Sam Chaltain is one of our most thoughtful bloggers.
This is his review of Reign of Error, which appears in his regular column in Education Week.
I appreciated his connection of this book to the work of the muckrakers. It is a comparison that I made in my own mind, but kept to myself because I was loathe to be so bold as to associate myself with the bold reformism of such giants as Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, Ida B. Wells, Ida Tarbell, Rachel Carson, and Ralph Nader, among many others. They saw injustice, and they wrote frankly and without equivocation or moderation to awaken the public. And the public, once aroused, demanded change from the status quo. This is a tradition I would proudly associate myself with, but with a deep sense of humility.
But Sam goes on to say that he thinks I went too far. He thinks I am too critical of the reformers and should have found common ground with them. Surely there will be others who agree.
I must confess that I can’t find common ground with ALEC. I can’t find common ground with governors and legislators who think of ways to degrade the teaching profession, to eliminate academic freedom for teachers, to cut their pensions, to cut their pay, to grade them by invalid measures like VAM. Nor can I find common ground with big corporations running charter schools and displacing community public schools, nor with for-profit charter schools.
I would like to find reformers who share common ground with me and with the nation’s teachers on the issues of child health and nutrition, on the issue of the malevolent effects of poverty on children’s lives. I would like to find reformers who want to collaborate–not compete–with the community public schools.
As Sam points out, democracy thrives on disagreement. But to have a disagreement, both sides must have equal access to the media. That has certainly not been the case. I can count on the fingers of one hand the foundations that support public education, the major newspapers that question the closing of public schools to make room for privately managed charters.
Should I have been more conciliatory? I will leave that for readers to judge. The book comes out on Tuesday.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No way, Jose!!! There is no way to compromise with the deformers! They are radicals dressed up in suits, out to destroy public education. Stand Your Ground, Diane!!
Heck no, you are passionate about this issue and what they are doing to public education is nothing to negotiate about. Keep on pushing because we, the public, are supportive of you and your efforts
“Should I have been more conciliatory?”
No. Those who insist that there is a middle ground with this reform end up compromising their position. Had there been a common ground, you would not have felt compelled to break association with groups that advocate privatization. You would still be members of those boards and comfortable having your name associated with reform groups.
Sometimes a middle simply does not exist.
No, the days of Assuming Good Faith are Gone With The Wind …
You not only need both sides having equal access to the media. You also need both sides operating in good faith. Mr. Chaltain identifies himself as among the “reasonable people” who make moderation their primary goal and then see the world through those lenses, equalizing those who abuse with those who counter after the abuse and then taking the hallowed middle ground as the voice of reason. Education as practiced does indeed have needs, but those are not the priorities of the deep pockets and ideological aggressors who dominate the other “reasonable people” and whose agendas will be the ones that win if not for those such as yourself who counter them so effectively. His moderates will not make policy decisions if you step aside and those you single out so well are challenged only by those moderates. That he doesn’t understand that after almost four decades of its operation now tells us how much credibility his review should receive. Don’t back down. He’s the one who needs to go away until you’ve won.
The issue here is that the “reforms” have been foisted on the country by a small group of insiders. There was no discussion. There was no democratic process. And there still isn’t. Instead, we have a Secretary of Education who gives speeches saying that the only opposition to this crap is from a few folks on one lunatic fringe or another.
Child life quality is at stake here, both present and future. So, there is only this urgent message to convey and no soft-soaping the corporate kidnapping of their learning.
Democracy or Autocracy, choose now because there will be no “maybe later”.
RE: “I can count on the fingers of one hand the foundations that support public education, the major newspapers that question the closing of public schools to make room for privately managed charters.”
Who are the good players?
I’ve been curious about for a while, because while there have been individual writers who get it right, I’ve yet to see editorial consistency across a publication that makes sense. I’ve also yet to see the focused support from any funding body that matches what Broad/Koch/Walton/Gates/ALEC have been doing for years.
Are there players of equal scale, scope, stature, and financial reach that match the supporters of the corporate reformers?
The reviewer seems well meaning but fails to grasp a critical point.
It’s not about idealistic aspirations or untried theories or good-hearted people having honest disagreements about the theory of public education.
Let me put forth one of Diane Ravitch’s ‘Principles of Interpretation’:
“School reformers sometimes resemble the characters in Dr. Seuss’s Solla Sollew, who are always searching for that mythical land ‘where they never have trouble, at last very few.’ Or like Dumbo, they are convinced they could fly if only they had a magic feather. In my writings, I have consistently warned that, in education, there are not shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets. For certain, they are not magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.” [THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, 2011, p.3]
So yes, the owner of this blog (along with many others) doesn’t think that we need to stock up on crucifixes and wooden stakes and garlic to deal with a supposed Vampire Infestation, or buy automatic weapons with silver bullets in anticipation of the next great “World War Werewolf.” The denizens of RheeWorld have conniptions over the preceding. On Planet Reality we are concerned about real world problems and real world solutions.
And data that is relevant to the topic at hand. That’s called evidence.
