Following State Commissioner John King’s “listening tour” and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s insulting remarks about “white suburban moms,” Long Island Superintendent Joseph Rella wrote the following letter to Duncan:
“Who You Callin’ a White Suburban Mother???
The Commissioner’s “Listening Tour,” launched after open, public meetings did not produce the results he desired, was replaced by “Open-Public-Meetings – By-Invitation Only” (not only oxymoronic but just plain moronic). Far from quelling the tide of criticism against the Common Core Initiative – standards, curriculum, testing/APPR, etc. and its horrible effects on children, educators, and families, it has fanned the flames of outrage.
This was accomplished in no small part by the Commissioner’s purposeful deafness to what he was hearing from anyone selected to speak and from the audience (select or walk-ins). So now we have the “Open-Public-Meetings – By-Invitation Only – NON-LISTENING TOUR.” Not working out so well.
In an effort to rescue the rapidly sinking ship that is the NY Common Core Initiative, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, (as reported in the Washington Post – November 16, 2013) told an audience of state superintendents this afternoon [11/16/13] that the Education Department and other Common Core supporters didn’t fully anticipate the effect the standards would have once implemented.
“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”
Overcoming that will require communicating to parents that competition is now global, not local, he said.
Did he really say that? Was I in Toronto listening to Mayor Ford? White suburban moms? Really??? In 2013??? Competition is global, not local – so parent concerns about what’s happening to their children do not matter? Did he and Commissioner King go to the same Charter Charm School???
Although I found Governor Cuomo’s comment about failing schools reprehensible, I think that THAT Charm School would definitely qualify for the death penalty!
I had to write to him. It will go out tomorrow as soon as I get to district office…don’t have letterhead at home.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Arne Duncan…the Bernie Madoff of public Education.
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Don’t give Duncan that much credit. Madoff at least was intelligent (albeit evil intelligence).. Duncan cannot even claim intelligence in his supposed field (education) misdirected or otherwise. He is just dumb about education issues.. plain and simple. As to his overall intelligence… if he had emotional intelligence he would have resigned long ago .
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He has a sociology degree and claims his Magna Cum Laude was real, though mine in education was to easy? Higher standards do not automatically create better learning. If that was the case, everyone would be enrolling their 8th grader in college! We never did any research to find the problem, we just proposed higher standards :ready, fire, aim.
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I don’t think Duncan has a clue. He should have never been appointed Secretary of Education.
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In the basketballcentric Obama administration, Dennis Rodman for Secretary of State would be a better choice than Duncan for education.
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@TC.. I disagree as Rodman is a loose cannon… the corporate world wants a puppet! But that being said, how about the basketball team mascots!
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We should ALL be writing letters to Mr. Duncan — thank you letters for his making such an egregious public gaffe. The more rudely he treats parents, the more likely they will be to oppose the horrid policies he enacts at the command of his corporate masters.
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I would not waste my time as he would not listen anyway….but..
I will keep signing any petition to have him fired..
GO DUNCAN… and I mean…OUT THE DOOR..
You have wasted our time and have produced the most Chaotic Deform in the History of Education!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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On the other hand, remember when you thought that ANYONE else would HAVE to be better than the Bush administration? And look what we got.
We’re thinking that again — ANYONE would HAVE to be better than Obama/Duncan.
It’s chilling when you think about it. Who is next? It’s POSSIBLE that we might end up wishing for the “good old days” of Obama/Duncan.
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I’d have to kill myself before wishing for that!!
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Sadly, not listerning to the public has become the hallmark of this administration as we see with no indictments of banksters, no real banking regulations such as reinstituting Glass Steagal, Obamacare with so many flaws. so it is no surprise that Arne is an overbearing bully. so are Immelt, Rubin, Summers, et al. What a disappointment for the huge group who fought to have Obama elected.
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+1
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On the one hand I am ashamed to have voted for the man the first time around (he didn’t fool me twice), but on the other what were the alternatives? McCain (or Romney), or throwing my vote away on a third party rainbow unicorn?
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If enough people would realize that neither of our political party is actually meeting their needs, that rainbow unicorn might start becoming a little more real. Or, at the very least, the Democrats will start to realize that they really will have to listen to their constituents if they don’t want the party split.
