This arrived in my email. It came from a retired school teacher in Nebraska. He said the retired teachers will not sit by and watch the capture of our public schools by corporations. The retires helped to defeat a charter bill in Nebraska.
He wrote:
Hi Diane
Just received the following letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson with a request that I send it to the good people in New England. Please help with this task.
My Dear New England Friends,
I hear that billionaires are attempting to take over our public schools. Do not let them do that. Our schools are not for sale. Here are words I used when lecturing and writing about New England’s public school gift to the United States:
“I praise New England because it is THE country in the world with the freest expenditure for education. Starting with the first planning of the colonies, New England may have been the first in the world to take an initial step for education. The initial step might have been resisted as the most radical of revolutions. New England’s step decided the start of the destiny of the United States. Here, the poor man whom the law does not allow to take an ear of corn when starving, nor a pair of shoes for his freezing feet, is allowed to put his hand into the pocket of the rich, and say, “You shall educate me, not as you will, but as I will: not alone in the elements, but by further provision, in the languages, in the sciences, and in the useful and elegant arts. The child shall be taken up by the state, and taught, at the public cost, the rudiments of knowledge, and all the results of art and science.”
My fellow New Englanders, tax the billionaires Gates and Waltons and other billionaires who want your schools. With your democratically elected school boards, educate your children in the arts and sciences. Do not let the rich limit your children’s education to specialized tasks for the purposes of the wealthy.
Best wishes from a former school master.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why did you select private schools for your children, Diane?
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Joe,
If I may be so bold as to answer for Diane (with apologies to Diane). Probably because at the time she was in the “woe is me, the nation is at risk” crowd. When I first heard of her (The Left Behind book) I considered her as an enemy of public education. I’m pretty sure that she believed that mantra and therefore, in her mind, it was best to not send her children to one of those “inferior” (as they were probably conceived of in her mind at the time) public schools. Obviously she has since had a change of mind and heart.
My question to you is “How can you not have realized the above mentioned reasons on your own?”
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That may or may not be the reason. I’m very glad we selected urban public schools for our 3 children. I’d like to hear why she didn’t…especially in a city with so many public school options.
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To be clear, and as always, I’m talking about NYC.
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Duane, with double apologies to Diane, I cannot believe for a moment that if Diane were a parent who had to make these decisions today, she would send her children to public school from K through 12, much less zoned non-selective schools from K through 12. Even if she didn’t have the family fortune, I just cannot believe it. People with money and options will sometimes do zoned elementary school (because they can afford the neighborhood), and more rarely middle school (seldom zoned though), but the gig is up at high school.
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FLERP!
My grandson attends his zoned neighborhood public school in Brooklyn. His little brother, when he turns 5, will do the same.
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Right, PS 321, considered one of the best K-5 schools in all of NYC, serving Park Slope, where a two-bedroom apartment costs over a million dollars and a house costs several million. I have friends with kids at PS 321, and they worry about middle school. Do you think your grandchildren will attend their zoned public middle school?
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Joe,
Asking this question over and over again on multiple posts and Diane ignoring you, makes you look petty and desperate. Is that all you got?
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Linda, there is no reason to engage Joe. He never listens, never concedes an inch, never reveals a willingness to learn.
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Nice to know that FLERP is exposed as a poster with an agenda and an alternate name.
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Apparently it’s hard for some of you to believe, but I post only with my own name.
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From what I can tell, I may be the only one here without an agenda. On the other hand, I do have axes to grind.
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Maybe I am off, but I have gathered that you resent those who live in better neighborhoods with better public schools or you resent those who can afford private schools. That appears to be your agenda.
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I resent the power-elite, and high-minded talk about what’s best for everyone else’s kids, sacred cows, and b@!!$!t. And I don’t deny I have a chip on my shoulder. If that’s an agenda, then I have one. But I’m honest. I’m not trying to sell books with my posts. I’m a real parent who went to public school and who sends his children to public school. And occasionally I probably have something worthwhile to say.
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I definitely think you have something worthwhile to say for sure! We have much in common. I was just pointing out what it appears you are upset about on many occasions. That’s all. I don’t want you to be upset. Happy Father’s Day….you must be a great dad!
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Sometimes I feel like a good dad. Other times I feel like a horrible dad. I work too much, and I’ve missed too much. But I’m probably a better father than mine was.
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Flerp,
I think you are hard on yourself and you’re a better dad than you know….from a 99% teacher mom in CT. By the way, there must be more options than Scarsdale, no?
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Linda, I should be clear about something that you may not understand about NYC. You suggest that I “resent those who live in better neighborhoods with better public schools.” I have a working class background and I see the world in terms of stark class divisions. But I am a “one-percenter.”. I live in Manhattan in a pretty expensive neighborhood. I can afford to live in any neighborhood in NYC (although certainly not in every apartment or house in NYC). I don’t have Ravitch money or connections, and I can’t spend $3 million on K-12 for my kids, but I have a good income.
