subjected to the tesp prep regime. Review daily what is happening in their classes. Let the school know that you won’t tolerate test prep nonsense. Home school them!
Algebraic concepts in 3rd grade? Is this in the common core?! I am no expert on this subject but I am pretty sure there has been some research concerning the developmental milestones the average human being must have achieved in order to conceptually understand Algebra (not to mention that a 3rd grader, by virtue of the number of years he or she has been studying mathematics, may still be working through number sense).
Let’s all have a pity party for the corporate reformers. Boo hoo. Those grown-ups (and I use the term loosely here) need to stop being so arrogant and self-aggrandizing and self-righteous. They need to get over themselves. They need to open their eyes and see the harm THEY have caused (and continue to cause) to the true victims: our innocent children who, by contrast, are vulnerable and unable to fend for themselves. And, there is no shortage of evidence of this harm. At a time when these grown-ups should be listening to those on the front lines — the parents and teachers — and doing whatever is in the best interests of our children they are, instead, pursing their own agendas and are pummeling our kids into the ground, causing them to be stressed-out, unsure of themselves, and unable to cope. Shame on these grown-ups; I’m playing my smallest violin just for you.
The only way I can opt my kids out of “test prep” is to literally take them out of school. My guesstimate of the time spent on testing and test prep for the MSA’s alone (Maryland’s current high-stakes test, to be replaced by PARCC next school year) 2 years ago was WEEKS of accumulated class time. And it’s sprinkled here and there throughout the school day and year, so no way to know which assignments are going to be “write a BCR” or “fill in a bubble sheet” ones and which will actually be both useful AND age-appropriate.
I would happily homeschool the kids again; did it for 2 years before the crushing poverty from unemployment caught up with us and our house needed repairs to the tune of a yearly salary. But my job situation is much more amenable to it now, and I am seriously considering it, even though it means pulling one child out of a magnet program and the other out of her only real chance (that we can afford, anyway) to sing and to play music in large ensembles with other kids – and music is a significant part of who she is. Our system is all-or-nothing, so no homeschooling while taking arts classes in public schools, so it’s a big decision to make, with costs and benefits in each direction.
I feel your pain. I was adamant that I would put my kids in public schools, but when I visited the school when my daughter was approaching kindergarten, they were all about testing and test prep. They not only do multiple standardized tests (including pre-tests and whatnot), but they sprinkle test prep throughout the curriculum. I really don’t want to have my kids be testing guinea pigs, but I didn’t see how I could logistically opt them out of so many test days, let alone all the test prep. Fortunately, we found a private school that we can (barely) afford that we love which doesn’t do any standardized testing. It was a hard decision to make, though, and I still support public school.
There are no easy choices these days. Best wishes whatever you decide.
Maybe John Thompson wishes he had written Reign of Error, as he must now recognize that it is a ghastly mistake to “worry” about reformer feelings. This is not a playground game. Tangible damage to the lives of real children over decades, sanctioned by big business and “educational” bureaucracies is institutionalized infanticide. A movement to put a stop to the madness is taking shape. Here’s the question for John Thompson, “Which Side Are You On?”
Lyrics courtesy of Florence Reese
For years teachers has been “polite” and demur when discussing the disaster of the current wave of accountability- based reform. This has gotten us nowhere but racing to the bottom. I think the stronger tone of your latest book has captured the attention of more people, especially when combined with solid evidence. I think it matches the tone that has been directed at teachers as we are blamed for all the social ills of the country that obviously stem from our tenure-based laziness and union propagated greed.
100% in agreement with you. Teachers are by far the most polite, respectful employees in this country until you tread on them again and again and again. My Race To The Top is retiring at school year’s end. I wish all those my teaching wife and I leave behind the best but advise them to get involved and READ the Common Core Standards before accepting them.
Why would folks (and I’m being kind calling them that) like Gates, King or Coleman have their feelings hurt? I thought they “didn’t give a shit” about what others think and say.