The owner of this blog makes an extremely convincing case that the evidence backs her up. She’s not looking for a fight—she’s look for a better case to be made by the education establishment. So far she is winning the argument.
So in the end, what we get—even from people who seem to be trying to be fair—is that she is unreasonable.
What would be unreasonable would be Diane Ravitch agreeing with nostrums and practices that have proven to be impractical and harmful.
I suggest that those who disagree go back to their well-worn copy of Marxist fundamentalisms:
“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
Yes, I mean Groucho. Who did you think I meant???
🙂
“What would be unreasonable would be Diane Ravitch agreeing with nostrums and practices that have proven to be impractical and harmful.”
Well put.
Pasi Sahlberg might be someone to collaborate with on these issues.
Finland’s Pasi Sahlberg is one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and the author of the best-selling “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland?” In this piece he writes about whether the emphasis that American school reformers put on “teacher effectiveness” is really the best approach to improving student achievement.
He is director general of Finland’s Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation and has served the Finnish government in various positions and worked for the World Bank in Washington D.C. He has also been an adviser for numerous governments internationally about education policies and reforms, and is an adjunct professor of education at the University of Helsinki and University of Oulu. He can be reached at pasi.sahlberg@cimo.fi.
By Pasi Sahlberg
Many governments are under political and economic pressure to turn around their school systems for higher rankings in the international league tables. Education reforms often promise quick fixes within one political term. Canada, South Korea, Singapore and Finland are commonly used models for the nations that hope to improve teaching and learning in their schools. In search of a silver bullet, reformers now turn their eyes on teachers, believing that if only they could attract “the best and the brightest” into the teaching profession, the quality of education would improve.
“Teacher effectiveness” is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. This concept hence applies only to those teachers who teach subjects on which students are tested. Teacher effectiveness plays a particular role in education policies of nations where alternative pathways exist to the teaching profession.
In the United States, for example, there are more than 1,500 different teacher-preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Singapore and Finland only one academically rigorous teacher education program is available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor South Korea has fast-track options into teaching, such as Teach for America or Teach First in Europe. Teacher quality in high-performing countries is a result of careful quality control at entry into teaching rather than measuring teacher effectiveness in service.
In recent years the “no excuses”’ argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children’s learning in school. Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies.
For me the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being. Among 29 wealthy countries, the United States landed second from the last in child poverty and held a similarly poor position in “child life satisfaction.” Teachers alone, regardless of how effective they are, will not be able to overcome the challenges that poor children bring with them to schools everyday.
Finland is not a fan of standardization in education. However, teacher education in Finland is carefully standardized. All teachers must earn a master’s degree at one of the country’s research universities. Competition to get into these teacher education programs is tough; only “the best and the brightest” are accepted. As a consequence, teaching is regarded as an esteemed profession, on par with medicine, law or engineering. There is another “teacher quality” checkpoint at graduation from School of Education in Finland. Students are not allowed to earn degrees to teach unless they demonstrate that they possess knowledge, skills and morals necessary to be a successful teacher.
But education policies in Finland concentrate more on school effectiveness than on teacher effectiveness. This indicates that what schools are expected to do is an effort of everyone in a school, working together, rather than teachers working individually.
In many under-performing nations, I notice, three fallacies of teacher effectiveness prevail.
The first belief is that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” This statement became known in education policies through the influential McKinsey & Company report titled “How the world’s best performing school systems come out on top”. Although the report takes a broader view on enhancing the status of teachers by better pay and careful recruitment this statement implies that the quality of an education system is defined by its teachers. By doing this, the report assumes that teachers work independently from one another. But teachers in most schools today, in the United States and elsewhere, work as teams when the end result of their work is their joint effort.
The role of an individual teacher in a school is like a player on a football team: all teachers are vital, but the culture of the school is even more important for the quality of the school. Team sports offer numerous examples of teams that have performed beyond expectations because of leadership, commitment and spirit. Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team USA certainly exceeded the quality of its players. So can an education system.
The second fallacy is that “the most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers.” This is the driving principle of former D.C. schools chancellor Michele Rhee and many other “reformers” today. This false belief is central to the “no excuses” school of thought. If a teacher was the most important single factor in improving quality of education, then the power of a school would indeed be stronger than children’s family background or peer influences in explaining student achievement in school.
Research on what explains students’ measured performance in school remains mixed. A commonly used conclusion is that 10% to 20% of the variance in measured student achievement belongs to the classroom, i.e., teachers and teaching, and a similar amount is attributable to schools, i.e., school climate, facilities and leadership. In other words, up to two-thirds of what explains student achievement is beyond the control of schools, i.e., family background and motivation to learn.
Over thirty years of systematic research on school effectiveness and school improvement reveals a number of characteristics that are typical of more effective schools. Most scholars agree that effective leadership is among the most important characteristics of effective schools, equally important to effective teaching. Effective leadership includes leader qualities, such as being firm and purposeful, having shared vision and goals, promoting teamwork and collegiality and frequent personal monitoring and feedback. Several other characteristics of more effective schools include features that are also linked to the culture of the school and leadership: Maintaining focus on learning, producing a positive school climate, setting high expectations for all, developing staff skills, and involving parents. In other words, school leadership matters as much as teacher quality.