As far as McCain or Romney being an alternative, no, neither of them would have been a better president, but it’s just maybe possible that we would have been better citizens. I think Obama has been allowed to get away with much more than Bush could have simply because, as a Democrat, he’s “our guy”.
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Interesting last point, Dienne.
But he never was “my guy”
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@woof thomsen.. you state, “Sadly, not listerning to the public has become the hallmark of this administration ..” Sadly, I would change this to, ” Sadly, not listening to the public has become the hallmark OF BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN POLITICS.” Politics is bought by corporations and the checks and balances of democracy is totally out of whack.
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However, now that we know where this adminisration stands, and with ALEC as their public overseer, it is time to direct our energy to the next elections…to find local school board candidates who will fight for public schools, and certainly and national leader who is not motivated by the big money…my choice is Elizabeth Warren.
We are past time to spend endless angst on insults of churls…we must stay focused on the end game.
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That is a good point.
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Yes! Elizabeth Warren is viable.
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Woof Thomsen.. YES YES AND YES to focusing on the next elections and to those candidates representing the people over big money interests of the corporations.
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I don’t “get” the reference to globalization – even if it’s true that “the earth is flat” again because of technology enabling more tele-jobs, does that somehow remove that students are not in fact this moment competing for those jobs – and that this whole exercise in education is more than “he who can earn the most money wins”. We generate a society, not just workers.
How does putting this added stress on them and more time removed from learning make them better learners? Better people? Does growing up with a highly stressful childhood “toughen them up”?
Is there any proof backing up that more frequent benchmarking of student skills actually resulting in course corrections that improve student learning in a way that’s more meaningful than the assessments teachers have been creating for more than a century?
How is it, that so long as you say “21st century skills” and reference a “global marketplace” and that it’s done “for the students” or with “students first”, that anything that comes after is justified?
He also directly referenced punching parents in the gut (with the ‘truth’), and then telling them that preparing their children for a global world is why they should be willing to accept what he’s selling and move on – which is also an indirect way of saying “we’re doing it for their own good”.
What if parents don’t agree that Arnie knows best? That he’s not such the master of child growth or even anticipating the need for “21st century skills” (which by the way, we’re almost 14 years into this century – what gives? – how long before what we’re doing IS 21st century) that we should all trust his way over our parental understanding of our children.
I’m going to start a competing brand that competes for 20th century skills – like thinking for yourself and helping those less fortunate than yourself for no gain, and proper socialization skills.
I’ll market it to the public, receive public input, and sell them to schools suffering from Common Core fatigue. If there’s so much money in the CCSS – imagine how much there will be in the eventual cure when they’ve been determined to stop working!
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To respond to your questions in order:
No
No
No
No
It isn’t justified
He needs to go
Bovine excrement is what gives
It already is
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Yeah the global economy just seems to be a catch phrase meant to scare, inspire, impress or whatever it is they think people respond to. It makes life seem tenuous. I don’t like it.
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Did the Secretary of Education, touting the need to adopt a “global perspective,” really single out “while suburban mothers” as the group who have “bet their house and where they live” on the quality of their neighborhood’s schools? Ironic, since this is a concern for ALL parents, including him.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/01/duncan_sending_kids_to_public.html
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Self satisfied hedge fund manager, Tilson, weighs in.
wtilson@kasecapital.com
Hope Diane replies to his rude and biased allegations.
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Sorry…here is the complete text of the Tilson email.
——————————————————————————–
From: wtilson@kasecapital.com
Sent: 11/19/2013 11:41:18 A.M. Pacific Standard Time
Subj: White suburban moms; Kudos to Diane Ravitch for Owning Up to Her Mistakes; De Blasio test; Obama vs. Black Kids; Michelle Obama’s sch choice; Eva M wins Robin Hood award; Long-Term Benefits of Music Lessons; appeals; Yale Ed Biz Plan Compet; job
1) What a tempest in a teapot. Arne Duncan said recently about criticism of the Common Core:
“Some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who – all of a sudden – their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary.”
Duncan clarifies in a new ED.gov blog that his “aim was to say that we need to communicate better to all groups – especially those that haven’t been well reached in this conversation (about Common Core). I want to encourage a difficult conversation and challenge the underlying assumption that when we talk about the need to improve our nation’s schools, we are talking only about poor minority students in inner cities.”
This reminds me of the time that Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to the New Orleans school system – while perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, it’s also true.