Rhee especially! So their feelings are hurt while they literally screw us and the public out of dollars and opportunities and the concept of democracy and public education. Puleeze. Just shut up.
I think this posting is spot on. This is a historian at the top of her game.
Like Billionaire Bill Gates and State Commissioner John King (soulmates to Michelle Rhee and Dr. Steve Perry and Paul Vallas et alia), it’s all about their feelings. The owner of this blog thinks it’s all about their judgements.
So let me get this straight: they think Diane Ravitch is being unfriendly?
So it’s about friends… Let’s get positively non-VAManiacal here. The best friend isn’t the one who tells you want you WANT to hear. The friend you should cherish is the one who tells you what you NEED to hear.
“The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worthy dying for.” [Homer]
I will say this once—and once should be enough—the old dead Greek guy got it right.
The leading charterites/privatizers should be so lucky as to have even one friend like a Diane Ravitch.
Lucky us. We’ve got her and a whole of others.
🙂
Last sentence should read: Lucky us. We’ve got her and a whole lot of others.
P.S. And Homer didn’t even have an iPad and a keyboard. Go figure. [a numbers/stats joke]
🙂
The reason why it is possible to hurt these people’s feelings is that many of them believe they are performing a great civic service in getting involved in education reform. This is them seeing themselves as civil rights activists, correcting things for future generations, leaving the world a better place… This self-conception causes them to consistently misread the nature of critiques against them.
These people need to understand that it is entirely possible to do great harm even when you are exceptionally clever and your intentions are pure. If the intentions are not pure, and you are exceptionally clever, this outcome is even more likely.
The only way around the problem of blind spots is to diversity the perspectives of the people working on the problem. But money and power can corrupt efforts toward that, as anyone who has read “The Emperor’s New Clothes” surely knows. They needn’t take it personally when someone outside their circle of power, influence and likemindedness points out a hardening of their ideology, or the influence of money or the solidification of power relationships. It should be viewed as potentially useful information about the eventual success of their endeavor.
If I may correct your sentence: “This self-DEception causes them to consistently misread the nature of critiques against them.”
The job of the historian is to lay out her interpretation of events based on research that leads to valid conclusions.The historian is judged on the aforementioned criteria, nothing more, nothing less. “Feelings” are not relevant to the historian. S/he must “play it as it lays”. To expect anything less will lead the historian to be untruthful to her/his professional obligation. Those who raise irrelevant issues to Diane’s work, are, in effect, asking her to be incompetent in service to a political/pedagogical objective(s).
Shame on those who hold Diane to anything other than valid research criteria. Props to Diane for explicating her position cogently and coherently.
The prairie fire of resistance to “Educational Reform” continues its forward march.
Thanks, Diane
Well said, John!
Diane Ravitch, an army of one, is taking on the billionaires boys’ club, and these thin skinned oligarchs can’t take the heat. Diane is very civil and restrained in her language and her research is thorough, efficient and backed up by a ton of data. Tough luck if the billionaires can’t take a good dose of the truth.
Diane Ravitch is of a rare breed–a real hero in a time when those are difficult to come by. Her courage and tenacity and intelligence and energy and moral sense are models to us all. Her authority has not been purchased. It has been earned.
I’m sorry if I’m hurting John Thompson’s feelings, but that article was about the most mealy-mouthed thing I’ve read in a long time. I almost had to wonder if the title was sarcastic, as I couldn’t entirely figure out the point of the article. He doesn’t disagree with anything Diane said. He even admits that Diane documents everything very thoroughly. But, still, maybe she shouldn’t really have said it, or said it quite so harshly or … something. I can’t exactly figure out what he’d have had Diane do differently. At one point he wishes for a distinction between TFA alumni like Rhee and Huffman and the idealistic young volunteers. But Diane very clearly drew exactly that distinction in her book. So what’s the issue?
