Since No Child Left Behind began its reign of error a decade ago, the American public has slowly but surely changed its understanding and expectations of schools.
We have come to think that every school must “make” every student proficient, and if it cannot, then the school is a “failing” school.
We have come to look on schools as “failing” if they enroll large numbers of students who don’t perform well on standardized tests, regardless of their personal circumstances, their language ability, or their disability.
We have come to believe that teachers alone can bring every student to high test scores. And if we don’t believe this is possible, we are accused of defending the status quo or not caring about students or not believing they can succeed.
In pursuit of impossible goals, goals that no nation in the world has reached, we have come to accept (with glee, if you are a corporate reformer, or with resignation, if you are informed by reality) that schools must close and staff must be fired en masse in pursuit of that evanescent goal of “turnaround” from failure to success.
And here is the latest small and barely noticed episode in the continuing assault on common sense and public education.
The Los Angeles Times reported that students and parents demonstrated to protest the planned layoff of at least of the staff at Manual Arts High School. This school has been run for four years by a private group called L.A.’s Promise.
It is no longer unusual to see students and parents protesting the mass dismissal of teachers, so they will be ignored. That’s the new normal.
What is odd here is that L.A.’s Promise laid off about 40% of the staff last year. 50% last year, 40% this year.
It seems that this organization will just keep firing teachers until they finally get a staff that knows how to raise test scores and graduation rates higher and higher.
Such punitive actions display a singular lack of capacity on the part of leadership to build and support a stable staff.
Such heavy-handed measures surely demoralize whoever is left.
We have become so accustomed to mass firings and school closings that we have lost our outrage, even our ability to care.
Another school reconstituted, another school closed, more teachers fired. Ho-hum.
That’s the new normal. That is what is called education reform today.
So normal are such crude and punitive measures that the events at Manual Arts High School didn’t even merit a real story in the Los Angeles Times. It was posted in a blog.
Destroying public schools is called reform. Mass firings of staff are called reform.
It’s the New Normal.
Don’t accept it. Don’t avert your eyes. It’s not supposed to be this way.
Schools need a stable staff. Schools need continuity. Schools need to be caring and supportive communities.
Schools need to be learning organizations, not a place with a turnstile for teachers, administrators and students.
Don’t lose your own values. What is happening today is wrong. It is not education reform. It is wrong.
It does not benefit children. It does not improve education. It is wrong.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The past thirty years has been what Naomi Klein describes as ‘the shock doctrine’. It lay out the blueprint of what we have experiencing in every aspect of life – and most recently in education. It is only natural for the crony elites to try to grab as mach resources as possible, while depriving most of the population. But democracy is the obstacle, for populations might fight back while being subjected to harsh, cruel, unjust measures that aimed at the transferred of wealth and rights from real people to unaccountable tyrannies like corporations.
The tyrannical character of corporations makes them perfect for the task of abolishing democracy. The Gates have great experience with oppression control and obedience under their authoritarianism.
Klein observed that: “Crises are in a way democracy- free zone , gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply” Which can explain the numerous number of “emergencies” we have experienced from economic, through literally a perpetual state of war and at the present time the educational “crisis”.
The education crisis is interesting but not unique, in the sense that plutocrats been starving the system thus created symptoms of crisis only to step in and try to “solve” it with privatization. “No child left behind the Race to the top” are policies that create shocks trough the system. From massive school closings, public shaming of teachers, mass purges of public workers under the sinister “turnaround” and illegal thuggery against unions . All are shocks that are not just design to deprive the population from making decisions but also to demoralize it and abolish democracy – the only tool for the masses to protest.
Klein observed: “the premise is that people response to gradual change…but if dozens of changes come from all directions at once, a feeling of futility sets in, and population go limps.” That describe precisely the coup d’etat we have seen and the lack of almost any backlash from those who are harmed under this cruel experiment.
This cycle of crisis – shock if being unchallenged is a grave danger by escalating as it was addressed by Martin Luther King in his speech known as ‘Beyond Vietnam’ in 1967. He pointed out that failure to challenge one criminal war will lead to many unjust criminal wars in the future: “and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing (anti war protest) committees for the next generation…We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy”. Our education sees the same phenomena, with greatest corporate control while depriving children from education, just to prepare them for a mindless life, conformist, unchallenged consumerism life. Our failing to stop one cruel experiment automatically leads to a more sinister one.
