Our wise friend Edward Berger took some time off from blogging, did some serious reflection, and has returned with some blockbuster posts.
This one is called “Never Again! Now the Evidence is Irrefutable.” He describes three groups of reformers.
He begins thus::
“While America was asleep at least three groups have moved to control American Education:
“Group one, the most damaging, is motivated by gaining access to the tax dollars citizens pay for public education. They hide behind a pretense of serving children and building America’s future. They are ruthless pirates who have no allegiance to anything but their own wealth and power. They are often hedge fund managers. Many are successful entrepreneurs who believe that because they created or inherited wealth, they are experts in every field…..
“Group two, a large mixed group made up of those who call themselves “education reformers.” Typically, these “reformers” do not have an education background, any legitimate certification, and any, or very little teaching experience. They have grand visions of themselves which manifest in a drive to change and profit from a system they are unable to accurately define and do not understand. None of these self-appointed change agents are focused on what our children need.
Those with this narrow, self-serving mindset accept that something is true without checking or affirming it. (i.e., Bad teachers are the problem). They claim to have hunches or insights that will correct problems. A woman who typifies this limited thinking is Michelle Rhee. She demonstrates a myopic way of thinking that is not productive. That is, if you threaten and hurt people they will get in line behind your assumptions or get out of your way. Bill and Melinda Gates are part of this way of thinking. If you devise tests that are designed to fail children and their teachers, you will motivate them and purge the profession – or so this tragic way of thinking plays out…..
“I have observed that almost every attempt to reform schools is accompanied by threats, punishments, bribes, and fear-generating ideologies. High Stakes Testing, Common Core, PARCC, the SAT, are all threat-based approaches. Most State testing programs are threat-reward based. (Teach what we tell you to teach and your school will get an “A” rating).
Fifty years ago many teachers used tests as threats and punishment. Today, teachers are aware of brain-based studies and no professional educators believe that fear, pressure, and student abuse are acceptable in a learning environment.
Why then does the USDOE (Arne Duncan), Pearson – a foreign company extracting billions of dollars from American schools – continue measurement systems that are not educationally viable, and in fact block learning? The answer is simple. They actually believe that people are motivated, learn, and work harder when they are threatened and under pressure. There is no evidence to support this, but of course, they are fact-adverse.
“Group three, is a collection of individuals and groups who cling to radical ideologies. At one end of the spectrum we find fundamentalists who advocate many types of non-scientific belief. We observe End Times preaching, and morality and sexual access based on the will of old white men. These sects or cults do not want public education. They reject equality between the sexes. They want to control what is taught. They want to control what the rest of us learn.”
These are the tried-and-true tenets of education in a democratic society:
“• We do not experiment on children.
• We honor and get to know each child, even those who are hurt and will not score well on summative tests. Unless the system is overloaded – not enough resources and too many children assigned to a teacher – no child is left behind.
• We honor a long history of One Nation united by our education system through common values, comprehensive curriculum, one overall language, and free K-12 education for every child.
• We reject the false assumption that schools can be run for profit. Profits take money away from children/schools. These are dollars that must go to services for children.
• School governance must follow democratic principles, starting with elected officials and elected school boards, and not mayoral control, politically appointed czars, or would-be oligarchs from the Billionaire Boys Club (think Eli Broad).
• We have a proven system of certification and competence. Educators are constantly evaluated by parents, administrators, peers, and students. This is the reason there are very few “bad” teachers.”
I wonder in which of his three categories Edward Burger would place the Walton Rural Life Center Charter school or the Community Roots Charter School? If it is difficult to fit these schools into his categories, it may mean that there are other categories of reformers as well.
You talking mission and vision, administration and methodologies or the political backgrounds and ideologies of the founders and funders?
Akademos,
I leave it up to the individuals to determine how to put the Walton Rural Life Center Charter and Community Roots Charter schools into these categories. Which do you think they belong in?
Of all the thousands of charter schools in the country, can’t you find any others to refer to when failing to refute valid criticism of charter schools and privatization? You continually try and fail to have these two schools, outliers even if what you claim about them is true, and representing less than one thousandth of one percent of existing charters, carry the load for an entire failed, corrupt policy.
Next…
Dr. Raj Chetty would, I am 100% convinced, fervently applaud your Michael Jordan-like efforts to resist giving in to the human psychological bias to fix on outliers [or as larry put it: “outliars”] in favor of large data sets. [*See Chetty Vergara testimony.]