The third fallacy is that “If any children had three or four great teachers in a row, they would soar academically, regardless of their racial or economic background, while those who have a sequence of weak teachers will fall further and further behind”. This theoretical assumption is included in influential policy recommendations, for instance in “Essential Elements of Teacher Policy in ESEA: Effectiveness, Fairness and Evaluation” by the Center for American Progress to the U.S. Congress. Teaching is measured by the growth of student test scores on standardized exams.
This assumption presents a view that education reform alone could overcome the powerful influence of family and social environment mentioned earlier. It insists that schools should get rid of low-performing teachers and then only hire great ones. This fallacy has the most practical difficulties. The first one is about what it means to be a great teacher. Even if this were clear, it would be difficult to know exactly who is a great teacher at the time of recruitment. The second one is, that becoming a great teacher normally takes five to ten years of systematic practice. And determining the reliably of ‘effectiveness’ of any teacher would require at least five years of reliable data. This would be practically impossible.
Everybody agrees that the quality of teaching in contributing to learning outcomes is beyond question. It is therefore understandable that teacher quality is often cited as the most important in-school variable influencing student achievement. But just having better teachers in schools will not automatically improve students’ learning outcomes.
Lessons from high-performing school systems, including Finland, suggest that we must reconsider how we think about teaching as a profession and what is the role of the school in our society.
First, standardization should focus more on teacher education and less on teaching and learning in schools. Singapore, Canada and Finland all set high standards for their teacher-preparation programs in academic universities. There is no Teach for Finland or other alternative pathways into teaching that wouldn’t include thoroughly studying theories of pedagogy and undergo clinical practice. These countries set the priority to have strict quality control before anybody will be allowed to teach – or even study teaching! This is why in these countries teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation are not such controversial topics as they are in the U.S. today.
Second, the toxic use of accountability for schools should be abandoned. Current practices in many countries that judge the quality of teachers by counting their students’ measured achievement only is in many ways inaccurate and unfair. It is inaccurate because most schools’ goals are broader than good performance in a few academic subjects. It is unfair because most of the variation of student achievement in standardized tests can be explained by out-of-school factors. Most teachers understand that what students learn in school is because the whole school has made an effort, not just some individual teachers. In the education systems that are high in international rankings, teachers feel that they are empowered by their leaders and their fellow teachers. In Finland, half of surveyed teachers responded that they would consider leaving their job if their performance would be determined by their student’s standardized test results.
Third, other school policies must be changed before teaching becomes attractive to more young talents. In many countries where teachers fight for their rights, their main demand is not more money but better working conditions in schools. Again, experiences from those countries that do well in international rankings suggest that teachers should have autonomy in planning their work, freedom to run their lessons the way that leads to best results, and authority to influence the assessment of the outcomes of their work. Schools should also be trusted in these key areas of the teaching profession.
To finish up, let’s do one theoretical experiment. We transport highly trained Finnish teachers to work in, say, Indiana in the United States (and Indiana teachers would go to Finland). After five years–assuming that the Finnish teachers showed up fluent in English and that education policies in Indiana would continue as planned–we would check whether these teachers have been able to improve test scores in state-mandated student assessments.
I argue that if there were any gains in student achievement they would be marginal. Why? Education policies in Indiana and many other states in the United States create a context for teaching that limits (Finnish) teachers to use their skills, wisdom and shared knowledge for the good of their students’ learning. Actually, I have met some experienced Finnish-trained teachers in the United States who confirm this hypothesis. Based on what I have heard from them, it is also probable that many of those transported Finnish teachers would be already doing something else than teach by the end of their fifth year – quite like their American peers.
Conversely, the teachers from Indiana working in Finland–assuming they showed up fluent in Finnish–stand to flourish on account of the freedom to teach without the constraints of standardized curricula and the pressure of standardized testing; strong leadership from principals who know the classroom from years of experience as teachers; a professional culture of collaboration; and support from homes unchallenged by poverty.
Conversely, the teachers from Indiana working in Finland–assuming they showed up fluent in Finnish–stand to flourish on account of the freedom to teach without the constraints of standardized curricula and the pressure of standardized testing; strong leadership from principals who know the classroom from years of experience as teachers; a professional culture of collaboration; and support from homes unchallenged by poverty.
I often collaborate with Pasi Sahlberg. He is a great champion of true school reform.
And this, too, Diane, is why I emphatically say NO, you should NOT be more conciliatory–you actually COLLABORATE with others, and those others are true educators. Who, I might ask, does Rhee collaborate with–the voices in her head?
One more thing–I have the book, have been reading it, and what you have and –as an educational historian–have always had on your side are–FACTS. You say and print the truth, not only in accordance with collaboration, but steeped in real research, real data, real charts and graphs. You did not simply–ever–look at NCLB, RT3 and reform as a whole–you have taken it apart, done what you are expert at–research and factual analysis–something these others are unqualified to do. They have cornered the media with their big money and their harmful lies, and continue to do so but–make no mistake about it–they have done so because they are afraid of you. They are very afraid.
