Three Decades of Lies
David C. Berliner
The newest version of this genre by Klein/Rice has us losing the military and economic races to China and others. But this odd couple seems to forget that militarily we spend more than Turkey, China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, and Canada combined. If we are in any danger now, or in the foreseeable future, we must have the most incompetent military in the world.
As for economic subjugation? Not likely. The Chinese are still stealing our patents. They still manufacture things for us. More important, they still have around 300 million of their population in remarkably deep poverty and millions more in near-poverty. They need to bring a population about the same size as the United States out of poverty. They must provide enough food, drinkable water, clean energy, breathable air, and employment for an urban population that is expected to reach nearly 1 billion people in coming decades.
Will China be competing with us, or will they be so deeply involved in trying to satisfy these pressing internal needs that we are of only secondary concern to them? None of us is smart enough to know, but Klein/Rice, like the authors of A Nation at Risk, like to create devils. Be afraid! Be very afraid! Then, as part of the exorcism, these writers promote destroying the evil public schools, which then brings to us a new age of national success though vouchers, charters, tax credits, and online schooling. What a crock.
These critics never blame our economic woes on, say, Jack Welch, America’s most admired CEO. Welch is quoted as saying he wishes he could put every factory GE had on a barge and tow it to wherever in the world labor was cheapest. Could such leadership affect our economic problems? None of these school critics ever blame GE for the neglected neighborhoods and family poverty that hampers success in many of our schools. Yet it has been reported that GE, led by patriots like Welch, earned profits of more than $14.2 billion in 2010, and paid no federal taxes that year. In addition, GE received $3.2 billion in tax benefits that year. Is it possible that the health of our economy and military are related to factors like these? Nah, blame the schools. In A Nation at Risk and the Klein/Rice report, it is not Welch and his ilk that endanger the United States, it is our teachers and their unions; it is lazy parents and incompetent administrators.
Condoleezza Rice must be quite trustworthy as an educational critic since I once read a column of hers titled “Why We Know Iraq is Lying.” Joel Klein is a trustworthy critic since he gained experience failing to help the New York City schools improve, and was linked in the press to educational fraud. He now works at a for profit educational company.
And Bill Bennett, who promoted A Nation at Risk and was first author on “A Nation Still at Risk,” is also not to be taken seriously. He made a lot of money from speeches that promoted morality and attacked the public schools. But at the same time he was losing millions of dollars gambling, and went into the “for profit” ed business. So Bennett and Klein gain much by badmouthing public schools and promoting privatization plans.
Frankly, it looks to me like our nation is more at risk from critics like these than it is from the hard-working teachers and administrators trying to help poor kids and their families get ahead in a nation that is increasingly stacking the deck against the poor. It really is not an achievement gap between the United States and other nations that is our problem. We actually do quite well for a large and a diverse nation. It’s really the opportunity gap, not the achievement gap that could destroy us. If only the wealthy have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for a post-industrial economy we are, indeed, a nation at risk.
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This article originally appeared on Education Week’s OpEducation blog.
I thought Jack Welch retired in 2001. What relevance does he have to GE not paying taxes in 2010?
Because not as many people know who Jeff Immelt is.
Where is the logic in that?
It’s not like GE has stopped outsourcing jobs to China and getting tax breaks for doing so. Also, Jack Welch is responsible for rank and yank, which Gates adopted at Microsoft and that is similar to the assumption that 5 – 10% of teachers are bad and should be fired annually based on student test scores? I think Welsh has a relevant place in the conversation.
As the head of a private company he had responsibility to make his company as profitable as he could. If that meant outsourcing, that was his judgement. Was he doing anything illegal or even unethical in pursuing that course of action? I think not. Tax breaks, although we may not like them are also legal. I, like you, believe that they should be severely curtailed for all entities. As far as the 10% fired, that’s his policy and managers who accepted employment with GE would have acknowledged that fact.
Regarding teachers, should they be subject to rigorous evaluations. Yes. Based on student test scores. Absolutely not. For many reasons.
Jack Welch was also brought in as a celebrity consultant for the NYC DOE when the mayor was given dictatorial control of the schools in 2002.
His contribution to education in NYC was to proclaim that children are “products,” and should be treated as such.
He was obviously listened to, since VAM is now the rule in teacher evaluations, and VAM is all about “adding value to a product or service before it is sold to customers.”
Because he loves to get his face on tv and bs everyone.
That’s true enough of a lot of high profile people, including Jack Welch.
