If we all speak out based on our knowledge and experience, we can turn this privatization movement around. It is led by people who know nothing about teaching or children. They are obsessed with data and incentives and punishments. Their bad ideas keep failing.
From a reader:
Hi Diane.
This is the first time I have commented on your blog but I have been reading your posts since the blog’s inception. Please know that you inspire me and keep me going. The reason being, you give me hope that we, as public school teachers, have a voice out there fighting for us.
I have been teaching for 12 years in a small upstate New York city school. We are ravaged with 75% poverty and developmentally innappropriate expectations for our kids from the Common Core. There is no “soft bigotry” of low expectations, just expectations WAY out of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky).
I have seen the corporate reform agenda taking shape for years and have seen main stream media’s narrative of it’s benefits. It’s demonization of us public school teachers. It frustrates me to such a degree that it is hard to have hope for change. You give me that hope. You inspire me to get the message out to my collegues. To speak up at meetings and generally be the voice of dissent in this otherwise brainwashed, “duped” society. Thank you for that. And thank you for continuing this fight against the monster that is the pritization movement. Enjoy your break. It is well deserved.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent post! Your statement, “… developmentally inappropriate expectations for our kids from the Common Core” is spot on! I’ m amazed every day by the amount of brainwashed individuals that have bought into this nonsense, individuals that otherwise are fairly intelligent people.
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I know from experience that parents are often the best allies of teachers. Keep them involved and abreast of what is happening. These are difficult times for teachers but I believe we’ll see positive change soon. Best wishes to you!
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Thank you for your kind words. I wanted to comment on what tuppercooks mentioned, if I could. I especially agree with you that there seems to be a multitude of “individuals that otherwise are fairly intelligent” not seeing the light on this. It’s disconcerting, to say the least because it seems so obvious to me. But then again, I see the ramifications of these policies on a daily basis in the faces of my 27 kids. I just saw last night, watching Oprah’s Network, that she is going to fulfill her role in the “The Big Lie” by giving voice to a new Charter School in Louisiana. “Blackboard Wars” is the name of the “reality” TV show, and just by the trailer I gathered the alterior motive behind it. “Charters are here to save children from these awful public schools, their lazy teachers and their evil unions”. How can Oprah be so naive not to look deeper into the systemic issues surrounding poverty and not realize that my role as a teacher is not going to change that. It just seems like such a limited sense of awareness and common sense. Seriously? The issues surrounding post Katrina, segregated John McDonogh High school in Louisiana are solely on the backs of teachers like me? Wow. Oprah must think we have a lot more power than we do. Interestingly enough though, I guarantee that this new “reality” show shows just that. That teachers can solve the issues of poverty. Those teachers just don’t belong to a union. They are super teachers from TFA. The whole narrative is surreal. Honestly.
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