One cannot compromise with those who do not allow you to sit at the table.
There are people of good will who support some of these “reforms.” Wise, thoughtful, careful people.There are aspects of them that I support myself. But here’s what I do not support: I do not support having this crap rammed down the throats of educators. I do not support it all being a fait accompli. I don’t support a few educrats and plutocrats and politicians presuming to overrule every teacher, every curriculum coordinator, every administrator, every curriculum designer in the country.
The reformers often talk about how these are “free market” reforms. Well, here’s what happens in a free market: people get to choose.
They aren’t told, it doesn’t matter what you think, we’ve made these decisions for you, about standards, about curricula, about pedagogical strategies, about lesson formats, about systems for recording student data, about teacher and school evaluation.
The reformers really need to take their own free market rhetoric seriously. They should have to sell independent, site-managed, autonomous schools on their ideas, and the teachers and administrators running those schools TOGETHER, must be free to adopt or adapt from among COMPETING ideas those that make sense to them.
People who are given no voice are not in a position to “compromise.” That charge is very akin to blaming the rape victim.
Diane, you have not been unfair to the privatizers. Their policies are unprecedented, over-the-line, dangerous for any democratic society, bad for kids, families, teachers, and communities. A lot is at stake in this new school war. You are under no obligation to give ground to this disgraceful wave of privatization. Your criticisms are legitimate, well-researched, articulate, and compelling, which is why the status quo is howling about you. Keep them on the defensive for as long as possible, until a mass movement of parents, teachers and students consolidates to turn this shameful era around.
unprecedented
That word was well chosen. Rarely have we seen in U.S. education such top-down overreaching. I can think of a very few examples: The Indian boarding schools of the late 19th and early 20th centuries come to mind. There too, the people affected had no say, even though what they cared about most was at stake.
More conciliatory?! Absolutely not! It has been educators’ conciliatory actions and attitudes throughout this attack that allowed the deformers, edufrauds, billionaire boys to make the inroads that they have. Now is the time for flat out truth telling. Thanks, Diane!
“The things we talk about when we talk about school reform – charter schools, testing, teachers, choice – are not black and white concepts; they are myriad shades of grey.”
I disagree on “choice” and I think moderate or liberal-leaning reformers are headed for a real problem there with logical consistency. The moderate position on “choice” doesn’t make any sense. They believe they can limit this “choice” idea to providing a choice for students in low-scoring public schools, but of course that isn’t what’s happening, nor should it happen, if one is consistent.
The fact is if they ground their reasons for choice on the idea that “parents know best” or “choice provides competition” then there really is no middle ground. If choice has inherent value, then “choice” shouldn’t be limited by any test-score measure of “quality”.
Parents in Chicago chose their local public schools, which were closed. Parents in Toledo are choosing “failing” charter schools, which are threatened with closure. Parents in Ohio are choosing failing cybercharters. The Catholic school where I live is generally considered to be of lower quality than the public school, yet reformers here are providing vouchers for students to leave the public school and go to the private school. What happens when parents who were sold on the broad idea of “choice” re: a a charter or a private school are faced with the withdrawal of that “choice” because the school doesn’t perform under the reform metrics and thus is deemed ineligible for public funding? The “choice” parents will say the same thing public school parents said in Chicago, which is that they see value DESPITE low test scores. They’ll be right, too. They were sold “choice”. They weren’t sold ” choice that depends on quality based on a test score metric”. I’m curious how reformers like Duncan handle this, because his “middle” position doesn’t make any sense.
How does one find “common ground” here? How can you justify that which is unjust? How can you validate that which is invalid?
I guess we can all agree that education is important. But again, not sure we can agree on why it is important. Those who are motivated by profit just might not do what is best for children.
“How can you justify that which is unjust? How can you validate that which is invalid?”
One can’t, which is why I don’t understand using standardized test comparisons as Diane and many others here do to justify policies and practices which are inherently invalid, i.e., educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading” of students and by extension teachers and schools. These educational malpractices cause untold harm to many of the most innocent, the children/students.
Noel Wilson has proven the invalidity and the unjust nature of those malpractices in which some receive awards or sanctions depending upon a standardized test score in his seminal work “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Join the Quixotic Quest to rid the world of these illogical, invalid and unjust educational malpractices that are educational standards, standardized testing and the grading of students.
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
quoting sam: ” the only chance we have of developing a system of schools worthy of our children is if we step out of our righteous certainty and lean into our empathetic openness. And the only way we’ll do that is if we’re willing to talk through our deepest differences respectfully, openly, and with urgent patience.”