Don’t you think GE thrived from the protection of the US population and their military? Didn’t the taxpayers pay for the military that protects the interests of the US. GE didn’t develop on an island free from all of the benefits of the US. Yes, they are hypocrites. Welch typifies what is wrong with modern corporate leadership-make as much as you can, turn your back on the country that helped your development, and have no shame in your own selfish, self-congratulatory attitude.
Jeffrey Immelt is now CEO of GE… and Obama’s advisor on job creation… which tells you why many liberal economists and progressives are disappointed in the current administration… contrary to what Fox News wants everyone to believe, the current administration is hardly “socialist” or even “liberal”… if they were THEY would be leading the charge to get corporations to pay their fair share, to regulate the TBTF banks, to speak out against the privatization of public education, and to promote more spending and taxes to provide much needed work and social support.
we still continue to endure lies about our educational system, whether it is Michelle Rhee claiming she did wonders for DC’s schools (what improvement there was on NAEP largely occurred before she took over) and that she never saw the memo with which John Merrow has nailed her, Joel Klein claiming the improved test scores in NY proved his approach was working (when the scores were readjusted by NY State there was no improvement), Arne Duncan bragging about improved test scores in Chicago on his watch (only those schools that “improved” were not testing with the same students as several studies showed) or that Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans (that speaks for itself).
The biggest lies are those that claim how poorly we do in international comparisons, when in fact if we adjust the scores according to poverty we perform as well as any other country. Oh, and add to this the notion that schools are primarily to serve to create a trained workforce for companies that are unwilling to pay taxes to support the schools yet complain about the preparation of the students turned out.
Do we know what works in education? Well, consider how many of those who are imposing the destructive policies that have been a consistent part of education in the past 30 years themselves do not send their children to public schools, or if they do live in ritzy suburbs whose public schools have facilities and spend per student at rates that not only dwarf what we see in inner city schools, but for which some elite private schools might show some generosity.
You want a good education for your kid? Live in Scarsdale NY or Highland Park Texas. Send your kid to SIdwell Friends or the Lab Schools of the University of Chicago or Phillips Andover. Some of such schools have kids from poverty who are on scholarship, who do very well, because the entire school is not kids from poverty.
Or live in a community simply willing to spend money on education, like Arlington VA where both Arne Duncan and I live. We have very good schools, class sizes are relatively small, there is a well-trained and well-paid teaching staff that is not constantly turning over (even as most of the teachers would have trouble living in Arlington which is getting increasingly expensive with the average single family home now valued at well over $600,000).
David Berliner and Bruce Biddle were absolutely correct thirty years ago when they took apart A Nation at Risk. The Sandia study showed that the claim on declining SAT scores was in fact not true if one disaggregated the scores by subgroups, because what you had was the classic illustration of Simpson’s paradox – the overall scores dropped even as all the subgroups improved, because we had a higher proportion of things like children from poverty, children from minority groups, children who were English language laerners, all groups we know tend to score at a lower level – but even those subgroups were performing better. Unfortunately most of those writing about education then and now, be they reporters or editorialists, are incompetent to analyze the data and deconstruct claims of wondrous achievement that in fact are not supported by the data.
David Berliner was right 30 years ago.
David Berliner is right today.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone in the current administration would pay attention?
“You want a good education for your kid? Live in Scarsdale NY or Highland Park Texas. Send your kid to SIdwell Friends or the Lab Schools of the University of Chicago or Phillips Andover. Some of such schools have kids from poverty who are on scholarship, who do very well, because the entire school is not kids from poverty. Some of such schools have kids from poverty who are on scholarship, who do very well, because the entire school is not kids from poverty.
Or live in a community simply willing to spend money on education, like Arlington VA where both Arne Duncan and I live.”
What I’m hearing from this is avoid schools with too many poor students. I suppose I don’t disagree; this has been the approach parents have used for decades to choose schools.
Arlington has a significant share of poor students, with some schools approaching 50% FRL. We have some families, in many cases immigrants, who live in relatively small apartments with kids doubled up or even tripled up in bedrooms. But we also have a substantial tax base, and a willingness of residents to pay taxes for schools (and police and other government functions) because it increases the value of their homes. Oh, and only about 10% of households actually have children in public schools.
Should I choose the schools with 50% FRL, or a school with fewer low-income students? Which would be better if I want a good education for my kid? And will I have to triple my kids up in bedrooms to be able to afford an apartment, given that teachers can’t afford to live in Arlington?
Sorry, I’m cranky on this topic. I live in a city that spends more on education than Arlington, that has many more low-income students than Arlington, and where lawyers, doctors, and bankers routinely double-up their kids in bedrooms. Why am I still here? Because so far, through NYC’s completely insane choice/selective admissions process, I’ve been able to do what you recommend — i.e., find schools where there aren’t too many low-income students. If I hit a point where I can’t keep doing that, I guess I’m off to Scarsdale. Which I hate.