Well-behaved women seldom make history…
…nor have they been known to contribute impactful scholarship…
🙂
Agree.
I guess the “issue” is a red herring to throw us off the track of the real issues.
You know, classic PR /advertising strategy:
“If you don’t like how the conversation is going, change the subject”
Don Draper
😉
Just curious as to who and when I will receive my ‘apology’ from the reformers who have slimmed and defamed me, my profession, and colleagues in the U.S. and now- throughout the world. Any ideas?
This is something I have thought about before from the stance of where do we go from here? We can’t just be pitted against each other for ever (status quo vs. public school supporters). I agree with Diane and she is a true leader (she’s not a diplomat—it’s not her job to make them feel OK if she is leading a movement against their actions—a very necessary movement in advocacy (true advocacy) of children and democracy). So, yes when those who claim their feelings are hurt can say “I’m sorry” (and not “I’m sorry if. . .” because that’s not really an apology); when they can say they are sorry for the destruction they have caused (that is not creative, but rather just destructive disruptive destruction), then maybe we can move forward to the saving face part—the part of, well we know you were trying to help but you were not accounting for: anyone else, different perspectives, money isn’t everything, fixing people is never a good idea, there are no easy answers, etc.
And if you really want to help education. . .spend time in a public school and then quiety write a check for the things they might need. I can’t imagine not having anything else to do with my time other than orchestrate a mean and myopic overhaul of a valuable institution. But I will hand it to those speaking out, like Diane. . .they have been respectful as they disagree. And most acknowledge that the motivation behind, say TFA, was honorable, but not well-thought out (like stopping in a lane of traffic to let a pedestrian cross, forgetting that the other lane might not stop and might run them down). That kind of thing.
I say hold strong. The fact that they are at the point of “Well, you hurt my feelings” is a good turning point. When the apologies start, then we start considering how to factor these people who want to help but don’t know how into the equation.
“Mean”? “Harsh”? “Hurt their feelings”? Please. Don’t fall for that red herring. Corporate reformers have been keeping teachers in line with that tactic since the implementation of NCLB.
Do they think any teachers suffered hurt feelings upon receiving their VAM scores…and having them published in the paper?
Did any children suffer hurt feeling at being endlessly drilled, killed, tested, stack ranked and sorted?
Or do the feelings of the “little people” matter at all?
Perhaps we are only to concern ourselves with the very sensitive, delicate feelings of the billionaires and their toadies.
A couple of those teachers have even committed suicide. When will the apology to their loved ones come? Sadly, probably ever.
Here’s a song for them, hurt feelings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lg51dzWHJE
Thanks, Diane, for hurting Bill Gates’ feelings. If anything you’re being too kind in not questioning his intentions as well as his judgment. Does anyone believe for a moment that his views on student data are not self-serving?
“Does anyone. . . ?”
Billy the Goates himself!
I know a couple teachers who are snowed by it; it makes me sad.
Feelings? Didn’t realize they had any.
I do understand my obligations to pander to the delicate egos of corporate shills–I just choose not to act on that understanding.
Can these people really be serious? Do they really think, Dr. Ravitch, that you relationship to them is affective?
Could these people, I suppose I am asking, really be that daft? If so, do we want them running our schools?
Earth to Bill Gates, the number one threat to the earth is overpopulation, get on it. I’ll give you credit for having the introspection to take a look beyond the hedonism of yachts, private jets, and sports teams.