I’m sorry but we got “burned” with NCLB. All of Kennedy’s staff members were working in cooperation and “openness” and “empathy” but teachers got the shaft . The naive optimism of 100% perfection in reading, math etc. should have been talked through with those of us who know classrooms and students. The insane concerns with tests was obvious from the beginning of NCLB. When we attempted compromise on a bipartisan program like NCLB our teacher unions were called “terrorists” and Bush’s platform people said to “bomb the teachers colleges.” I cannot respond with empathy to that agenda and it is being continued today by Chester Finn who says we are “marriage wreckers” when we disagree on programmatic goals and implementation of flawed mechanisms . When they say the are believers in Schumpeter’s “shock” of destruction, then I cannot be respectful. When teachers are treated as the lowliest of humanity I cannot be respectful. All of the “reading wars” and “math wars” have been re-ignited in Duncan’s foolishness, arrogance, smugness and certainty that he is right and not listening to anyone who has professional expertise because they are inferior to his “mandarins” who obtained experience in business management or something. I’m sorry I just won’t be quiet any more.
Just last night I finally got around to watching “Bully” (the Bully Project documentary, not that weird movie where the kids kill the bully). Chaltain reminds me of a scene from the movie where Principal Clueless has caught two kids having some sort of “altercation”. She tells them to shake hands and one kid immediately agrees and puts out his hand. The other kid starts to stomp off in a huff. We soon learn that the “good” kid is a bully who has been following and tormenting the “bad” kid (Cole) every day. But Principal Clueless points out that he’s apologizing and offering his hand, so if Cole doesn’t take his hand and make up, then he’s just as bad. She can’t figure out why Cole won’t take his hand – after all, they could be such good friends. I watched that scene (and nearly every other scene with that principal) with my chin on the floor. Surely no one is dumb enough to think there’s any kind of equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim, right? Sigh.
Anyway, the same applies here. If the rheephormers want to find common ground, the ball is in their court. They’re the ones who have the power to stop what they’re doing, invite teachers, parents and students to the table and have an honest and meaningful dialogue (or, really, many dialogues) about the best way to move forward. Until they make a genuine step in that direction, it’s not up to us to find common ground, it’s up to us to try to hold what little ground we have left.
“They’re the ones who have the power to stop what they’re doing, invite teachers, parents and students to the table and have an honest and meaningful dialogue (or, really, many dialogues) about the best way to move forward.”
That just about sums it up. Well said, Dienne!
Dienne, you always say it so well! Your last paragraph is imminently quotable. One suggestion, however, if I might?
All of us need to stop using Rhee’s name in terms of the “reform movement.” We’re giving attention to someone whose time has come to be, well, ignored. She’s most likely very proud to be called a “rheephormer” (have an entire movement in her name–imagine that!) when, actually, it was ALEC that started all of this–she’s merely a poster child, a front.
Let’s refer to her–if we must (& I admit that I did in an earlier comment)–as The Woman Whose Name Must Not Be Mentioned–or–easier!–twwnmnbm)
We could just call her Voldemort.
You’re my hero! I’m going to use your new book as a book study in my school’s PLC. (Professional learning Cult). They usually pick fluff books that toe the party line. I got your book pre-ordered on Amazon. It’s even being shipped to my school.
“Professional learning Cult”.
Yep, pretty much sums up the PLC process. You are actually discussing books? Wow, those administrators need to get their act together to make sure that the PLC process is used for what it should be-Raising Test Scores and implementing CCSS.
I call it being PLC’d on. At least urine has a valid biological function in contrast to PLC.
I do not see how common ground is possible with people like ALEC, Michelle Rhee, Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, etc. I have a very different perspective of the book, which you can read in this review which I just posted at Daily Kos.
I think there is much to be learned by all in the search for common ground. In the arena of student choice, foe example, almost every regular poster here would agree that it is laudable for high school students and their families to choose some of their classes inside a traditional zoned public school. Few regular posters here would be in favor of allowing a student and family to choose a school independently from choosing a residential location for a primary school student. Somewhere between those to points, the common ground about student choice disappears. It would be useful for all to find the edges of that common ground and the reasons for its disappearance.
The “edges” of that common ground, as you simplistically put it, don’t exist. The Corporate Reformers want to DESTROY the concept of the school district’s responsibility for providing a good public school for every child in every neighborhood, a concept that is the cornerstone of American democracy and the American dream. We public school boosters do NOT oppose “choice.” You make a straw man argument when you say that we want every child to be forced to attend their “failing” neighborhood school. A specious canard.
BTW, I assume you are an economist. IMHO, the improper use of “metrics” so valued by economists has contributed mightily to the false and destructive notion that educational quality can be measured by the type of “data” you espouse. In countries with a high quality education, both the populace and the elite accept the judgment of professionals — teachers and administrators — as the determinators of excellence. In fact, most Americans think their public schools are doing a good job. Only in America, as they say, do we find the elites improperly using the “dismal science” as a substitute for professional judgment.
I am interested in finding the edges of the common ground about students choosing classes. Why is choice of classes in a school good, but choice of schools bad? Is there an exception for private schools and if so, why? Is there an exception for magnet schools, and if so, why? Does age of the student matter? There are many avenues that need to be explored.
Straw man alert! NO ONE is saying choice of schools is BAD. Let me spell that out for you — SCHOOL CHOICE IS GOOD IF EVERY CHILD HAS AS A CHOICE ATTENDING A GOOD PUBLIC SCHOOL IN HIS OWN NEIGHBORHOOD.
