Corporate reformers cling passionately to the myth of the New Orleans miracle because it is all they have. The New York City miracle evaporated in 2010 when the State Education Department acknowledged that the state scores were inflated. The DC miracle never happened. The Vallas miracle in Philadelphia vanished on day one. Arne Duncan’s amazing score gains in Chicago disappeared.
All that is left is New Orleans. The media loves to find miracle schools and districts, but anyone who looks beyond the press releases soon discovers that the Recovery School District is the lowest performing district in the state.
So the reformers say, “But look at our gains.”
Mercedes Schneider takes apart those claims here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you Mercedes…sending to many here in Vallas in Wonderland (coined by Jon P).
Your research is so thorough. We need you. Keep writing.
Thank you, Linda. The writing continues. 🙂
How did the DC miracle “never happen”? I’m not disputing, I’m just asking so I can counter assertions that DC was a great example of school improvement through vouchers that bad Democrats/unions/etc. came along and ruined.
Ron,
Read my chapter on Rhee and DC in my new book. Chapter and verse. No miracle.
When Arne Duncan said that the BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO THE NEW ORLEANS SCHOOLS, says it all. He is a dufus and Obama’s boy who is OUT TO DESTROY PUBLIC EDUCATION. The research certainly doesn’t support his lame policies.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan: agree or disagree, I always read your postings, but I have been hearing from the Dufus Community that they are very hurt and embarrassed that you have compared them to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
After all, this is the same EduGenius who recently scolded many of his harshest critics at the 2013 meeting of the American Educational Research Association that high-stakes standardized testing was out of control. Among his lesser pearls of wisdom:
“Some schools have an almost obsessive culture around testing, and that hurts their most vulnerable learners and narrows the curriculum. It’s heartbreaking to hear a child identify himself as ‘below basic’ or ‘I’m a one out of four.’ ”
Link: http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=4244
I hesitate to suggest this punishment—although I hear it’s popular with the militaristic charter schools—but perhaps you need to be sent to the corner for a time-out wearing a white shirt with a “Duncan Cap” on your head. So please, in the future, fight hard but fair.
🙂
But not to worry. I’ll keep reading your postings.
🙂