I’m hoping all readers of this blog will respond to the latest horror: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/10/the_plan_–_we_recog.html?qs=business+roundtable . In this piece Catherine Gerewitz explains that the business roundtable wants to make sure that schools use materials that truly aligned with the common core. How lucky for us as teachers and teacher educators! We don’t have to make any decisions. We should be very worried and we should reach out to professional and parent and teacher organizations to respond to the latest attack. Here’s a quote to inspire us all to talk back. It comes from a member of the business roundtable. “No doubt that setting up such a process and entity is tricky,” he said. “We understand this is political, but at the same time, if states are going to be successful implementing [the common core] in classrooms, we need to give states and teachers greater asurance that what they’re using is aligned to the standards.” Oh, and I did not spell assurance wrong. Someone who didn’t pass the CCS on spelling must’ve. Rick Meyer Save Our Schools
The “reformers” worry about their “hurt feelings” but couldn’t care less about ruining the lives and careers of so many people – teachers, administrators, and students. Having the money to hire pr firms to trumpet their nonsense overrides the evidence that so much that they espouse is wrong and destructive. Not being able to see the parcc tests and answers is telling; they really don’t want to be found to be wrong in the questions and answers.
Typical sociopathic behavior: point out, let alone stand up to, the fact that they’re harming you or others, and all of a sudden they are the ones being victimized.
I have never know Professor Ravitch to be anything but professional in her posts. With regard to this blog in general, it is certainly true that strong feelings get expressed here. What do people expect? In the name of reform, unilateral decisions are made that affect people’s kids, students, and jobs in extremely negative ways. One cannot expect that people will stand idly by and allow this to happen without speaking out and sometimes,yes, acting out. All I can say is, if people are troubled by the reactions that they have seen and heard so far, they need to just wait until these egregious new tests roll out nationwide. As the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Just last evening, I spoke with a superb elementary school teacher I know who was sobbing as she explained that the new Common Core-based lesson formats being foisted upon her were destroying what she had built over twenty years’ time–how she was having to through out all her highly successful work and replace it with canned junk and submit to ridiculous evaluations by know-nothings and be witness and party to the damage that was being done to her students. This person is one of the most skilled, highly effective teachers I know, and she is saying that because of this crap, she is thinking that she will have to find a job in a different profession.
Yes, people are going to feel strongly about that sort of thing.
“Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I think of this often in connection with the current “reforms.” If people did know the damage they were doing, the real damage, on the ground, they wouldn’t be surprised at the strength of the reaction.
Sorry, too many typos in that post. Here, corrected:
I have never known Professor Ravitch to be anything but professional in her posts. With regard to this blog in general, it is certainly true that strong feelings get expressed here. What do people expect? In the name of reform, unilateral decisions are made that affect people’s kids, students, and jobs in extremely negative ways. One cannot expect that people will stand idly by and allow this to happen without speaking out and sometimes, yes, acting out. All I can say is that if people are troubled by the reactions that they have seen and heard so far, they need to just wait until these egregious new tests roll out nationwide. As the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Just last evening, I spoke with a superb elementary school teacher I know who was sobbing as she explained that the new Common Core-based lesson formats being foisted upon her were destroying what she had built over twenty years’ time–how she was having to throw out all her highly successful work and replace it with canned junk and submit to ridiculous evaluations by know-nothings and be witness and party to the damage that was being done to her students. This person is one of the most skilled, most highly effective teachers I know, and she is saying that because of this crap, she is thinking that she will have to find a job in a different profession.
Yes, people are going to feel strongly about that sort of thing.
“Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I think of this line often in connection with the current “reforms.” If people did know the damage they were doing, the real damage, on the ground, then they wouldn’t be surprised at the strength of the reaction.
BTW, before someone corrects my split infinitive “to just wait,” in the post above, let me say that no less an authority than T. S. Eliot says that the notion that it is incorrect to split the infinitive in English is a superstition, and Fowler (of Fowler’s English Usage) backs him up on this.
Same thing with ending a sentence with a preposition. I don’t remember the details…something to do with being a holdover from Latin. Superb writers break the conventions all the time. Teaching grammar for me always had more to do with being able to use the full schema in writing. When a skilled writer breaks the rules, it only really matters if it calls into question the meaning they are trying to convey.
Dear “Reformers”: If your profession were being ruined by amateurs like the authors of the new “standards” in ELA, you would be angry, too.