As I’ve said many times before, I’m not sure which is a bigger crisis in our educational system: the utter failure of the bottom 10-20% of our public schools, or the low bar and widespread mediocrity affecting the middle 60% of schools. These schools appear, superficially, to be good: there’s no violence, everybody is happy, etc. – but most kids aren’t being prepared to do four-year-college-level work, much less be on track to successfully compete in the real world. But nobody – not the students, their parents, or even usually the educators – knows this because the curriculum, standards and tests are dumbed down to the point where everybody thinks almost all of the students are doing just great.
This reminds me of a story my 12th grade daughter told me this weekend. We were all at a bar mitzvah and at dinner she met a young woman in her 20s who, upon hearing that my daughter was going to college next year, exclaimed, “Oh, in college you actually have to do the reading.” (We later learned that she went to a good public school, graduated from college and is now in grad school, so I’m sure she’s easily in the top half of U.S. students.) My daughter said she almost burst out laughing – “I’ve been doing my reading since kindergarten!” – but it further underscored for her how different her education has been relative to the norm in the U.S. – and how lucky she’s been.
But heaven forbid anyone raise the bar and tell the truth – then the general population (that’s what Duncan meant when he said “white suburban moms”), which has been lied to all of these years, experiences real shock.
This is what I wrote three months ago when NYS released the latest test scores:
STOP THE PRESSES!!! What happened in NY state yesterday with the release of the new, much lower state test scores was an EARTHQUAKE that will have a huge long-term impact, both in NYS and nationally. Whether that impact is positive or negative is open to debate, but I think it will be HUGELY positive in the long run because, as I’ve said many times before, my observation is that big systems are like little children: they will live up (or live down) to whatever expectations you set for them.
When one of the largest and most widely watched states takes the bold and courageous step of reversing a long trend (that nearly every state has engaged in) of dumbing down standards and tests – what I call a Race to the Bottom – and instead implements meaningful standards (and robust tests to back them up), knowing that there will be significant fallout (political and otherwise), THAT’S REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT!
This took real guts, so huge kudos are in order for Superintendent John King and his predecessor David Steiner, head of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch, Gov. Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Walcott, and former Chancellor Klein.
What NYS did was very simple – and very right: it decided to stop lying – to students, to parents, to taxpayers – about what level students are at vs. where they need to be at to be on track to attend a four-year college. In doing so, it ended the sham and disgrace of telling a large percentage of students (and their parents) that they were on track when they weren’t. I think it’s immoral to tell this lie to young people, who enroll in college – often at enormous personal and financial sacrifice – and then…get blindsided. Only then do they learn that they’re NOT ready for college – and instead need 1-2 years of remedial work. And the result for most? They drop out, at enormous cost to them – and our society. As Arne Duncan said:
“Too many school systems lied to children, families and communities. Finally, we are holding ourselves accountable as educators.”
So this was clearly the right thing to do in the long run, but in the short run it is a very rude awakening for the vast majority of students, parents, teachers, principals, and schools in the state. I appreciate how disheartening it is to be told that you are doing well – even if you (rightly) suspected that you were being lied to – and then be told you’re not. But this harsh wake-up call was necessary, so after a period of sober reflection, we all need to recommit to the hard work that lies ahead.
2) DFER-NY Chair (and former Long Island state senator) Craig Johnson with a column arguing that we must stand firm re. the Common Core standards:
Long Islanders are understandably anxious about changes in the way public school students are taught and tested. People attending community forums on the new Common Core State Standards are worried that their kids aren’t succeeding, their property values are going to plummet, and public education is now under the control of bureaucrats in Albany who are working to dismantle it.
But slowing implementation of the Common Core standards, as some are calling for the state to do, would be a step in the wrong direction. This change has been difficult because the old way had become comfortable. Kids on Long Island looked good on paper: In 2012, 62.4 percent of eighth-graders met or exceeded proficiency standards in English, and 72.7 percent did so in math. Those of us invested in our children’s education were coasting on complacency, even when we knew it wasn’t necessarily serving students well.
The Common Core reforms are a necessary recalibration. While it’s easy to get caught up in the vitriol, it’s important to ground the debate over Common Core in the facts.