Where is the “like” button!
Sorry. “Like” was for teacherken, not FLERP!
Educators aren’t blameless; researchers, in particular, dummied up in response to the onslaught against the knowledge base of their profession. Dave and Ursula never did. They deserve credit for speaking out loudly when peers cowed silently, . . . and thanks.
So what happens to kids like those in my school? We are ~93% F/R lunch and 70% minority. We have extremely high transiency, with over one third of our students who have not attended our school the entire year. Limited access to jobs and housing cause families to move in and out frequently. Most families here barely earn a living wage working in service industry or farm labor. The cycle of poverty continues. The result is an opportunity gap that precedes and perpetuates an achievement gap. It’s POVERTY STUPID! We make a choice daily at my school to teach our students regardless of their circumstances. We continue to strive to give them a good education even as resources dwindle. Yet our effectiveness is compared to schools with higher SES. We continue to work hard regardless of these difficult circumstances. That is what public educators do.
Yes, and it’s shameful that the teachers in that school would be blamed for low achievement.
“We have extremely high transiency, with over one third of our students who have not attended our school the entire year.”
And these children take “the tests” and the teacher is evaluated on results when the teacher hasn’t had all of the children for all of the school year. Terrible!
This transiency is often overlooked. I highly recommend Tracy Kidder’s book Among Schoolchildren. Kidder followed one class in the Holyoke Mass. school district for one school year. Transiency is a major problem in this class and most of those coming into the class arrive with no previous school records.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Bennett along with Reagan in about 1985 eliminated most history and government classes. We are seeing the results of that now. We are at risk as these other countries are placing a high value on education. We have a student from China living in our house. Her boyfriend, also from China, won the chemistry contest for China. Think about it. In Vietnam they go to school 7 days a week. Did any of you see the pictures of what Chinese and other students go through to get to their schools? They are highly motivated. Our only savior was critical thinking and we have lost that one. We have no long term edge. When we wiped out the “Arts” we wiped out that capability. I have a friend who is now putting the arts back into schools. He is now in 22 and gaining. We have been assisting him and his supporters as this is essential to future growth. Just go ask Northrup-Grumman, Boeing and JPL this question. I can give you the contact people and have listened to them speak at an Assembly committee meeting at Northrup-Grumman. They understand better than the educrats the importance of this as they state that they can go out of business as their entire business is based on “Thinking outside of the Box.” This includes shop people not just engineers as many ideas come from the shop. I know.
Thanks to Diane Ravitch for calling our attention to David Berliner’s (2013) “Three Decades of Lies” at http://bit.ly/17ihWIM. “Teacherken” (aka Ken Bernstein) commented above (paraphrasing and adding a few URL’s) “Berliner was right in ‘Manufactured Crisis’ (Berliner & Biddle, 1995/1996 at ) about the ‘Nation at Risk’ report of 30 years ago and is right today.”
Berliner (2005, 2009) at , has also been right about “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement” (Hake (2011, 2013) at , .
Ugh! I forgot to remove the angle brackets surrounding a few URL’s in my comment. Here’s another try:
Thanks to Diane Ravitch for calling our attention to David Berliner’s (2013) “Three Decades of Lies” at http://bit.ly/17ihWIM. “Teacherken” (aka Ken Bernstein) commented on Diane’s blog entry (paraphrasing and adding a few URL’s) “Berliner was right in ‘Manufactured Crisis’ (Berliner & Biddle, 1995/1996 at http://amzn.to/PGOfcT) about the ‘Nation at Risk’ report http://bit.ly/ZJ8Tyi of 30 years ago and is right today.” Berliner (2005, 2009) at http://bit.ly/ff8BVj, http://bit.ly/fqiCUA has also been right about “The Overriding Influence of Poverty on Children’s Educational Achievement” (Hake (2011, 2013) at http://bit.ly/tUU65W, http://bit.ly/XHnEzS.
The corporate-state education reform agenda rests partly on a ton of lies. But guess what? The house of cards is falling as more and more folks become aware of them. Enjoy this comprehensive essay on the agenda: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
Some blog followers might be interested this recent Tweet: http://bit.ly/Y4m0tB : YouTube http://bit.ly/10hDbUW : Nation At Risk:30 Years Later with Alexander, Bennett, Duncan, Finn, Rhee, & Ravitch
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Read Douglas D. Noble……..
Reblogged this on Professor Olsen @ Large.