Attention!!
A group of college students has organized a new organization to support public schools, teachers and unions, to oppose privatization and to demand elimination of high stakes testing.
They will work together to strengthen free,open, democratic and equitable public schools.
I have signed as a supporter.
Please join them. Show your support.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Signed on as a supporter and send to many colleagues..please do the same.
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Sent….typo.
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Yay!! I’ve signed too!!!
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Done!
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But Diane just last week you posted critically of students protesting related to educational reform. Are you supporting these students’ right to protest because you agree with them? Or because they come from a different socioeconomic background from the students last week?
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Why don’t you read what they support..it is listed for you to review. The difference is very clear. They do not support privatization, abusive testing, union busting, teacher bashing, experimentation. Do you?
Why don’t you take the time to read it?
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I think you’ve missed the point of my comments, Linda. The point was not to seek information about what the students are supporting, but to highlight the contradiction between a blog post last week and this post, which is that students were attacked by Diane last week for voicing an opinion, and the rationale for attacking those students was an assertion that those students were not qualified to have or express the opinions they did because they had not personally experienced the reforms proposed, and because of their demographic backgrounds. In other words, the quality of their arguments was not the subject of debate, but their personal, educational, and demographic backgrounds.
In this post, no mention is given to the students personal experiences, educational backgrounds, or demographic backgrounds. Diane seems to ignore the very variables which were at the heart of her argument last week.
In other words, I’m identifying what I believe to be hypocrisy. Last week, Diane disagreed with viewpoints from NY students, but instead of attacking the quality of those arguments, she attacked the demographic and educational backgrounds of those students. Here, she doesn’t consider that. It’s quite possible that the socioeconomic backgrounds of these students are no different than the students last week, but those variables are ignored.
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No there was a list of universities…one was Harvard. You are looking for a fight. You won’t get it. Obviously she supports and agrees with these students and not the others who are stumping for the privatizing eduvultures. You can agree with one group and disagree with another. One supports public schools and the other supports the destruction of public schools. Quite simple actually. You are stuck on the socioecnomic levels. Move on…if you support sycophants for privatization they have an event coming up. If you support this group, sign up. Don’t stress.
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Not looking for a fight Linda, simply interesting in having an on-point conversation about the merits of ideas, rather than distracting discussions about the relationship between quality of arguments and how much money a student’s parents have.
I think you’ve got it reversed – I would have much preferred demographics to be brought in, but they were, so I’m addressing it. Move on? I’d be happy for us all to move beyond such discussions, but I won’t ignore them if they occur.
Yes, you can agree with one group and not the other, but agree with a group based on the merits of their arguments, not their personal backgrounds.
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Sou Edvaldo Lima, professor de Matemática na escola de nível médio e representante sindical no Estado de Pernambuco, Região Nordeste do Brasil. Me interessei por esse blog porque estou lendo as ideias da Diane em seu livro: Vida e Morte do Grande Sistema Escolar Americano. Vejo que o que os professores estão passando nos Estados Unidos nós professores brasileiros estamos no começo das mesmas dores uma vez que a implantação dessa mesma política educacional equivocada está começando a se firmar e nos maltratar. Venho prestar solidariedade e demonstrar a mesma preocupação educacional de vocês certo de que a educação pública no mundo corre grande perigo. Grande abraço em todos e todas. Vamos nos unir e lutar todos juntos.
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Classic “reformer” mentality. Go off half cocked with no understanding of the issue because you think you might know the issue. Sign me up too.
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The first step in assuring that a community’s voice is heard is to have elected school boards. We also believe that anybody that makes policies for schools should have a student representative to act as a liaison and share the concerns of fellow students.
How will those board members acquaint themselves with the responsibilities their oath of office entails? Any suggestions from the teacher preparation programs enrolling the students? Are the teacher preparation candidates (and faculty!) familiar with those responsibilities? Through what means?
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Hi Eric – Would love to discuss these manners further via e-mail. Many of these questions have come up within the group, which is why we are reaching out to as many educators and professionals as possible to help us effectively attain these goals. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail at anytime: SRRivera92@gmail.com.
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Ed…going to a new dialogue box so I am not off the page:
The sycophants for education deform lose on their merits, too. They just repeat the
Rheeject faux reformy, union busting, teacher bashing talking points. They have memorized them: we must close the achievement gap, all children deserve a great teacher, we have to put students first, this is the civil rights movement of our time…whenever a group or organization has to mention students, children ad nauseum they usually could care less. Just my opinion…you do what you think is best.
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Thanks Linda – yes, I’m not sure why discussions keep getting pushed further and further to the right of the page. Thanks for starting a new post.
In response to your main paragraph, my perspective is that there are valid points of discussion on both sides of the table, and by minimizing the people who make those points, you alienate folks from the conversation. This doesn’t mean compromise if compromise isn’t in order, but respectful dialogue is more likely to benefit students. For example, when you say “they’ve memorized them,” it seems that you’re indicating that folks advocating VAM haven’t remotely thought through the issues. Perhaps some haven’t, but telling someone in a discussion that they haven’t thought about their points, but have just memorized someone else’s talking points, doesn’t serve to bring anyone closer to the truth or shared understanding. Like it or not, many of the folks involved in the discussion on both sides of the table are either in education or will be (or have decision-making power over it), so if anyone is truly about helping kids, they’ll take the approach most likely to help everyone understand the most accurate perspective about how to help kids.
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we must close the achievement gap, all children deserve a great teacher, we have to put students first, this is the civil rights movement of our time…
Not unlike expectations of state courts. How are unionized teachers distancing themselves from “sycophants for education deform” without defying the rule of law?
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I signed on, too! Thanks Stephanie, et.al., for fighting for the preservation of great public education. Thanks, Diane, for making the information available to us.
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I signed on too!!
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I am glad to see there is an official group for the cause of public education and wonder if there are others I may not be aware of? Anyone know?
I also wonder why they are strictly a student organization? Why limit it to students?
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Public School supporter forever! University students need to follow the trend of dismantling our schools, Big $ for testing and charter schools. It will not be the future they are planning for. TFA will be in their children’s classrooms until the student loans are paid off. Testing will go through the roof! Start with pre-natal reading and math for future generations. Oh, no, the testing firms will just set the bar higher. Yes, that’s the game. Children make gains, get closer to the goals…let’s reset the bar and chastise the teachers. How very sad!
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Student voices, especially high school and younger, have been dissed and discouraged in the current educational climate. But young people are speaking up, like they have through all of history. Here in DC, youths are speaking up about their schools, and a new proposal to close 20 schools of them. They are also protesting a proposal to convert one school to a polluting bus terminal. Other high school students are maintaining one of the city’s only remaining student-run newspapers. Here’s to student voices!
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