A few years ago, I “debated” Jonathan Alter on a Denver radio show but soon realized that I had entered a zone where facts were irrelevant because Alter’s mind was made up. He loves charter schools. He thinks testing and accountability are the answer to the deep problems of education. He is contemptuous of public schools and the teachers who work in them. He thinks that unions exist to protect failed teachers.
Jersey Jazzman, who is completing a Ph.D. In education research, tries here to set Alter right. It is a hopeless task, in sorry to say. Alter has a deep ideological devotion to charter schools, and he won’t listen to data about attrition or how many kids with special needs are excluded from them.
But I’m glad that JJ has the will to try.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hi, just edit below.
I read your blogs every day.
Thanks for supporting public education in the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Must be breathing a huge sigh of relief now that Cuomo’s challenger is put away.
No one wanted to talk about that nasty corruption and capture anyway. Thank goodness the political professionals are back in charge of “the conversation”. We were getting into some VERY scary basic “good government” questions there for a coupla weeks. Luckily, no one had to answer any.
Ms. Ravitch, please take note of what is happening in East Nashville,as of last night. How can we stop this? http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2014/09/09/jesse-register-calls-swift-shake-struggling-schools/15370817/?sf30902794=1
Thank you for posting this, and to the Duke for his diligent pursuit of truth. Want to remind everyone of reactionary Jonathan Alter’s of sibling Jamie Alter Lynton. Los Angeles transplant Alter-Lyton holds identical “viewpoints” on education as her brother, and serves as a board member on John Deasy’s 501c3. Moreover, she runs the “Deasy [LA] School Report” blog, which serves as an effective propaganda organ for neoliberal policies of privatization and austerity. Here is an excerpt from http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2014/08/k12nn-wire-alex-johnson-who-ducked-my.html
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The second issue is that the link in Johnson’s tweet is to the notorious Deasy School Report*, an anti-public education blog created by Jamie Alter-Lynton, a wealthy reactionary who sits as a board member on Superintendent John Deasy’s LA Fund slush 501c3. Alter-Lynton, sibling of corrupt charter cheerleader Jonathan Alter, practices Breitbart style “journalism” — feeling that outlets like the LA Times and LA Daily News weren’t planted in the the neoliberal corporate reform camp firmly enough. Her Ayn Rand leaning views on the public sector are second to her almost maniacal hatred of working class schoolteachers. One can really gauge Alter-Lynton by her letting go of both Alexander Russo and Hillel Aron. Neither of those writers would ever be accused of supporting public schools or saying anything positive about teachers, but they weren’t willing to pursue the white whale with Alter-Lynton’s Ahab-like vengeance.
The distinguished Dr. George McKenna owes nothing to Alex Johnson, the Deasy School Report, or Jamie Alter-Lynton. He is right not to respond to her constant badgering and attention seeking. The best thing we could all do is allow Alter-Lynton’s me-too-reformer blog die a deserved death of obscurity by not visiting or linking to it.
* Properly “LA School Report,” but most activists don’t call it by that very misleading name.
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Jonathan’s brain has been Altered by the extreme amounts of methane he’s inhaled emanating from where he has his head firmly planted.
And we have a winner!
It seems that people like Alter, and Joe Klein (Time), and the “talented” Amanda Ripley, and a whole host of mainstream reporters, including most at The Washington Post, take a stupid pill before they write about education.
The pill is green and has presidential portraits on it.
According to wikipedia, Jonathan Alter also stated that “torture clearly works.” That’s the kind of guy he is.
That provides a great topic for a future column: “Why waterboarding ‘bad teachers’ Is the Civil Rights Movement of Our Time.”
It seems they (Alter, Ripley, Klein, et al.) also believe that lying clearly works. It “works” ($$$$) for them, anyway.
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