What you may not understand is that, after kindergarten, there are few if any “good public schools” in NYC, if you mean zoned middle schools or high schools that the professional classes want to send their children to. Real estate only buys you a few years if good public school here. After that, your options are either hyper-elite private schools (generally for the very wealthy, i.e. the Leonie Haimson route) or the selective-admission schools. And yes, there are plenty of “good” zoned schools. But when I say that, or Diane says that, we mean schools that are perfectly fine for someone else’s children.
If I have to, I’ll move to Scarsdale before I surrender my kids and my mental and financial health to the NYC private schools. Scarsdale is a LOT cheaper. But I really hate Scarsdale.
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Thanks for these details and happy father’s day.
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Flerp,
Also, if you are referring to Diane, I don’t believe all her hard work and dedication with this blog is to sell books if that’s what you meant. She certainly doesn’t need to invest all this time and energy just to sell books. That’s an overreach in my opinion. She was an established historian and author well before this blog.
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Same reason anyone would if they had enough money.
That does not mean that you do not advocate for the public schools.
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Speaking only for our family, we would not send my children to a private or parochial school if it were free.
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It’s an interesting question. Would I send my kids to one of the “elite” NYC private schools if I felt that the $100,000 per year expense — which probably would end up totaling several million dollars overall — was doable and sustainable? (Think about that cost. That is the kind of money it takes to send your kids to Brearley or Dalton or Collegiate.) I tend to think not. I don’t get on well with that kind of money, and I don’t like the idea of my children thinking that’s normal or good. But who knows, maybe my class rage is personal, and maybe I’d adapt, or maybe having $10 million in the bank really makes you a different person.
I know I wouldn’t do parochial. I can’t stand the thought of allowing my children to be taught lies.
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Can’t & won’t speak for you – but I’ve seen private schools all over the country and would not want my kids to attend the kind of places they are.
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And you don’t think that the public school teaches lies of its own. My humble suggestion is that they teach lies with which you agree. And what are the lies that Judaism teaches? That God’s people, chosen people, are the Jews? That Catholic Christianity teaches? That Abortion is the killing of a person and salvation is by good works? That Protestant Christianity teaches? That salvation is by grace, of which good works are evidence? Or all three, that living by the Ten Commandments is better than not? Next to lie that “The State is God,” the metaphors of religion are trivial.
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Harlan —
“And you don’t think that the public school teaches lies of its own. My humble suggestion is that they teach lies with which you agree.”
There’s surprisingly little that I agree with, but I suppose it’s possible. I’d need an example.
On the other points you raise, I can only say that I don’t believe in magic.
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“How about human made global warming? Surely you believe in enough magic to believe in that?”
Few things are more painful to witness than two complete idiots arguing about science. I won’t get into the scientific consensus, because I suspect I know where that would lead us (nowhere, sadly). But the following seem uncontroversial: (1) global temperatures have been rising sharply over the last 100 years; (2) humans burn fossil fuels in large quantities (in the 20th century, humans have burned as much as half of all the oil on the planet, not to mention coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels); (3) burning fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases; (4) greenhouse gases have a warming effect; and (5) greenhouse gases have risen sharply during the industrial age, which is not surprising given points # 2 and 3 above.
But I’m always open to better explanations and theories, and I’ll listen to them if I have the time.
“‘Obama is a good man.’ I’ll bet you believe THAT.”
Never met him. I tend to think anyone who can do all of the things that must be done to campaign for and win the presidency of the U.S. is very strange, likely unpleasant, and possibly sociopathic. But I may be too cynical.
politicians with the ambition
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Let’s hear it for the Transcendentalists…and Roger Coram…and Thomas Jefferson…all of whom came out vociferously for universal free public education.
My own new Los Angeles group, Joining Forces for Education, is comprised of retired teachers who are gearing up to rapidly be public educators to diverse groups such as PTA, League of Women Voters, Dem and Rep Clubs, Rotary, etc., and whomever wishes to learn the issues from women and men who spent their lives devoted to teaching students in public schools.
Our Speakers Bureau will talk on the issues surrounding privatization, and immediately focusing on the damaging group of privatizers called Parent Revolution.
If you are in our area and want to join us for speaker training starting next week, please send me an email at
JoiningForces4Ed@aol.com
And thank you Diane for not only keeping us up to date, but for giving us this professional venue to coalesce.
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To be a non-conformist, one must abhor standardizing oneself to a concept of thinking that has been chosen by an elite group of others. Individuality of thought must be championed. The argument I hear time and gain by proponents of public choice is:They oppose the public school system since its facilitators assume all children have the same needs, and these same proponents want THEIR children to have more choices for instruction.
