John Thompson, historian and teacher, devoted several articles to reviewing “Reign of Error” with care.
Then he read Mike Petrilli’s critique, in which he accuses me of being “a double agent,” having learned the secrets of the rightwing, and turning their research against them.
Thompson did what a good historian typically does: He followed the evidence.
“Another way of putting Petrilli’s criticism is that Ravitch has studied both sides of the evidence. I wondered if the same could be said for him. So, I followed his links and allusions to “research.”
Again and again, he found that Petrilli was quoting himself or Russ Whitehurst (who headed George W. Bush’s research unit at the U.S. Department of Education).
After offering source-free criticism of Ravitch’s proposals for cutting class size, Petrilli links to an expert on socio-economic desegregation to attack her recommendation that we “devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.”
Petrilli’s source, once again, was Mike Petrilli.
Thomas writes:
Most of Petrilli’s fact-related arguments against Ravitch are aimed at her “solutions” (which he puts in quotes.) They include good prenatal care for all pregnant woman, high-quality early-childhood education available to all children, and medical and social services to the poor.
Petrilli wrote that “evaluations of newer, large-scale programs (like those in New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Texas) suffer from “selection-bias” problems.” Again, why does that sound familiar?
Sure enough, Petrilli’s sources for challenging the effectiveness of early education programs in New Jersey, and Texas and Oklahoma, seem to be Russ Whitehurst and Russ Whitehurst. His other source for challenging early education and wraparound services was – you guessed it – Russ Whitehurst.
Russ Whitehurst is a solid scholar. Also, Petrilli and his colleagues are busy traveling around the country promoting their agenda. But, surely, they could find time to read other perspectives.
When rightwingers quote only themselves, it shows a certain narrow-gauged approach to issues. As Thompson points out, there are other highly credible studies of early childhood education and wraparound services than those conducted by Russ Whitehurst (who, coincidentally, fired me from my unpaid senior fellowship at the Brookings Institution in the midst of the presidential campaign of 2012, on the same day that I took apart Romney’s education agenda, whom Whitehurst was advising).
Thompson concludes:
I’d be glad to meet in the center with Petrilli, and I would propose a modest first step. Could we not agree to read research on both sides of educational issues? Petrilli could be free to continue to criticize Ravitch for knowing too much about the conservatives’ logic and evidence. He could continue to demonstrate his solidarity with the anti-science wing school of reform. Petrilli should follow Ravitch’s footnotes and links to the social science research, however, and then ask whether her historical perspective makes sense when viewed through the prism of actual evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What right-wing research?
This is a really good job of exposing how thin Petrilli’s screen of concocted “evidence” is. Well done, John Thompson!
Here’s the link to the original post, on Schools Matter.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/10/the-facts-about-diane-ravitchs-so.html
Petrilli thought no one would find out just how pathetic the case was that he was failing to make? And he still will get a paycheck and keep his job for plagiarizing HIMSELF without acknowledging the source? I guess “no excuses” and “accountability” are for other people, not reformers and their sycophant shills. Hold those reformy stocks till they tank Mike, never sell them!
The reform agenda was created inside an echo chamber. A few breathtakingly principled scholars like Professor Ravitch persisted in paying attention to what was happening outside the echo chamber, in schools, to kids.
I, too, once believed that our schools were failures, that we needed national standards, and that privatization was a cure for what was ailing our schools. I, too, was convinced by the evidence that I had been wrong–terribly, terribly wrong–on these critical issues. So, I understand, well, the journey that Dr. Ravitch has taken.
In Dr. Ravitch’s case, the very public stance that she took in opposition to highly placed, influential former friends and colleagues in the “reform” movement was extraordinarily courageous. She risked public shaming by influential people–being called a flip-flopper and waffler. She risked the loss of friendships. She risked the ire of people with enormous power, of people with the power to hurt her reputation and career. But she did the right thing. She did what her conscience told her that she had to do. She didn’t hesitate to speak truth to all that power because she is a person of profound integrity.
I can think of one similar recent event. Richard A. Muller, physicist and author of Physics for Presidents, was one of the few climate change deniers with impeccable scientific credentials relevant to climate study. He was hired by the Koch brothers to do a metastudy of the existing evidence on anthropogenic climate change, with the expectation, of course, that he would render a negative verdict, and at the conclusion of his study, he, too, did the principled thing: he wrote a very public statement, published in the New York Times, saying that he had been wrong, that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change was overwhelming and could not credibly be disputed.
This sort of thing is quite rare. Imagine B.F. Skinner writing a retraction of his book Verbal Behavior after reading Chomsky’s devastating critique of stimulus-response models for language acquisition. That wasn’t going to happen because Skinner was more ideologue than scientist. He was our Lysenko.
