While the billionaires and multi-millionaires wring their hands over the public schools and promise to end poverty by testing kids and their teachers, there is a back story.
The back story is that income inequality is growing worse in America. And nowhere is it more blatant and more outrageous than in New York City, the very epicenter of faux education reform.
While the mayor and his three chancellors have expanded the number of charter schools, increased testing and demanded value-added assessment of teachers and waged war against tenure and seniority, the income gap between the rich and poor has become a wide chasm.
An article in the New York Times today says that the poverty rate is at its highest point in a decade.
And get this:
“Median income for the lowest fifth was $8,844, down $463 from 2010. For the highest, it was $223,285, up $1,919.
“In Manhattan, the disparity was even starker. The lowest fifth made $9,681, while the highest took home $391,022. The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites made more than 40 times what the lowest fifth reported, a widening gap (it was 38 times, the year before) surpassed by only a few developing countries, including Namibia and Sierra Leone.”
Do the reformers still believe that we can fix the schools first, then turn our attention to poverty? Or that if we fix the schools, then poverty will take care of itself? Yes, they do. Do they have any evidence that any of this will happen? No.
The economic policies of the past decade have been very very good for the very very rich. Not good at all for the other end of the spectrum.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you and please continue posting these very telling articles and statistics. The first thought that came to mind was the fall of the Roman Empire as the classes grew further and further apart. Hopefully, with our advanced ability to communicate to the masses, we can learn from history and not repeat it.
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This is so true. We must fix the community before anything else. If children have a decent safe place to leave in the morning and return to in the afternoon then their attention will turn to what I need to learn and know. As safe home creates a good climate for everyone. It invites learning.
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If my arithmetic is correct, based on this fact -“Median income for the lowest fifth was $8,844, down $463 from 2010. For the highest, it was $223,285, up $1,919″ – the rich gained only .8 percent. That’s not a lot at that high an income, and that’s part of their gripe. They didn’t make all that much. But the lowest fifth lost about 5 percent. That’s huge, particularly at that low level. The resistance to redistributing wealth sounds so petty and stingy in this light. We could be such a better country if we had everyone engaged, which a less distorted income pattern would encourage.
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Even in NYC, a person can live well on $223,285. Not so well on $8,844. I agree with your point.
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Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee reported that the federal minumum wage ($7.25) has stagnated for the past three years while the CEO of a typical, publicly owned company averaged $9.6 million in salary in 2011 or $3,072.84 per hour.
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Thank you for the courage to “tell it true”. I teach University Education classes in which the enrollment is mostly middle class. When they learn of the poverty and all of its ramifications that these children and their families face, they are shocked. Your blog is now a required part of the class. The figures you have given are very sad for what America has stood for. It is certainly not democratic to have such disparity and then plan to perpetuate it as the Conservative/Romney platform indicates.
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Careful now Diane, talking about “class” differences and not class as in classroom. They’ll be labeling you a communist, marxist or socialist.
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Haha. I’m too old to care.
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