¿? Sorry. I guess I got carried away with paid advocacy funded by the BBBBC [BusyBody Billionaire Boys Club] masquerading as genuine research. My bad. I should know better, since I already realize that “education reform” is a business plan masquerading as an education model.
I apologize if any slight’ maybe all that Value-Addled Modeling has put me in a bit of a “purple haze.” It’s just that while doing my CCSS ‘closet reading’ the batteries went out and I missed the part where Gary Rubenstein reviewed Chetty et al.’s Vergara testimony. I’ll bring extras next time.
Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
😎
Michael,
If Edward Berger’s classification system can not include these schools, perhaps another category or two of reformers must be added to the list.
I mention these schools in order to be concrete in my posts. One is a rural school in a rural state, the other a very urban school in the most urban environment in the country. I talk about the Community Roots Charter School is the only charter school I have ever visited, it is run by a former TFA person, and has members of the financial industry on the board of governors. It would seem to be the poster child for much of what folks here object to in charter schools, so I hardly think it an outlier. I read about the Walton Rural Life Center Charter school, and in offering a specialized approach to education, it seems to me to represent the potential that a non-zoned school can offer.
Community Roots sounds at least like Group 2 (run by “visionaries” with little to no educational experience), although it could be Group 1 too (members of the financial industry are usually looking to profit).
Dienne,
The school is, of course, nonprofit and stand alone school. One of the board members is Beth Lief, who seems to have long involvement in public education in New York City. I had some hope that Dr. Ravitch might know Ms. Lief.
The school has co directors. Sara Stone, who began teaching in New York City schools in 1999 after graduating from Syracuse. While teaching she earned a masters in educational leadership from the Bank Street School. The other co director, Allison Keil, began teaching at St. Ann’s School, applied to TFA after a couple of years, and then taught a bilingual second grade class in PS 30 (93% free and reduced price lunch, 97% African American and Hispanic).
The biographies of the other staff members can be found here: http://www.communityroots.org/people/staff
There are plenty of ways to profit off a “non-profit”.
Dienne,
There maybe ways to do it, but is there any evidence that it is happening at this particular school?
That would be why I said “could be”. Sure, maybe they’re one of the few honest charters that just happen to be run by bankers.
Dienne,
I don’t know that the school is “run” by bankers, but it does have several finance industry professionals on the board. It also has a speech pathologist, a civil rights attorney turned education advocate, a retired senior vice president of the New York Times Company (an attorney, not a banker), a school librarian, a Sackler Educator at The Guggenheim Museum, and a faculty member of the Bank Street School.
It seems like an interesting group.
You are right, TE. They might be involved in shenanigans and they might be outliers with halos. Until we know more, we should call this new fourth group The Unknown and stop bringing up implied tautologies to prove our points.
TheMorrigan,
If we follow your suggestion we must add two new categories: unknowns AND halo charters. The original list includes neither one.
I would opine that Group Two includes a lot of principals, (Leadership Academy in NYC), who’ve spent very little time in a classroom. They go along with these reforms and mandates so easily because they have no classroom experience and can only manage on what they’ve been told from those above them. (Even many of those above them have little to no classroom experience nowadays.)
Education has become an institution driven by a few, rich, white men who are able to coerce and demand policy simply because they have a lot of money and are spending/bribing their way to benefit themselves. You want to be a philanthropist? Donate your billions with no strings attached. Buy musical instruments, help pay for school trips, help with college debt, help alleviate the crunch of school budgets.
If not…don’t give anything. Stay out of the way. And let real educators work with what little they are given. This is already going on without that BS Race to the Top money.
Thanks Pogue. Your words are beautiful, powerful and to the point.
“You want to be a philanthropist? Donate your billions with no strings attached. ”
“If not…don’t give anything. Stay out of the way. And let real educators work with what little they are given.”
I hope that all union leaders and DOE leader will learn to repeat your words. All teachers should unite and cultivate parents and students these simple sentences. Eventually, community and public host talk-show business will pick up the clear and “transparent” message regarding American Public Education and its true mission. Back2basic.
Back2 Basics and all of my peers here:
You said, in response to Pogue: ” All teachers should unite and cultivate parents and students these simple sentences. Eventually, community and public host talk-show business will pick up the clear and “transparent” message regarding American Public Education and its true mission.”.