A few years ago, the Dalai Lama wrote a book in which he said, where science and Buddhism conflict, Buddhism must yield and learn and grow. That’s moral leadership. It’s the sort of leadership that we see from a few courageous individuals like Dr. Ravitch and Dr. Muller. Like Socrates in the Phaedrus dialogue, they weren’t afraid to admit that they were wrong.
His name escapes me, but a prominent psychiatrist who was influential in getting homosexuality designated as a mental disorder on the first DSM in 1952 recently issued a huge “mea culpa.”
What about the entrenched practice of right wing economists and “educational economists” (forsooth) of habitually avoiding peer review by publishing their “research” (i.e., ideological press releases) in the form of “working papers.”
Or, when economists do publish in peer reviewed journals, it’s typically in economy journals, not education journals, as Hanushek has done.
I have a problem with the term “educational economists” because such economists have not typically studied and earned degrees in education or taught in P-12 classrooms.
Really interesting background on Eli Broad and the California “dark money” campaign finance illegality:
“Well-known corporate chiefs funded illegal “dark money” contributions to groups in the Koch brothers’ political network that were involved in Thursday’s record campaign finance settlement in California, according to settlement documents.
Those documents also show that Charles Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab Corp., donated $6.4 million through Americans for Job Security.
Philanthropist Eli Broad, who publicly backed Brown’s tax increase proposition, made a $500,000 contribution, according to the documents.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave a combined $500,000. Crossroads GPS, the dark money nonprofit founded by Karl Rove, chipped in $2 million.”
So Eli Broad PUBLICLY backed the tax increase while secretly donating half a million dollars to defeat it.
I’ll keep that it mind when Mr. Broad makes public statements on how he isn’t working towards privatizing public schools. Apparently what he says and what he actually supports are two entirely different things.
“The money went toward defeating Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase, Proposition 30, and supporting the anti-union Proposition 32, according to the documents,”
So Broad’s lying about not wanting to destroy unions, too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/gap-california-dark-money_n_4159516.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email+Notifications
LET’S ALL READ REIGN!
I hope that everyone is following the advice Karen Lewis offered to Sunday’s general session of the IFT convention, viz., that thousands of teachers are (a) buying and (b) organizing study groups about “Reign of Error.”
That’s what we are doing via CORE in Chicago. If you are in Chicago and want to join one, I’m meeting with a bunch of teachers to read and discuss “Reign of Error” second Tuesday of every month at the Richard M. Daley library, 733 N. Nedzie beginning at four and ending at seven. Our next session is Tuesday November 12. Sadly, we can only get together once a month on this work because Rahm Emanuel’s Longest School Day (Talking Point Year One) coupled with the chaos caused by Rahm Emanuel’s Largest In History School Closings (Talking Point Year Two) has most of us exhausted a lot of the time. Those whose aim is the destruction of public schools have an agenda, and as long as they have the power and personnel to implement it, their monstrosities will continue.
We have the facts, history, and a growing cadre of organizers on our side.
We may also add to our reading fun by bringing one or two samples from “The Other Side” to each session. The fulminations of the Petrillis (and many others) against “Reign of Error” are typical of the screaming excommunication edicts from true believers when anyone goes out of their every narrowing circle of believers. Anyone who enjoyed the study of classical logic way back when can review all of the fallacies just by reading the fulminators. Thanks for this latest fun reading.
George Schmidt: good suggestions.
“Example is leadership.” [Albert Schweitzer]
Thanks to y’all for setting a good example.
I like that suggestion. The Charter Schools/Testing Down to Kindergarten trend is still in its infancy in this country (New Zealand), and is already meeting strong opposition, but in my experience the United States today = New Zealand in five or six years. Forewarned is forearmed.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2013/10/newark_needs_next_mayor_to_bac.html?utm_content=bufferf52fc&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
Another charter supporter who forgets to mention the effects of ed reform on existing public schools.
Do public schools even register at all with these folks? It’s all charters, all the time.
100% of our policy is driven by 10% of schools. Public schools are an afterthought, if they’re mentioned at all.
This is what “agnostic” means, in practice. Does Newark NJ have an advocate for public schools, in government in or in one of these quasi-governmental private entities?
While the Common Core stresses citing evidence, we are pretty sure that citing your own opinions as such does not qualify.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this point, but isn’t “When rightwingers quote only themselves” a synonym for “always”?
Here’s a parody of New York State Ed.
Commissioner’s pushing of excessive
high stakes testing and the dubious
and unproven Common Core
standards:
This video never gets old!