Last a quote is from an expert in authoritarianism which is very relevant to the ‘shock doctrine’ Just replace ‘war’ with ‘privatization’:”Naturally the common people don’t want war…But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.” Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials.
Sorry for omitting an outstanding example of resistance from far away land. Far by its developed sense of democratic participation, rejection of corporatism, authoritarianism, and effective activism. We – in this land of conformity and surveillance – can only dream. Close geographically. Quebec seems like a different planet with their mass civil disobedience that has been going for months against crony capitalism. Even as they have better living conditions and far more social justice then most of Americans, they fight. They are aware that accepting a new norm is a slippery slop to become another US. I am proud of their heroism, relentlessness, wisdom, organization ability, and creativity, look and learn :
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12348565-montreal-naked-frenchcanadian-protesters-wow-grandprix-audiences
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/06/10/grand-prix-race-protests.html
Very well said, if I may also add.
The new world thinks that educating our children is so important that hiring someone from Teacher for America without one education course is a great teacher, that once the school is chartered let it remained open even it fails most of its students (40%, 50% 78%) and give that failing charter board more schools as it closes direct run schools for failing students, doesn’t care if the newly formed schools (charters schools) operates with no transparency to the public about their budget or operating procedures, are adminstrateively top-heavy paying high salaries to self proclaimed experts with no education experienced, are managed by self appointed boards with no parents or community members, expel kids for sleeping in class, refuses to admit the 5 year old student who lives right across the street from the school and finally start and promote a voucher program that allows students in “failing” schools to attend private or parochial schools who tells the state of Louisiana that they will accept children with vouchers but will not participate in any of the accountability standards that determines if a school is a “failing”.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!
Our Tampa Bay Times attempts to convince parents that the high stakes testing culture is good for kids. I linked the readers to your blog and research. Just ridiculous for this columnist in Tampa to want parents to believe the wasted time and money is good for kids and parents. We will not accept high stakes testing as the ‘New Normal’.
http://gatorbonbc.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/high-stakes-tests-good-for-kids-and-taxpayers-this-parent-not-buying-it-response-to-tampa-bay-times/
This “new normal” keeps creeping into my life. As the principal of the lowest performing school in our city, I agreed to take on the job of turning it around. We hired a top-notch staff, and accomplished all of the following: “Schools need a stable staff. Schools need continuity. Schools need to be caring and supportive communities.”
Unfortunately, in our first year of operation, we have not brought test scores up to the “new normal”. So now we’re feeling a little defeated, and we have a little less of the enthusiasm that we had when we all met for the first time last August. We know (in our heads) that it’s gong to take more than one year to do this, but the “new normal” says that we should have made tremendous gains this year.
We did.
Just not in test scores.
Enrollment is up, parental involvement is up, and behavior problems cut in half. Collaboration and teamwork (as well as a strong sense of humor) is how we get through the day, and we all love our new jobs.
But the “new normal” brings with it a nagging sense of doom that we just can’t shake.
Wonder if Bill Gates and his team can make a bracelet that will ward off these feelings?
We cannot accept the “new normal” and we cannot give up on public education. What we vs do is level the playing field for public education by removing the regulation/red tape that limits their creativity and to be innovative.
The irony? The teachers of Manual Arts demanded that L.A.’s Promise be put in charge of the school. Careful what you wish for…
That’s a bit dishonest. The choice was between being reconstituted, or accepting the private operator. The “irony” was that the private operator reconstituted the school anyway. While you’re cheerleading LA’s Promise, why don’t you ask their wealthy white board of directors why they don’t have any people of color?
You may disagree with me but don’t call me dishonest. I was there when it happened. However, you do express the thinking at the time i.e., that they could stop reforms at the school by “taking control” of the school via LA’s Promise (Mentor LA back then). They believed Mike McGalliard when he told them that they wouldn’t have to do anything they didn’t want to but couldn’t tell them exactly what they were going to do to improve instruction.
And I’m not cheerleading LA’s Promise; I had serious concerns about the organization as soon as I met them and it was clear that they had no idea what they were doing.