I wish to respond to that because I am hopeful that it will happen, however, I have been saying that for over a decade now, and it is 16 years since the traumatic end to my career at the very pinnacle of success… which in itself, offers the evidence of what is happening STILL! As I say often here, for it is the verifiable observable reality, if they could remove a teacher like me, one who by every single standard of evaluation bar none, was the epitome of success if evidence was the judge, then tenure was already under attack in the 1990s, and I was gone from the classroom by 1998. My story, will appear on my site, as part of the narrative about how they did it… how it worked… from the teacher’s perspective, although the process is clear if you go to see the Vimeo: GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN
https://vimeo.com/4199476
That was made 4 years ago, B2B… so forgive me if I am tired of waiting for the media to catch up. At least, in no small part to Diane and all the other activists, Anthony, Leonie, Lorna.Karen, Betsy, Lois, Norm, Lenny, Rene and others who have been shouting out loud but singing to the choir, like our friend Pogue. It will take action, and I know of one superb teacher who said, ‘enough,’ when they led him from his classroom in handcuffs, a decade ago, and is suing… WHO? The UNION! And boy is the price for such action stiff.
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/11/lausd-gives-me-a-chance-to-be-a-hero-for-student-teachers-and-families.html
I met him online, when he began his site, and asked me to write there, along with Diane and others whose voices were strong.
I have only been listening to you all talk in this teacher’s room for 5 weeks now.
The most crucial conversations come after Diane updates all of us who listen closely to what she sees & learns from her feeds.
I cannot begin to express th pleasure I feel when I read Lloyd or Pogue or many of the wise voices here, and it is wonderful to hear you all respond. I was a teacher of literacy for 40 years, beginning in 1963, and I have a thing or 2 to say about WITTT, what it takes to teach, or rather “to enable and facilitate learning”. Please forgive my constant repetition of the that phrase which came for attention 2 years of authentic staff development when the stars shined on NYC and me, and sent the LRDC developers to our district, and lots of $$$, thanks to Pew, who was funding the real NATIONAL STANDARDS… the ones you need hear anything about, not even here. Pity! Those standards were the genuine criteria for LEARNING… the principles that govern any learning in children!!!!
I will reserve my WITTT essays for my blog SPEAKING AS A TEACHER here at WordPress, when I begin to publish iT. For a more general audience, I will publish my series of that name, at Oped News, as a diary/journal, in the hopes of telling a story… the way it once was when I was allowed to bring my brand of teaching into my classroom, supported, not impeded by the principal.’ I know what it takes to teach kids, not because I hold several degrees, but because I did the work. I was not a mere ‘provider’… I was a practitioner of pedagogy, and like my son who has been practicing medicine for 20 years now, I knew hat worked and what did not… and that my friends and colleagues, is why I had to go… no on could mandate me to use anti-learning materials, or sell me poop and call it a magic elixir, when I had all the evidence of the truth!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
MY learnings and my personality, my intelligence and talent with motivating children INFORMED my PRACTICE, and it was MY choices for lessons that would reach children in order to help them meet the learning objectives for their age and grade… which NYS listed in their syllabus for every subject, and which I have in a box in my office. Core Curricula my foot!
I will create a few Youtube clips to show what worked in NYC for so long, when professional teachers ran their practice (classrooms) and were not mere ‘providers’ of facts and training, but practitioners of a discipline for which they studied hard. I will show how I developed the teaching tools and a curricula to meet the objectives.
The results and my resume can be found at http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
but the real effects of what I did can be seen on the emails I get from former students who are now in their twenties and thirties.
It is summer here in NYC, and I, too ,have taken a break from writing… that’s what I do… I write. I am a playwright by nature and by education in the theater arts and literature, and in my last incarnation as a teacher, I was privileged to inform the learning of the entire seventh grades classes, for 8 years, at East Side Middle School, from the day it opened.
Keep talking. You guys have figured it out, now if you can figure out how to get our ignorant citizenry to grasp the truth and throw out the snake-oil salesmen…
Donating $100 million with no restrictions in Newark, NJ didn’t help the students optimally. $20+ million sure helped “consultants” that Newark paid hefty per diem fees. Mark Zuckerberg & his wife are going to monitor use of their latest donation in California, and I give them credit for being willing to donate to schools again when they could choose other causes.
The underlying theme in all education reform has the same dysfunction that has become pervasive in our mainstream society; i.e. …..ruthless self interests….survival of the fittest….uncivilized greed….possessiveness….jealousy…..patriarchal authoritarianism…..black and white thinking…..codependency….paranoia.