Yes and for me I can’t get past the national curriculum part. It is. It is a national curriculum. We went through the McCarthy era witch hunts and we let this just slide by? I don’t get that. Standards are ostensible; they are understood to be the goal. But to make everyone learn the same stuff and pass the same tests in a country as vast and huge as ours simply makes no sense to me. I absolutely do not get it when people say “I like the CCSS, it’s just the . . .” ????
It is not for my kid. I know that much.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. Why has that been forgotten?
Reformers never tire of pointing out that standards are not a curriculum. But that’s more doublespeak, for these standards are, indeed, being treated as a curriculum, and I can prove that claim.
And creating national standards as opposed to competing, voluntary ones has NOTHING to do with improving educational quality and EVERYTHING to do with, as Arne Duncan’s office puts it, “creating national markets for products that can be brought to scale.” The standards were bought by those who had a great deal to gain from creating a single, uniform national market that only large players could compete in. They are part of a business plan. And that entire business plan was laid out in Duncan’s technology blueprint at the beginning of his tenure. He’s been the tool for carrying it out, that’s all.
Welcome to the Walmartizing and Microsofting of U.S. education. If you thought that U.S. curricular offerings were now dominated by a few big-box peddlers of mediocrity, you haven’t seen anything yet.
People who think that it’s bad educational ideas that are the ultimate force behind the “reform” movement are woefully mistaken. It’s a business plan. And it’s about creating and maintaining monopolies.
“My problem is with the part of Ravitch’s thesis that, “the education reform movement must be defined in terms of its ideology, its strategies, and its leading members.” It seems to define everyone who believes in output-driven accountability with the ideologues who have led the reformers’ assault on teachers, unions, and the free expression of ideas. It could be read as implying that the rank-in-file who support data-driven methods are as culpable as Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee, and Arne Duncan.”
Why is this a problem? Though Gates may have good intentions, his untested ideas helped to drive the hyper-metric evaluation systems that have emerged and which politicians love to use as a hammer to hurt teachers and their unions. (But we have to give Gates a decade while countless teachers will suffer from his amateurish naivete in the between-time.) They are linked because they gave political figures the justification to relentlessly destroy public education. Unintended consequences matter.
What a marvelous blog. Why would a person be more concerned with the feelings of Michelle Rhee or Bill Gates than the success of millions of students across this nation? I was once asked by a peer if getting an R to sponsor an important bill would hurt a particular D’s feelings. My reply was, “He is not allowed to have feelings. He is in the legislature.” People being afraid of hurting feelings and truth telling is destroying lives in this nation of free speech.
Mr. Gates is doing amazing work in the developing world. He is personally responsible for saving the lives of many millions of kids every year–kids who would be dead if it were not for his actions. For this, he deserves honor and respect. But these education “reforms” in the U.S. are doing a great deal of very real damage. It’s time to climb out of the echo chamber and listen. Listen to the curriculum developer who is having to write incoherent lessons to conform to the amateurish CCSS in ELA. Listen to the extraordinarily effective teacher who is having to toss the pedagogical approaches that have, for years, made her classes work and given her life meaning. Listen to the superintendent and principal who is stick of her district or school being forced to do all test prep all the time.
No one gave a few plutocrats the authority to make these decisions for every teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer in the country.
“He is personally responsible for saving the lives of many millions of kids every year. . .”
Robert, please cite reliable sources for this information. It seems that I’ve read quite a bit that is quite different on his “saviour” personna.
Robert, google “gates foundation profit”. My guest blog on edweek will come up on the first page.
The Gates Foundation’s Leveraged Philanthropy: Profit vs Humanity on Three Fronts.
It has links to document what I’m briefly describing. Gates was instrumental in organizing world vaccine contributions, but his own contribution to the effort isless than 10%. His GAVI Alliance was exposed by UNICEF for inflating the vaccine prices they paid. Gates was forced to go public with his rationale that the profits of big pharma are a service to the world’s poor. He opposes national health programs, and manipulates third world agencies just like he did our DOE. He leverages comparatively small contributions to worthwhile projects, to keep in-country health workers in fear for their funding.