While there is “some” conformity in a system, it should not be relegated to the end-product learning that takes place in classrooms every day. The student-teacher relationship is by far the most important one. In this relationship, a teacher can make the adjustments to the implementation of a plan to meet the needs of his students. There is a point where attending to the “needs” (as in the case of special learners) or wants (in the case of emotionally under-developed learners) of an individual become a detriment to the class as a whole. This is where public systems are equipped to intervene with sub-systems that are in place to change the dynamic to a more society-based learning environment and not one where a single individual interrupts the learning of others. Some charter and parochial environments may have sub-systems like these in place, but many just counsel out the students who require these services in an effort to keep the student body somewhat, dare I say, conformist.
The choice to which some refer is that of conformity to this notion of a phantom “ability level” that ignores the diversity of the individual himself. Just because a student may have an affinity for math does not mean he has the mind of an excellent writer. A student who might be motivated by science may not have developed social skills for dealing with all factions of society. It is baffling to conceive that many choice proponents believe children come in two kinds: their own children and the ones who mess up everything for their own children. Conformity of learning is not the purpose of public systems. The conformity is in the administration of the system, the efficiency of group management, and the fostering of learning environments that teach social customs and practices of this society–those practices that exist for the good of all.
Therefore, any “conformity” must serve the betterment of the learner himself and those learners around him. Just like laws in our country protect individuals to the point that the same individuals do not infringe upon others’ rights, so too do our public systems serve individuals to the point that the same do not infringe upon the equal rights of others’ to these systems. The beauty of the system is that state and local boards are given the power to create an atmosphere of diverse instructional offerings. Reformers would like to end this system all the while touting “choice” for parents by pushing for public funding to segregate learners into those with choices and those with no choice but to take whatever is left after the opportunities have all been taken by others. This is a doozy of an irony.
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Fortunately growing numbers of educators, students, school boards and policy-makers are recognizing that there is no one best kind of school for all. They’re recognizing that trying to force everyone into the same kind of school is a bad way to help youngsters realize their potential.
They’re also recognizing that one way to honor educators as professionals is to give them the power to create public schools that they think make sense.
No question choice is sometimes abused – as is free speech and other forms of liberty. But on balance, I’d much rather live in a country and a state which recognizes students learn in different ways, and honors educations as professionals by giving them the power to create schools that they think makes sense.
We’re moving away from the situation that Al Shanker accurately described – where teachers who want to create different kinds of schools “are treated as traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lockstep.”
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“Fortunately growing numbers of educators, students, school boards and policy-makers are recognizing that there is no one best kind of school for all. They’re recognizing that trying to force everyone into the same kind of school is a bad way to help youngsters realize their potential.”
Define “same kind.” A school is naturally diverse by nature of the many varied teaching and learning styles present in its many classrooms, not to mention the cultural pathways that students and teachers alike have traveled prior to their work together. As well, academic freedom allows for the needs of diverse factions of the population to be met to a larger extent than what happens when schools are beholden to standardized, scripted texts based on curricula that are used as more than guides and instead have become absolutes where “drill and kill” to make AYP is the goal.
Teaching is an art where the teacher continues to develop more and more skill through practice and experience with diversity. There is great danger in coloring a public school system as lacking in innovation simply because it utilizes some tenets of conformity in administration and large group management. Teaching and learning are complex and inter-dependent human activities that have become over-simplified by those who ignore the natural, built-in diversity within a public and within a single classroom.
Innovation in the public school classroom goes on every day. Teachers’ hands are becoming more tied up as a result of severe education reform practices. Let’s support the current system by keeping diverse programs within the system instead of creating alternate schooling systems that drain our public system of the resources it needs to maintain innovative and diverse instruction.
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LG – I agree that innovations are taking place in public school systems all over the country. I also agree that some teachers and principals feel constrained by some standardized testing and accountability programs.
Since I work with and learn from district schools educators daily, I am impressed with many.
Here’s a link to a recent story about innovation in several district & charter schools:
http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_23076316/homeroom-collaborative-effort-gives-high-school-students-better
Here’s a link to an editorial that also comments on this:
http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_23108307/friday-opinuendo-st-paul-legacy-sequestration-manipulation-and
Having said that, the argument you made about keeping the resources in the current system is similar to the argument many of us made some years about creating options within districts. We were told over and over that we were detracting from the current system by creating options with districts.
Fortunately some districts did create Montessori, language immersion or other options. Do you agree that such options should be available?
Teachers who have created such options often as Shanker noted (and I think I’ve previously mentioned), been treated like “traitors or outlaws” – in part by other educators, or central office administrators, or school board members – or others who oppose options.