3) Ravitch slandered and defamed hedge-fund-manager-turned-philanthropist-and-education-warrior John Arnold and was forced to recant and apologize (sort of). Below is Arnold’s blog post about it:
But with the power of the pen comes responsibility. Professor Ravitch’s blog post crossed the line between acceptable public debate and malicious, defamatory — and therefore impermissible — personal attacks. Challenging our policy positions is fully within Professor Ravitch’s rights; falsely accusing me of a crime is not. Earlier this week, I reached out to Professor Ravitch and asked her to retract her post. To her credit, Prof. Ravitch acknowledged that her incendiary post had gone too far, and she agreed to correct the misstatements in her post and issue an apology. Unfortunately, her apology was equally careless with the facts, self-serving, and laden with animosity and ambiguity. It would be pollyannaish to expect that her tactics will ever change.
I’m beginning to lose track of how often this has happened (Ravitch getting her facts wrong and smearing good people), but off the top of my head:
– RI Superintendent Deb Gist, after Ravitch lied about a meeting they had, which was captured on video.
– Michelle Rhee, after one of Ravitch’s supporters opened a rally by calling her “an Asian bitch.”
– Parent Revolution’s Ben Austin, who she said deserves “a special place in hell” for advocating for parents
I speak from experience when I say that if you’re going to be a public figure and go after people you disagree with, you’d better have your facts straight – especially if you cross the line into slanderous/libelous/defamatory personal attacks.
4) Speaking of Ravitch, I’m sorry to hear of her illness and hope she recovers quickly:
Bad News from Me
By dianerav
November 7, 2013 //
434
Dear Friends,
I wanted to share some not very good news about my health.
This week, my hyperactivity and age caught up with me. It turns out I am not Wonder Woman but mortal me.
I have been in a hospital for two days in Brooklyn, where they determined I have blood clots in one leg and walking pneumonia. Doctors’ orders: rest.
That means I cannot fly to Chicago or Madison this week. I will resume my schedule afterwards but try to pace myself. I will Skype when I can.
Lately, I have been worrying about who will carry the fight when I no longer can do it. It was as though I had a premonition of my health issues.
I suddenly realized that you will do it. You–teachers, principals, parents, concerned citizens, students, administrators–will carry forward the struggle to gain respect, autonomy, and public confidence in our schools. You will fight for our children. You will stand up in every city, town, village, snd hamlet. The blinders are off, and there is a genuine movement determined to speak out for our children, for the future of our society. You know what’s right, and you won’t slow down until every child gets an education we can all be proud of.
This week I realized that Socrates was right: All men are mortal. So are all women.
I am going to take some time off and rest: Doctor’s order. And I will take better care of my health. I’m regretful about the reminder of my age and mortality, but I will be back. And we won’t give up.
Diane Ravitch
5) This Washington Post editorial nails it.
De Blasio faces a test on school reform
Washington Post, Editorial Board, Wednesday, November 13, 7:16 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-de-blasio-faces-a-test-on-school-reform/2013/11/13/c5fe1502-4b21-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html
BILL DE BLASIO had a lot going on last week after his resounding victory to become the next mayor of New York. But we hope he was paying attention to the federal release of student test scores . The places that successfully lifted student performance were those that have been the most aggressive with reform. That should give pause to Mr. de Blasio’s desire to undo some of the changes made in New York City in the past 12 years.
Mr. de Blasio (D), The Post’s Lyndsey Layton and Michael Alison Chandler reported, plans to backtrack on or abandon many of the education policies put in place by outgoing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I). The mayor-elect has said he will impose a moratorium on closing low-performing schools, end A-to-F report cards for schools, rely less on test scores to judge teachers and be less supportive of public charter schools.
It is those very principles — data-driven accountability, school choice, honest evaluation of teachers and compensation that rewards results — that helped fuel the significant growth in student achievement in the District and Tennessee on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Other states that exhibited progress on the respected “national report card” — Indiana and Florida, for example — also embraced these basic tenets of school reform, which were pioneered in New York by Mr. Bloomberg and his former schools chancellor, Joel Klein.
Lest anyone forget just how rotten the city’s schools were when Mr. Bloomberg took office and won mayoral control of the system, read the thoughtful analysis Paul Hill, founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, wrote last month for the Atlantic. Mr. Hill detailed the increase in graduation rates and the upward trend of test scores, the replacement of failed high schools with better-performing small schools and the success of charter schools.