In other words…..most adults now in mainstream society have repressed social and emotional development and are emotionally considered “Adult Children” (AC). We have created an environment where children are now forced to give up their childhoods and become parentified in order to survive in this environment of fear and insecurity, where cruelty and emotional neglect from immature parents and teachers is the norm. This is a sign of widespread Narcissistic and Borderline personalities from decades of cultural insecurity…..it is the dystopic example of a return to barbarianism.
I’m not sure an exercise in categorizing people and groups into groups we define serves any positive purpose. We know the suspects and what they do.
Classifying and defining one side by the other has great risks and consequences, even leading to purity tests. Consider what a political party has done by defining the words liberal and conservative, then classifying according to their definitions.
We have issues with our schools; even Diane Ravitch has said that. Issues that will be there even after the “reforms” are taken down. No one has a single right solution, much less one most can agree on. Even solutions with good intentions.
So creating groups forces people to make judgements and choose up sides based on others’ definitions.
Want rigor and see some merit in Common Core? You can’t be a BAT.
Think that teacher education and teaching itself need upgrades? Might put you in one of the above groups.
Think some charters serve useful purposes? Be careful what you say.
We need a conversation about how to make things better for our own children. We need to lead that conversation with what would be best for them, we have to do better than what we’re doing now., only resisting. It lets the other side label us.
Let’s take on the testing, the faux-evaluation, all that with what we want our schools, our classrooms, our teaching to look like – and what it will take to get there. I’m a math person; I don’t want status quo just less testing. I know what I want my granddaughter’s classroom to be like. And it’s far more than less test prep.
We can’t be an Advocacy of No. Been there, seen that.
I pretty much agree, though large-scale clarity is helpful in terms of discerning motivations, ignorance and stupidity.
The big issues now are the false evaluations with overemphasis on testing, the overemphasis on testing and the attacks on due process.
Unfortunately, Duncan has bound this up with Common Core, which is unraveling spectacularly because of that in large part.
Peter, the problem with your point is that it sets up false equivalence between David and Goliath, between the so-called reformers, their billions and a compliant media, and the rest of us. The fact is that, because things are so polarized, one must take sides, and it it naive to think otherwise.
I’d be happy to have that discussion about what our public school classrooms should look like, but I can’t until the so-called reformers take their boots off the throats of me and my colleagues.
Michael, if we wait until we beat back these reformers, the next wave will be here. Pearson et. al. will not sit quietly by.
We seem to be having conversations mostly for ourselves. We’re not winning (all that much) with the outside world, the public, media, even too few teachers, because the only messages are the reformers and our message that they are wrong. Which they pretty much are.
But when we go after the reforms, we don’t seem to be able to answer “Well we have to do something; so what should we do?”
On this blog, on the many discussion groups it’s hard to find any direction other than “no”.
Maybe the great problem is that all the energy that could go into building teaching and learning capacity is being sucked into policy debates., and we don’t even have much to say about any policies but the other sides’ . Maybe there are better conversations for winning the votes and the war. Defense, alone, doesn’t win championships.
You got it right… you all have been preaching to the choir, but Diane keeps the beat, and shows that the conversation is ongoing… I hope that she can do this for many years to come, because as I see it, it took 2 decades to get to the point where even you teachers are having this conversation. The NAPTA SITE went up a decade ago, telling the stories of abuse:
http://www.endteacherabuse.org
and Betsy Combier chronicled the destruction of NYC schools on several sites.
http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=488
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
and then there is Perdaily.com and this one from long ago
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-and-utla-collude-to-end-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-teachers-part-2.html
NO ONE WAS LISTENING!
Maybe now, with the failure of the testing mania, which infuriated the parents and made the kids crazy, there will be a long award look at the endemic corruption that ended the institution of public education.
!5,880 districts! A media that reports only the propaganda of the ones who are taking out the teachers!
It will take a miracle.
Michael beat me to it, I was going to make similar comments in response to Peter. Please spare me the false equivalency arguments when war has been declared against public school teachers and their unions. People like Campbell Brown and the multi-millionaire Michael Robertson have loudly and publically made the claim that there are teacher predatory sexual perverts who victimize the pupils and who are protected by the unions. These two anti-union ideologues not only have smeared and demonized teachers but also the unions that represent teachers. In NJ, we have Chris Christie who loudly, crudely and regularly demeans and swift boats teachers and their unions. Teachers did not ask for this fight; teachers just want to teach, they just want to do their jobs, they really have no desire to engage in arguments and conflict. But when you are being hit over the head with a baseball bat, you pretty much have no choice but to fight back.