We’re dealing now with a district issue that has frustrated some great educators. This and many other examples are part of the reason I think we should give educators a chance to create schools outside the district structure.
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Public education which devuloped on the East Coast very early in our history. It is one of the best ideas ever to produce a great society fully educated to make proper decisions. So let us just ruin it.
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Public education was promoted by Horace Mann as a well to get poor people to accept their conditions. He told wealthy business people that paying taxes for schools was a good idea because they would be more docile (Colin Greer, Great School Wars).
Also Horace Mann made sure not to act against the private schools in Mass that wealthy people sent their children to. And Horace Mann’s “public schools” used the Protestant Bible – which angered Catholics (much less Jews, of which I am one).
There were huge battles because “public schools” in New York for example, would not use both the Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible.
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If you actually read Horace Mann instead of Colin Greer, you would learn that Mann said no such thing. Poppycock!
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Yes, I’ve read Horace Mann. Yes, there is an intriguing quote from Horace Mann. More details soon.
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Diane Ravitch has nothing to explain. This gotcha-style question is undignified and bogus. Diane’s advocacy for public schooling has been exemplary. It’s brought together folks from the vast majority who have a stake in a robust public sector. She generously shares the spotlight with a remarkable array of scholars, educators, parents, administrators, public officials and students against the rampage of the Billionaire Boys Club transferring assets from the public to corporate hands. This is a fight over what kind of society we want, what kind of humane and just world we might yet rescue for all kids from the ruins accumulating around us. Diane is an honored warrior for this hope.
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Ira….
I support your accurate comments about Diane who has given us a fulcrum and a forum to communicate. I would recommend you all read her book published in 2010 on the Death and Life of the Great American School System wherein she explains her changed opinions upon seeing the actual results of charters and vouchers systems. It is a factual eye opener and I used it as a core book to teach my own university lifelong learning class last term.
They few diehards who seem to only post angry comments do not add to a measured worthwhile discussion. But personally I have learned much from the many thoughtful educated information purveyors on this site and thank you all.
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Ellen and Ira, do you have children and if so, which neighborhood school do they attend?
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DR. Shor: Surely you understand that it is NOT undignified of anyone to ask an activist whether she or he lives the philosophy she or he espouses. Hypocrisy is epidemic on the left, starting with the President and moving on down to union bosses. Too many people in the world have died for their beliefs for anyone to reject such questions. It is by the criterion of philosophers who have lived their ideas that we judge. Socrates, the Buddah, Jesus, Washington, Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa are the criteria, NOT Jessie Jackson, or The Bishop of Los Angeles, or the local parish priest who fondles boys, or Diane Feinstein, or Harry Reid, or Marco Rubio, who says one thing in English and different in Spanish, or Newt Gingrich, or John McCain, or Barack Obama, or Vladimr Putin, or Fidel Castro, or Che Guevara, or Hugo Chavez that we judge. We just want to know whether Diane TRULY believes, that is, believes for her own self, in the doctrine she preaches for others. The offense is NEVER in the question, only in the answer, at least in my judgement. You are free to defend your friend in any way you want. Even the Pope is never above criticism, as I am sure you would acknowledge.
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Distrust any enterprise that requires new tests.
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I used to to a Philosophers High School project with my American Literature classes. Teams of students designed a high school based on Transcendental philosophy. One group did physical plant/facilities, another school board and administrative policy, another curriculum and instruction, another food service, another co- and extra-curricular activities, etc.
It is no coincidence that we can no longer make time for an authentic assessment like this.
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Penny, if you were in a teacher led school as some other public school teachers are around the country, you could make time for those assessments.
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Depends on the teachers leading it.
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I do believe that Emerson has been reincarnated…. yes, yes and yes on this commentary, “My fellow New Englanders, tax the billionaires Gates and Waltons and other billionaires who want your schools. With your democratically elected school boards, educate your children in the arts and sciences. Do not let the rich limit your children’s education to specialized tasks for the purposes of the wealthy…”
Our nation’s poorest or any children for that matter should never be considered as HUMAN CAPITAL nor should their role in educating themselves be for the GDP of a nation!
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I am wondering how you (or Emerson?) would reply if some libertarian type asserted: “You have explicitly stated that government-supported schooling is funded by a firm of theft: exactly as the libertarians argue! No matter what the effects of a venture funded by theft, isn’t it—on your own analogy’s showing — as much a theft as if the poor man were not only encouraged but _required_ to steal shoes and corn that the rich man was required to provide for him to steal? Are not shoes and food, and a thousand other things, as needful as education? And if so, cannot your reasoning be used to determine that shoes and food and everything else important must be removed from the private sphere and become the responsibility of the government,to be paid for all by thee taxes of all — or of some?”
What would be your response, if someone raised such an argument and if he thought that he had thereby confuted yours?
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