I will have a look at this.
Mr Shepherd responded to my comment
to a post last month with the same claim:
Robert D. Shepherd
September 28, 2013 at 11:52 am
“Mr. Gates and his foundation are doing amazing things in the developing world. His organization is responsible for saving the lives of many, many millions of children…”
I too would like details.
Duane, Chemtchr, Rangoon, please enlighten me. If you have other info regarding the Gates Foundation’s public health work, I would be quite interested in seeing it. That’s an area that is WAY outside my ken, and I admit that I was simply saying what I’ve read in major media sources, which I usually take with a grain of salt. But I have not read any incisive critiques of what the Gates Foundation is doing in that area.
The whole inBloom thing (which was envisioned, BTW, in Arne Duncan’s technology blueprint at the beginning of his tenure and so was his plan all along) does seem to me like a strategic business power play–an attempt to create in the education business what operating systems are to the tech business–the one part that everyone pays for and that everyone has to use. The key tricks, there were to be a) that it would not be replicable and so would be a monopoly, b) would have to be used by any online curriculum provider that wanted to do adaptive curricula, which all would in the future. National standards had to be put into place to make that work because there had to be one set of criteria to correlated to the in the national database, and national tests had to be put into place as a justification for creating the database to begin with–as a repository for test score data. All this looks to me like a business plan, not like an attempt to improve American education–a plan to create another multi-billion-dollar monopoly, and I think that few are hip to the fact that all this works together, that all these parts are essential to one plan, and I think that few recognize that they ENTIRE plan is there, in embryo, in Duncan’s initial technology blueprint, which makes me wonder whether it wasn’t all worked out and paid from from the beginning.
It is completely unsurprising that he is working with vaccine makers to accomplish this. Who else would he work with–Santa’s elves?
OK. I am reading in this area. And what I am seeing is billions of kids getting vaccinated who otherwise would not have been.
What is one kid’s life worth? Of course, that’s a meaningless question. The value of a kid’s life is immeasurably great. Kids’ lives are being saved here. That trumps everything else.
I think it would be great if Dr. Ravitch could have a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Gates. By all accounts he is bright and well-intentioned. That makes me think if they had a conversation each might understand, and perhaps act, differently. I think that the very long-term consequences affecting the lives of millions is reason for said conversation to occur. Who knows, perhaps Mr. Gates will read this and extend an invitation.
Robert,
I have quite a few friends and acquaintances who work in public health who do not paint such a rosy picture of the Gates Foundation work in the area of disease eradication/prevention. More “vulture philanthropy” type stuff according to many of them.
In this animalistic world this is the rule: You don’t care about me or anyone else, I don’t care about you. End of message. Keep it KISS. They do not understand anything else. You cannot reason with most of them and they are sociopaths and do not care about you and as long as you continue to think they do you will lose.
It must must be a money thing, people who have made a lot of money must really believe that GOD is shinning on them. I think that is what Bill Gates thinks, perhaps that is why he thinks that his ideas are great and he should “fix” the public schools.
playing the ‘feelings’ card? Very original! I doubt that the same comment would have been made by Mr. Thompson if you, Diane, were not a woman. Men use our femaleness against us when they have nothing else. The fact that you’ve written this post has already given him too much attention. Here’s my suggested response… ‘is that all you’ve got?” I say ignore and carry on.
Brilliant response, Diane!
I’m not sure what to make of this, but I went to Thompson’s post at Schools Matter (http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/10/should-diane-ravitch-be-more-careful-to.html) and found two comments – one of which was from Mr. Thompson!
Is he suggesting that the Emperor’s followers do not like the implications of Dr. Ravitch observing and stating “The emperor is not wearing any clothes”?