Also, since you’re an economist, you’ll appreciate this — one of the essential pre-conditions for a free market to work is the availability of “perfect information,” meaning, that to make a meaningful choice, everyone must have accurate information about the choices. The Corporate Reform movement distorts information, thereby invalidating the ability of the free market (choice) to work. Wouldn’t you agree that placing a finger on the scale distorts the free market? Isn’t this what Milton Friedman told us?
Is choice equally good if students choose not to attend their neighborhood school? Does it matter if the school they attend is a private school, a charter school, or a public school? Does it matter who pays for it? It may be that you are one of the few here that think charter schools should be available to students. If so, we are in agreement.
I often teach about the problems of asymmetric information, but the arguments put forward here against allowing students to choose a school are seldom based on that premise.
TE,
“Does it matter if the school they attend is a private school, a charter school, or a public school? Does it matter who pays for it?”
No, to the first one, yes to the second. Parents can pay to send their kids to private schools and that is constitutionally permisable-see Pierce vs Sisters of Society Supreme Court decision. But it cannot be the states responsibility to fund religious sects (which we unfortunately do with our taxing policies as these religious organizations pay no taxes. Why should one class of citizens get such special treatment?)
And there is a nasty little constitutional issue of the states responsibility to provide for a free and appropriate education. Now, can or should the state be in the business of paying a private entity or religious sect to provide that free and appropriate education? No, let the “vaunted free market” determine whether said entity will survive or not. But our society cannot afford to allow the vagaries of the “vaunted free market” to determine if a community will even have a school. The vast majority of small businesses come and go rather quickly and having such instability in public education is untenable and unwise.
I think the way choice is being sold will inevitably lead to problems. It’s already happening in Ohio.
Parents were sold “choice”. But what happens when a “choice” charter school is closed due to poor scores? After all, parents chose the school, and they continue to choose low-performing charters in Ohio. All of our cybercharters are low performing. Yet, parents choose them.
What happens when one of the publicly-funded “choices” is a poorly-performing Catholic school-which will now be true in my district, with the expansion of vouchers?
Parents choose the private school. Now it’s publicly-funded. Presumably they’re choosing the Catholic school based on something other than test scores. But why should poorly performing public schools be closed, and poorly performing private schools that are publicly-funded remain open? What if I choose a poorly-performing public school for reasons other than the test scores?
This isn’t a problem for conservative reformers. Their position is logically consistent. Choice is an end in itself. But moderate reformers have another end in mind, and it’s “excellence” or “great” schools. But that isn’t what parents in Ohio were sold. They were sold “choice”, full stop.
Yes, it’s all about the money.
I think it might be more useful to take small steps in the discussion. Is it permissible for a student in a public school to take one or more classes outside of the school for credit in the school? Does it matter who pays for it? Does it matter who teaches it? How many classes? Who decides?
I call them “mandarins”; I won’t ennoble them with “entrepreneurs”.
quote: “Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Inside Job,” filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, “Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.” Ferguson explores why no top financial executives have been jailed for their role in the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression….. Larry Summers and the revolving door between academia and Wall Street, as well as the key role Democrats have played in deregulating the financial industry. According to Ferguson, a “predatory elite” has “taken over significant portions of economic policy and of the political system.”
I guess I am so far to the extreme on this i am willing to call them “predatory elite” and there is a lot of smugness, arrogance and mean-spirited verbal and aggressive behavior towards teachers in particular.
Hey Diane, I’m glad you provided a link to my review, and I hope people who read this entry will read that one as well, because the core issue here is getting distorted a bit. As you know, and as anyone else who knows and reads my work knows, I’m not suggesting finding common cause with ALEC, or supporting VAM, or for-profit schools. What I am suggesting is that, in addition to the ALECs and the for-profit CMOs of the world, there are a lot of other folks — folks who are important to the larger cause of reimagining public education for a changing world — who get lumped into overly broad descriptions of corporate reform. In our Twitter exchange I cited a few — Playworks’ Jill Vialet, Roots of Empathy’s Mary Gordon, and most of the folks running charter schools here in DC, from the folks at Center for Inspired Teaching to the founders of Mundo Verde. My point is THESE ARE OUR ALLIES, and because I know these people, I know they have started to tune the most strident anti-privatization arguments out. As I tried to make clear in my review, your new book is a must-read because of the ways you expose some of the most specious actors in K-12 today. But as long as those of us who are seeking to fight powerful forces with bad intentions cast overly broad aspersions, we lose the chance to make those folks aware of the most alarming finds of your research. I know we’re going to disagree on this, but we should at least be clear about what it is we’re disagreeing about. ALEC and VAM have nothing to do with it.
Name one corporate reformer who sends their child to a charter school. Reformers are not allies. ALEC, DFER, VAM, certain legislators, chiefs for change and their cheerleaders have EVERYTHING to do with it.
DFER, Duncan, Obama, Murdoch, Klein, Coleman, Gates, Pearson, and other insiders are not friends of public education. These groups and individuals seek federal and state tax funded contracts provided on a platter by Duncan, Pearson’s lobbyists, and Jeb’s chiefs for change. It’s call corporate welfare.