There’s no question that there are still big problems in the system, and far too many students are ill-served. But that argues for more boldness, not timidity, in tackling the issues. Mr. Bloomberg was blocked in undertaking all the reforms he wanted by unions that resisted any change to the status quo and a state legislature often bound to those interests. Both are likely to be challenges as well for Mr. de Blasio: The unions are already clamoring for billions of dollars in back pay for the years they worked without contracts, and good luck to Mr. de Blasio in getting Albany to go along with new taxes to finance universal preschool.
One Bloomberg initiative that Mr. de Blasio doesn’t plan to undo is mayoral control of the school system, something we, too, support. He will have the authority to run the schools as he sees fit, including making the all-important selection of a schools chancellor. He needs to keep in mind, though, that that also makes him directly responsible for New York’s educational results.
6) Obama needs to fix this mistake:
Obama vs. Black Kids
By
JASON L. RILEY, Wall Street Journal
Updated Nov. 14, 2013 3:48 p.m. ET
When the Justice Department sued to stop Louisiana’s school voucher program earlier this year, it claimed that school choice “frustrates and impedes the desegregation process.” But what does the evidence show?
The Louisiana program gives vouchers to low-income children to attend private institutions. Around 90 percent of the recipients are black, and 86 percent of them otherwise would be assigned to public schools that received a D or F grade from the state. In its lawsuit, the Obama administration argued that allowing children to leave these awful schools could make the public school system less white in composition and thus hamper school desegregation efforts. In other words, the Justice Department’s position is that the racial balance of a school is more important than whether anyone is learning.
Young students at Fannie C. Williams Elementary School in New Orleans, 2008. Getty Images
Forcing poor blacks to attend the state’s worst schools strikes me as something out of the Jim Crow South. But even if you share Justice’s twisted priorities, the premise of its argument is questionable at best. “Louisiana hired Boston University political science Professor Christine Rossell to analyze the effect of vouchers in 34 districts in the state under desegregation orders,” reported Politico recently. “Rossell found that in all but four of the districts—some of which are majority white, some majority black and some more evenly split—vouchers improved or had no effect on racial imbalance. And in the districts where racial imbalance worsened, the effects were ‘miniscule.'”
A separate study out of the University of Arkansas also questions the notion that school choice reduces integration. “The evidence suggests that use of private school vouchers by low-income students actually has positive effects on racial integration,” write Anna J. Egalite and Jonathan N. Mills in Education Next. “Among the subset of students for whom data are available, we find that transfers made possible by the school-choice program overwhelmingly improve integration in the public schools that students leave (the sending schools), bringing the racial composition of the schools closer to that of the broader communities in which they are located.”
President Obama, who has never found a public school that was good enough for his own children, wants poor blacks consigned to the absolute worst schools that the system has to offer. Even, apparently, if that requires bringing to bear the full force of the U.S. Justice Department.
7) Speaking of Louisiana, a great statistic: 1/3 of New Orleans students are taught by TFA teachers or alumni.
8) Every kid deserves the choice Michelle Obama had:
The high school choice that Michelle Obama made
By JON EAST On NOVEMBER 13, 2013
http://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Michelle-Obama1.jpgPresident Obama may need a dose of his wife’s popularity at the moment, but don’t discount the importance of her visit to some fortunate sophomores at Bell Multicultural High School in D.C. on Tuesday. This is a first lady from a tough part of Chicago who beat the odds to Princeton University, to Harvard Law School, and to corporate executive offices. And her high school choice, to which she spoke, is worth underscoring.
“Even though my parents didn’t have a lot of money, they never went to college themselves, they had an unwavering belief in the power of education,” Mrs. Obama told the students. “… So when it came time for me to go to high school, they encouraged me to enroll in one of the best schools in Chicago. … My school was way across the other side of the city from where I lived. So at 6 a.m. every morning, I had to get on a city bus and ride for an hour, sometimes more, just to get to school. And I was willing to do that because I was willing to do whatever it took for me to go to college.”
The school was Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, opened in 1975 as Chicago’s first public magnet school. It was ranked this year by Newsweek as fifth-best high school in the Midwest. A fourth of the students are black, two-thirds are minority, and just under 4-in-10 are on free or reduced-price lunch. The academics speak to excellence: 82 percent of students take Advanced Placement classes with an 80 percent pass rate; the average ACT score last year was 27.1, with four students scoring a perfect 36; every single one of its 2012 graduates was accepted into a four-year college.