Better their feelings being hurt – through their own ignorance – than that our children’s education is decimated by that ignorance no matter how well intentioned. The old saying about the road to hell certainly pertains here.
Diane,
I just finished reading the book; thanks for such a thorough telling of the story. I don’t agree with every argument, but much of it. And, as you point out, people of good will may often disagree. I was going to try to write a review, but there is so much in the book that it would take a great deal of time, and you don’t need people like me commenting on such a rich work.
About the feelings of the reformers, I make just one observation. You are right that this is not about feelings; it is about another generation of kids, and perhaps the generation after that. Having said that, I do think there is a group of “reformers”, or a process of reform, that you perhaps treated with a degree of wrath they do not deserve. There is a group, I think generally social liberals, somewhat younger, upwardly mobile, who see and want to capture what works in, let’s say, Silicon Valley. They ask why that will not work in schools. They believe that there is a certain percentage of teachers who will never be great, or even good, and that, after a certain amount of support and work and trying, those folks have to be cut loose. (You talk about at least one district where this is effected, but the overwhelming emotion of the book is one that preserves job safety for teachers that is rare outside of education.) These people don’t run big foundations; but they see what works in the world outside education and wonder why schools are separated by this vast moat from the rest of the world. The believe that schools, run with a degree of the risk-taking and ambiguity of the rest of the knowledge based world, can act as a social engine to help cure other ills, like poverty.
To this group, the evil is not trying to adopt some of the outside world into how schools work; the evil is the standardized exam and teaching to the test. It is the failure of those who run businesses according to data and results to realize that those are currently flawed measures for schools. If we took all the energy we spend on these reforms and merely came up with a way to measure stuff that actually mattered in student lives, much of the debate would go away.
While I have not been looking at these issues nearly as long as you, I have visited so many schools that are effectively bridging that moat, bringing in ideas from the outside world that work for kids and for schools. I feel that you lumped those folks in with the socially conservative, profit-seeking, sometimes corrupt reformers, and, without singling out Mr. Gates alone, those who believe that they are so right, that the pass over the possibility that they may be wrong.
What next? I thought David Coleman said that no one gives a _ about another person’s opinion, anyway. These people are affecting all kinds of people’s lives and not for the better. When they start acting reasonable…not just foisting a national, untested curriculum on us and then saying it will be a decade before we know if the curriculum is working…then I’ll worry more about their feelings. In the meantime, I am way more worried about the effects of the absurd ELA Standards on my first graders. The ELA Standards are not working for them. Fortunately, I have some wiggle room in my school system and at my school, but I can’t just completely rewrite he curriculum which is what really needs to happen. When I was on one of the state’s Stop Common Core Facebook page last night, I clicked on a link to an ELA standards framework put together by Dr. Sandra Stotsky. I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, but I glanced at a good bit of ideas for 1st grade. I would use her suggestions in a heart beat.
Hello Dr. Ravitch. Thank you for writing this post – it sparked a lot of thought in me and inspired me to write one in reply. I hope you take the time to read it and respond!
http://svartanov.teachforus.org/on-diane-ravitch-and-hurt-feelings-a-call-for-civility-and-respect/
Cry me a river.
What a beautiful response.
I came away with a slightly different take on what Thompson was saying. I didn’t find him to be overly concerned about the feelings of the leading “idealogues” of the reform movement. He did show concern for those who have bought in to various parts of the agenda for altruistic or personal reasons. Charter school teachers are not necessarily warriors in the battle against public schools nor does Diane imply that they are. If anyone remembers their post college days and the idealism that often had little to do with reality, then it becomes harder to tar and feather all young TFAers. I do not agree with Thompson’s halfheartedly expressed concern that Diane’s criticism could be taken as an indictment of anyone who has expressed agreement with any proposal presented by a reform proponent. If a minor player wants to take offense, they are working at it. That’s where they are different from those of us on the opposite side. Too many teachers, students, and parents know what it means to have been “hurt” by “reform.”