Joe, you made my point. To take down Campbell Brown, you have to marginalize her with a more powerful message. And it can’t be rhetoric.
Your right about the ugliness of the reforms. But when she and others like her have the podium, we do need to take it away. But we better have something better to say than she’s in left field. What do we want? Remember, the choir already has found religion.
Right, and we’re not merely resisting. We’re saying de-emphasize testing and get rid of assessment and evaluation mania. Phase in reasonable improvements in a timely manner with inputs and responsiveness to multiple concerned areas including unbiased research, teachers and parents. We’re not advocating no, we’re advocating sanity. Tough to get really specific though as the phase-out of the psychoses will likely be gradual or in unpredictable crashing chunks and with toxicity levels as high as they are it’s difficult to imagine what can or can’t be in place as this ship of fools goes down.
Akademos, what are those improvements? Until we can get out from on what they might look like, we’re resisting. The other side’s “improvements”
I’m not looking for your answer. But I know that if I talk to a public group, I can talk specifically and fluently about what I would want a math classroom and teaching to look like. Then I can build my case against testing and even VAM evaluation. If all I can say is we need to improve math education, that’s weak.
Peter,
How different from the CCSS in Mathematics are your ideas about teaching mathematics? That half of the CCSS is seldom discussed here, but when it is the discussions seem to me very useful.
Thanks for asking, teaching Econ. I come from the NCTM Standards side, which is not fuzzy math. I also taught AP Calc and Stats.
We have to give the opportunity to make sense of math. I’m also a Montessori advocate, and a big fan of Magdalene Lampert and Deborah Ball.
So CCSS math might need some tweaking, but the content is a good start. The Practices if done right, challenge kids (and teachers) and are supported by NCTM in the position paper “Principles to Action”.
All that said, I strongly oppose the focus on testing, and can say the present accountability tools do not support the kind of teaching required.
We need to focus on building the capacity to teach good mathematics, well, to build and refine lessons, to create mathematical discourse in the classroom.
I would guess teaching economics well is not all that different. At from the Freakonomics side.
But we can resist the temptation to tear each others’ throats out. If the “reformers” disappeared tomorrow, our schools and classrooms would show a divergence from any one orthodoxy. What exactly about TE’s pet charters does he find so appealing? Does the genesis of the common core have something to tell us for future planning? What core values does public education honor that can be undermined by public-private partnerships? I know there are many questions that should be discussed in a non-adversarial venue. Will we be able to do so for “the good of the children” or will we create our own orthodoxies to battle over? How do we create a system that allows for innovation as well as continuity? I’m sure most of us have seen teaching and learning that has inspired us. There is/was much to be proud of in public education, and we can learn from the experiences of alternative models as well. That being said, I lean toward exorcising the excesses of the corporate reform movement first as long as we can remember how easily we could create new battlefields with (perhaps necessary) intransigence now.
2old,
I use these concrete examples to give us something concrete to talk about. The Community Roots Charter School happens to be the only charter school I have set foot in. It is an example of many things that folks object to here (One of the co-directors is a former TFA person, several members of the board are in the finance industry, etc) and i thought it possible that Dr. Ravitch had some familiarity with the school or members of the board.
I think we have to be careful with our “positive vision” of education. So much of what is wrong with education “reform” is the top-down, mandated nature of it – there is no choice, everyone must be doing the same thing. While I think there are a lot of great things going on in a lot of classrooms all over this country, I don’t see any of them as a “vision” for how “education” as a whole should be. In my mind, a lot of what we’re fighting for is the right of teachers to teach. It’s the “reformers” who (usually with very little to no experience) think they have some kind of secret sauce that can be universally applied.
Dienne, I never tell anyone how to teach. But a”positive vision” should include a commitment to reduce poverty, to reduce class size, to ensure that children and families have medical care, and to reduce segregation.
Dienne, I couldn’t find any other word than “vision” and I’m not thinking about some grand vision for education, and that is top down and it’s about policy.
But I think we can reach common ground on teaching and building teaching capacity, on building the craft. That create the needs for so much – time to plan and create lessons, to reflect, to collaborate, to better select and prepare teachers. Things like that are what make us professional. Then are commonalities across how medicine is practiced. Real medicine. It’s not top down, but it’s generally agreed on by those who practice (despite insurance companies). I believe we need to take control of our practice.