Neither Veronica Melvin, nor her predecessor Mike McGalliard, have any business running schools. LA’s Promise is a shameless organization that blames hard-working teaches for the failings of their corporate model. We looked at LA’s Promise last year and intensified all its problems were due to it’s executives and private-unelected board.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/10/so-called-las-promise-isnt-all-that.html
At the very least McGalliard taught for a few years. The wealthy Melvin, on the other hand, has never taught a day in her life, and has no understanding of education whatsoever. Why she is the CEO of a quasi-charter chain is incomprehensible, except for the fact that she has a long history of union busting activities in Los Angeles. She is considered one of the most reprehensible characters from the widely hated non-profit industrial complex in Los Angeles.
There’s an old saying in Greek that “the fish rots from the head.” LA’s Promise board of directors and executive staff are rotten through and through. They will continue to fire teachers until they find ones that will teach to the test — just like the majority of Los Angeles Charters, like CNCA and Green Dot do. It’s a sin and a shame that these scoundrels are allowed to ruin our schools and pocket revenues that should be used in classrooms and school libraries.
Under my leadership, LA’s Promise pocketed no revenues for LAUSD schools. All money from private philanthropy. No money for LAUSD, the State, or the Feds. None.
Ms Ravitch,
I’m sorry I missed this post last month. I would have responded sooner. I’m glad you wrote it, though some of the details are incorrect. And of course, that’s where the devil lives; in the details.
Last year, LA’s Promise did not lay off 40% of the staff at Manual Arts. I was President of the organization at that time. We let nobody go, though I wanted to. Like many schools in LAUSD, Manual Arts was hammered with extraordinary budget cuts, deep RIF’s and the loss of a class size reduction grant. Many great teachers who lacked seniority were on the chopping block. We did our best to retain those teachers. But we lost many of them and we had very little to do with it.
LA’s Promise never had any authority to let any teachers go. (Despite the media hype, no private operators in LA actually operate LAUSD schools – all workplace rules follow the standard UTLA contract and the District makes all major decisions.) I did ask the Supt at the time to reconstitute the school, hoping that if he did, we could avoid seniority-based RIF’s and keep the teachers with most skill and commitment). He equivocated. So all layoffs that year you reference came because of budget cuts and seniority-based RIF’s following LAUSD and union protocol. My organization had very little to do with any of this.
What you don’t know about Manual Arts, Ms Ravitch: more than FOUR unaligned managers (Local District 7, the Supt’s special “turnaround office,” LA’s Promise, the elected board member, and others); more than 3 teacher union factions – some aligned with LA’s Promise, some begging to return to Local District 7, some asking for reconstitution (in secret); Manual’s school board member is funded by UTLA, but is an old school District bureaucrat who has little interest in changing status quo; and a recent principal who was hired by one union faction, than run out by another union faction manipulated by the board member. The school consistently undermines itself and its students. The students are the victims of district politics.
I don’t blame teachers for the fact Manual Arts has had SINGLE DIGIT proficiency rates and a staggering drop out rate. I blame the District’s schizophrenic leadership (and some teachers).
What a mess. Now if you think a restart is never an answer, no matter what, how do you honor your mandate, “if it does not improve education, it is wrong?” If you think that reconstitution CAN be an answer, than what are the criteria for judging when to do it?
Mike
Notice Mr. McGalliard never advocates for reconstitution starting at the top — he always blame the teachers, the district, but never the privately managed outside group running the school. LA’s Promise has run West Adams Prep for some years, and have CSU results of 91% and 82% NOT proficient in English and math, respectively. That should have been a major warning to the district not to give them another school. Sadly they did, and they turned Manual Arts into a disaster. More importantly Veronica Melvin, Megan Chernin, and Stephen Prough’s abject failure of “leadership” has cost improvised children at Manual Arts millions.
http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2012/06/16-lausd-schools-to-lose-60-million-in.html
Let’s hope that the honorable Marguerite P. LaMotte is eventually successful in her efforts to bring both schools back under public control. She is the only LAUSD board member with anything resembling integrity, and one of only two not on Philip Anschutz and Eli Broad’s payroll.
LA’s Promise’s board is devoid of educators and, more importantly, people of color, while supposedly serving a community that they are neither connected to, nor understand. Instead of slick business men with fashion industry aspirations, Gates Foundation union busters, and assorted Hollywood producers, banksters, and name droppers, perhaps it would be best to return our schools to the professionals best suited for education — the educators.