Kool-Aid drinking: “But as long as those of us who are seeking to fight powerful forces with bad intentions cast overly broad aspersions, we lose the chance to make those folks aware of the most alarming finds of your research.”
One of the most reviled “reformers”, Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz, sends her two youngest children to her a school in her network.
On the flip side of this equation, I’ll remind you that there are hundreds of thousands of traditional zoned district teachers and administrators who very pointedly and purposefully do not send their own children to the schools/districts in which they work.
No matter the stated intentions of some charter school operators, or even the good work they may perform in their buildings, they are not the allies of public education.
Charter schools are private entities receiving public money, plain and simple, and every public dollar given to a charter school is a dollar diverted from public education.
Until charter school teachers and administrators recognize that, from a structural and institutional standpoint, charters are a vehicle for privatizing a public resource, they will be seen as naifs at best, disingenuous at worst.
So, it is incumbent on you ( and, I suppose, by extension , our entire movement ) to find “common ground” with those who have all the power and money behind them and who have repeatedly ignored us?
Now why is that?
Here’s the comment I wrote on Mr. Chaltain’s blog”
“While I do not always agree with everything that Diane Ravitch writes, I respect her immensely for having the courage to speak out. In fact, it is her forceful tone speaking truth in the face of unimaginable power, wealth, and influence that I respect most of all.
Mr, Chaltain, you seem to wish for a “neutral historian” perspective from Ms. Ravitch instead of the powerful activist she has become. In today’s educational landscape, there is no room for neutrality. Being “neutral” in the face of oppression and injustice is to side with the oppressors. The facts are that the neoliberal education reforms being foisted on our schools are having real and damaging impact on students, teachers, schools, and communities. I work at a psychiatric hospital where I see the damage daily. There can be no compromise when our neediest children are being hurt. http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/2012/12/make-no-mistake-corporate-ed-reform-is.html
I seem to remember that you are originally from the Chicago area. I invite you to return to your hometown and see the impact of education reform play out in our schools and on our streets–as parents, students, teachers, and communities gather by the 10s of thousands to stop these reforms. Stand with us with strong purpose instead of pretending to live in the grey neutrality of “let’s all get along.””
I would think that the fundamental point were Ravitch is correct is where she see the reform effort as being almost entirely about closing schools rather than reforming them. So, we have tests, whose primary purpose is to figure out who to fire and what schools to close. Perhaps the reform movement is helpful in some far off Podunk, but in big cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, it is about firing people and closing schools.
That’s exactly what it’s about, Jerry. Melinda Gates: “Our school system is completely broken.” This is the notion that the deformers started with. It’s their central article of faith. If you think that our schools are “completely broken,” then, yes, you will want to close them and start all over with something else, especially when you have all the answers about what that something else should be.
I’m reading Evgeny Morozov’s “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism”. He talks about Silicon Valley’s compulsive discovery of “solutions” to “problems” it assumes exist (often with no evidence). The “solutions” ignore the complexity of the human situation that surrounds the “problem” and end up causing more harm than good. Does this sound like ed reform to you?
teachingeconomist
September 15, 2013 at 6:52 pm
I think it might be more useful to take small steps in the discussion.
I think reformers have blown right past “small steps” right to giant leaps in my state, which is why to me it wouldn’t be a useful discussion.
Ohio has gone all-in on “choice”, and “choice” is now completely disassociated from “great schools” (the reformer metric of a great school, which is high test scores).
Parents in Ohio in my rural middle class district may (now) choose very low performing cybercharter, a low performing Catholic school, or the local public school, which beats both “options” by the reformers own measurement, which is test scores. All of these schools are publicly funded.
Now what? They accomplished “choice”. What they didn’t do is improve either our public schools or the schools that are now publicly-funded.
I would have loved to take “small steps”, teaching economist. I wasn’t given that option in Ohio. At this point, “small steps” in this state would mean a massive roll-back of reforms that are in place.
The discussion need not keep time with changes in Ohio or changes in any other state. It is useful as a way to discover both areas of agreement and disagreement, strengths and weaknesses in each others arguments.
I agree
Diane,
Don’t you think you have not been able to find common ground with these folks because you come from a different place in terms of how you have been informed about a better education alternative to choice, standardization and VAM? So when you paint the scene, you are informed by your senses (or the memory of sensory engagement), empathy, hope and belief in an ideal that guides a positive outlook and therefore a positive energy towards achieving a certain outcome (the public’s schools, which welcome every child and seek to meet them where they are and bring them to a reasonable place upon which they can build as future opportunities, those beyond K-12 like trade school or college or military service, parenthood and other honest work, present themselves).
I am surrounded by those who would prefer a less direct accounting of what your blog enables, but I am very glad you present things they way you do. A true visionary does not waver because others cannot see what they see (good, bad or indifferent). You are not a diplomat; you are a leader, and there is a difference. It is hard to find them these days. I appreciate you and your blog a great deal.