Peter Smyth,
Read the last dozen chapters of “Reign of Error” for a positive agenda. I am on the opposite side of anyone who says that poverty doesn’t matter, class size doesn’t matter, resources don’t matter, access to medical care doesn’t matter.
Diane, all those things are what we are for. But we need to say them as our positive positions. As in “Class Size matters, because here’s what I can do in a smaller class …” In a way that wins over voters.
I read the book and appreciate it. But maybe I would have reversed the order.
The book’s recommendations are based on a life course, starting with the importance of pre-natal care
Peter,
The more I read of your posts, the more I think you have good points but they are misplaced here.
You should start a blog or encourage others to do so that supports teaching and provides ground to begin to take collective stands, which may be premature right now as most states must still grapple with Common Core.
There is a time and a place for justified venting and exposure of fallacy.
Suggesting to Diane Ravitch that her chapters could have been reversed is somewhat absurd. People need and want the details of what is going wrong before there is even motivation for a treatment, and in this case it is a treatment that has gone horribly awry that really is the story.
We don’t need positives to expose negatives. And I don’t see how having amazing visions for what classrooms should be will help push back against testing and tenure attacks, especially hee our unions are intricately compromised.
I take your point in terms of getting votes, but that’s a tall order and these election cycles are tight compared to the time needed for creating, adapting, refining and reproducing new methods.
Meant to write “tenets”
Re-posted athttp://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Edward-Berger-Who-Are-the-in-Best_Web_OpEds-America_Change_Children_Control-140811-480.html#comment505984
with this comment:
I have been following the deformers of education for sometime. They can do this because there are 15,880 districts in 50 states and they do not have to divide to conquer. They get away with it because THE ACQUISITION OF SKILLS by the human brain is complicated, which is why it requires an authentic professional to ‘teach’ kids how to learn; the average American thinks anyone can teach with a little training. Think TFA!
The public has been Bamboozled,
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.htmlas
(which I wrote here at OpEd News, years ago) and thus they can be sold all matter of Magic Elixirs NO Evidence Required ( which I also wrote about here.)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
At the end of this wonderful essay (which you should send to everyone you know because it nails the conspiracy) is the the tried-and-true tenets of education in a democratic society:
“” We do not experiment on children.
” We honor and get to know each child, even those who are hurt and will not score well on summative tests. Unless the system is overloaded — not enough resources and too many children assigned to a teacher — no child is left behind.
” We honor a long history of One Nation united by our education system through common values, comprehensive curriculum, one overall language, and free K-12 education for every child.
” We reject the false assumption that schools can be run for profit. Profits take money away from children/schools. These are dollars that must go to services for children.
” School governance must follow democratic principles, starting with elected officials and elected school boards, and not mayoral control, politically appointed czars, or would-be oligarchs from the Billionaire Boys Club (think Eli Broad).
” We have a proven system of certification and competence. Educators are constantly evaluated by parents, administrators, peers, and students. This is the reason there are very few “bad” teachers.”
Don’t Let Duncan, Rhee, Klein and Now Campbell Brown lie about what kids need to Learn. Don’t let them continue this narrative about TEACHING, when it is all about supporting learning. They have subverted the national conversation, long enough because so few know what learning really requires.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Edward Berger defines who the fake education reformers are and what they want.
I have been thinking about this post’s topic for some time. For instance, this morning I woke up thinking of creating a Venn diagram that would describe these groups.
Their only common ground where the circles would overlap would be reforming the public education system into something entirely different from what it has been for more than a century.
The current public education system came about organically through the democratic process over a period of 175 years. In about three decades, the reformers manufactured a crises through cherry-picked facts that are misleading and often lies with a goal to create an education system that will fit each of their own agendas, and none of the three groups describe in this post care anything for the organic democratic process that led to the Untied Stated being the wealthiest and most powerful country on the earth.
It the fake reformers are successful, it will be the end of democracy in the United States and eventually an end to the US as it is today.
I shudder to think what will replace it. My wife grew up in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and what happened in China during that horrible era closely resembles the fake, manufactured crises in public education in the United States. Teachers were blamed for almost everything and persecuted in Mao’s China as they are being targeted here.
Do we really want a Hitler, a Stalin or a Mao leading the United States? Will the face of this individual be Bill Gates, one of the Koch brothers or a Walton family member or someone else?