I struggle with what I see going on in education around me. I find community in your blog, and information. But mostly I find leadership from you and that is worth so, so much to me. So thank you for not being able to find common ground on wanting to knock down the public’s schools–a cornerstone of democracy. The only way for someone who has never smelled a rose to know how truly wonderful it is, someone who cannot or has not ever found a rose to smell, is for the one who knows to tell them; and that is what you do. Anti-public school activists only know thorns. Unless someone tells them about the rose, they won’t even know it is there. Thorns hurt. But that does not mean the rose bush should be cut down.
I took a horticulture class once and learned that “a rose is a rose is a pain in the neck.” Education can be like that. Thank you for knowing what a rose is and for not wanting to see the bush chopped down.
“Sam Chaltain
September 15, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Hey Diane, I’m glad you provided a link to my review, and I hope people who read this entry will read that one as well, because the core issue here is getting distorted a bit. As you know, and as anyone else who knows and reads my work knows, I’m not suggesting finding common cause with ALEC, or supporting VAM, or for-profit schools.”
But why haven’t they done anything about it? They’ve known for a decade that for-profit charters were swamping OH and FL and MI. Surely they know that the largest public school district in Ohio is now a low performing, for-profit cybercharter.
Who is responsible for this, if not reformers? Does it matter if they were well-intentioned? Don’t they have a duty to fix this? Surely it isn’t the job of public schools or public school advocates to fix it.
The governor of Pennsylvania said yesterday that his state needs cybercharter “reform”. For goodness sakes. They didn’t anticipate that deregulated publicly-funded entities spread all over the state would be difficult to manage? Now what does he do? Hire more regulators? Does that money come out of public school funding?
Dr. Ravitch,
I think the big problem is that we don’t live in a democracy. This isn’t just an issue around education. Would be easy to find common ground. . . well if we all were on equal ground.
I’m reading Dr. Jim Wallis’ book titled “On God’s Side.”
Here are some quotes that fit so well with this whole issue and why I don’t think there is common ground.
“It’s time we stated the obvious truth: the last remaining obstacle to democracy is the dominant power of rich people, their money, and their institutions over the political process, a power that absolutely corrupts democracy.” Jim Wallis
“Smith said capitalism can’t function properly without a moral framework. Another proponent of capitalism, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, agreed and said that without ethics, the market ends up devouring everything else and , finally, even itself.” Jim Wallis
“It takes the power of movements to change politics. Change never starts in Washington or in our legislatures or houses of government; it almost always begins outside of politics. If public momentum can be built among millions of people, change eventually arrives in the nation’s capital.” Jim Wallis
So Dr. Ravitch, Thank you for helping lead the movement!!
Joanna Best & Chiara: good comments.
I am glad to see that Sam Chaltain posted a comment on this thread. My estimation of him just went up for doing what almost every self-styled “education reformer” won’t do: engaging in transparently open discussion and/or debate with this blog’s viewers and posters. **To avoid misunderstanding: I do not pretend to know exactly where he stands in the ed debates. He can make that clearer if he likes.**
However, I have one suggestion for him: pretend to be someone else for a few moments [if possible] and read his own review. Then reflect, deeply and thoughtfully, on what Diane Ravitch’s blog and REIGN OF ERROR would be like if she followed his advice to not offend the ideological sensibilities of the leading charterites/privatizers.
Her only fault is provoking the ire of those who are taken aback by her transparently honest and ethical use of evidence [i.e., data relevant to the topic under discussion]. Don’t like what she says? Show the flaws in the way she uses evidence or where she leaves out something relevant and important. It is a sad commentary on the state of contemporary commentary that her measured and respectful tone is made the centerpiece of [mis]analysis of her views—and by extension, of many many others.
Let me offer a contrarian view. When a fine administrator [you have no idea how much of a stretch this is for me] like Irma Cobian is robbed of her dignity and reputation by Ben Austin and [the group formerly known as] Parent Revolution, and the owner of this blog is smeared for expressing her heartfelt dismay at such ill-treatment—
The very notion of proper tone is turned upside down. And transformed into an appeal to ‘go along to get along’ with the education establishment.
It is not easy speaking unpleasant [lower case] truths to thin-skinned multibillionaires and their hosts of eduminions. No one relishes being attacked but not everyone is out for $tudent $ucce$$:
“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” [Jim Hightower]
The obvious explanation is the simplest one: Diane Ravitch really does believe in a “better education for all.”
And I don’t think she plans on taking that phrase out of the subtitle of her blog.
You can count on it.
🙂
Without distracting from attention to this book, I wanted to mention that Prof Kevin Welner of Colorado University, often cited here, and his family had to be evacuated from the Boulder Colorado area because of the flood. For those interested in helping, here is an facebook message I just received:
Kevin Welner (friends with Alex Medler) also commented on Alex Medler’s link.
Kevin wrote: “Thanks Van and Joe. The Red Cross is always a good place to contribute. The United Way has also set up a fund specifically for the Foothill communities like Jamestown: https://www.unitedwayfoothills.org/floodrelief. I must say also that FEMA and the Nat’l Guard (our tax dollars) have been great — as well as so many volunteers.”