Hi teachingeconomist:
You seem to be an intelligent person without a foundation of humanity. You advocate the cost-effective, the favorite specificity and the choice in individual advance at the cost of the PUBLIC tax payers’ fund
Please read the true tenets of education in a democratic society from Dr. Edward Berger, as follows:
The tried-and-true tenets of education in a democratic society:
“” We do not experiment on children.
” We honor and get to know each child, even those who are hurt and will not score well on summative tests. Unless the system is overloaded — not enough resources and too many children assigned to a teacher — no child is left behind.
” We honor a long history of One Nation united by our education system through common values, comprehensive curriculum, one overall language, and free K-12 education for every child.
” We reject the false assumption that schools can be run for profit. Profits take money away from children/schools. These are dollars that must go to services for children.
” School governance must follow democratic principles, starting with elected officials and elected school boards, and not mayoral control, politically appointed czars, or would-be oligarchs from the Billionaire Boys Club (think Eli Broad).
” We have a proven system of certification and competence. Educators are constantly evaluated by parents, administrators, peers, and students. This is the reason there are very few “bad” teachers.”
In conclusion, I am for any private schools as long as they stay away from PUBLIC tax payers’ fund. Secondly, if these private schools do not operate within the guidelines of our PUBLIC TENETS OF EDUCATION in our DEMOCRATIC society, then their pupils SHALL NOT BE ALLOWED TO RUN for any governmental positions or public servants’ jobs in the future.
In a democratic society, if any students are trained in a private educational environment where its policy does not conform to our PUBLIC TENETS OF EDUCATION, then these private graduate students shall not be allowed to work for any PUBLIC or GOVERNMENTAL sectors, like Public Administration, Legal system, Educational system, Central bank and Media Communication…Back2basic.
Don’t waste your time or breath on TE, because if he does not read for meaning, but only to re-enforce his own beliefs and opinions.
m4potw,
It will probably not surprise you that I have some concerns with Dr. Edward Berger’s statement. The most fundamental (and one which you may disagree with) is that he apparently speaks of “true tenets of education in a democratic”. He does not speak about public education or private education, but apparently all education. While you may feel comfortable with the relatively wealthy being able to avoid these tenets by going to private school, it is not at all clear that Dr. Berger would be comfortable with that.
For the first tenet, I run small experiments on my students all the time. I try new things to see how they work, seek to make iterative improvements in my classes, discard things that fail. I would not want to teach in a world where such experiments were not allowed.
For the second tenet, I would ask if students would be allowed to develop to their full potential as well as leaving none behind. The most precocious student at my local high school completed enough of an undergraduate mathematics major while in high school to be admitted to a top graduate math program after she graduated from high school. My own son accumulated 25 hours of lower division, upper division, and graduate credit from the local university along with AP credits. These opportunities were available because I live in a university town. Would the system allow all students like this to move ahead? Would it prohibit those students from doing so because others would be left behind?
The third tenet seems like a good idea, but you might run into some opposition from those that like bilingual education.
The fourth tenet also seems fine. The great private schools of the United States and all the charter schools in New York are not for profit. I think that would work fine.
The fifth tenet seems a little problematic, depending on if Dr. Berger means to apply these to education in a democratic society or just to the fraction of education that is done by public schools. If it is to apply to all education, I think there are some problems here. If it is to apply to post secondary education (again another question for Dr. Berger) there are even more issues. Allowing students to choose schools can replace some of the regulations and public control that must be in place when students are told which school to attend.
The thing about certification of teachers does not seem to be a tenet, but a declaration of his understanding about the state of the world, so I will leave that alone for now.
Again, if Dr. Berger is trying to define the tenets for educating all members of society, not just the relatively poor, the impact of not allowing any student who attends a private school (or perhaps a private university like the one Dr. Ravitch teaches in) seems very short sighted. I would allow a graduate of the Lab School at Chicago or MIT to run for office.
I am probably more tolerant of students using tax payer money to choose private or public schools because it is routine in post secondary education. Some students use Pell grants to attend Harvard, others NSF fellowships to attend Stanford.
Donating $100 million with no restrictions in Newark, NJ didn’t help the students optimally. $20+ million sure helped “consultants” that Newark paid hefty per diem fees. Mark Zuckerberg & his wife are going to monitor use of their latest donation in California, and I give them credit for being willing to donate to schools again when they could choose other causes.