While much has been made about the private school choice the Obamas made for their daughters in D.C., Mrs. Obama’s own choice for high school is at least as relevant. She wanted a different future for herself at a time when she says some of her own teachers were telling her that Princeton was an unrealistic dream. So she chose a public school outside her neighborhood that she saw as worth the hour bus ride each way. This was the late 1970s, don’t forget, at a time when children in American public education had precious few options. But Michelle Obama found one, and it worked for her.
Forget the political backdrop here. Her message, particularly to students of color, is compelling.
9) Kudos to Eva Moskowitz, who won a well-deserved Robin Hood Heroes award last week. Watch the 4:31 video at: http://bit.ly/HQpETu
I am delighted to share with you the news that Eva Moskowitz has been honored as one of the Robin Hood Foundation’s 2013 Heroes. The award recognizes Eva for her inspired leadership in education and the critical role that Success Academy schools play in giving children and families a path out of poverty. Thought you would all like to see the attached press release, as well as the wonderful video that Robin Hood prepared on Eva. Please use the links below to watch the video and spread the news through Facebook and Twitter. We’re very proud of Eva but she would be the first to say that it takes a village: Thanks to each of you for all you do for our schools and our scholars!!!
Eva Moskowitz is the CEO of Success Academy, which she founded along with Joel Greenblatt and John Petry. A long-time Harlem resident and mother of three, Eva is both a passionate educator and a committed political reformer. Her leadership in education reform began with her service as a member of the New York City Council, where she chaired the Council’s Education Committee. Success Academy has been able to mobilize parents of charter school students from all networks to demonstrate their support at public events and become a voice for education reform.
Ms. Moskowitz completed her B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in American History at Johns Hopkins University.
Success Academy Charter Schools opened in 2006 to tackle the problem of inadequate and inequitable public education in the largest and most prominent city in the United States, New York City. Founder Eva Moskowitz set out to build world-class schools – engaging, academically rigorous, economically efficient schools – and prove that all kids can excel, across neighborhoods and across racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines.
Today, with 22 world-class elementary and middle schools, serving almost 6,700 children from Brooklyn to the Bronx, Moskowitz has proved that theory many times over. Success Academy scholars – primarily high-risk, low-income inner city kids – have achieved tremendous academic success, scoring in the top 1% in math and the top 7% in English Language Arts among all New York State schools.
10) Good to see:
Long-Term Benefits of Music Lessons
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: November 11, 2013
Childhood music lessons can sometimes leave painful memories, but they seem to carry benefits into adulthood. A new study reports that older adults who took lessons at a young age can process the sounds of speech faster than those who did not.
“It didn’t matter what instrument you played, it just mattered that you played,” said Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University and an author of the study, which appears in The Journal of Neuroscience.
She and her collaborators looked at 44 healthy adults ages 55 to 76, measuring electrical activity in a region of the brain that processes sound.
They found that participants who had four to 14 years of musical training had faster responses to speech sounds than participants without any training — even though no one in the first group had played an instrument for about 40 years.
Dr. Kraus said the study underscored the need for a good musical education. “Our general thinking about education is that it is for our children,” she said. “But in fact we are setting up our children for healthy aging based on what we are able to provide them with now.”
Other studies have suggested that lifelong musical training also has a positive effect on the brain, she added. Dr. Kraus herself plays the electric guitar, the piano and the drums — “not well but with great enthusiasm,” she said.
11) A wonderful appeal from KIPP TEAM’s superstar teacher Ali Nagle (I donated $250):
This is the time of year when people start to think more and more about what they are thankful for. It’s also around the holiday time that people give gifts to show their love and appreciation for one another. I am thankful for living a life that has led me all over the world to work in schools—my home base being TEAM Academy, a KIPP School in Newark, NJ. However, my second home has become the schools TEAM partners with in rural East Africa. My travels and work with these schools have allowed me to meet some of the most remarkable people. Because I have been so lucky to have had such a transformative experience abroad, I am showing my love to another young lady who hopes for just that.
Khaliyah is a member of TEAM Academy’s founding class, and as a result, will be one of our first alum to go to and through college—graduating from Occidental College in May of 2014. You can only imagine my joy when Khaliyah reached out and asked if I could help her continue her passion for serving children abroad. I instantly knew connecting her with my friends at BuildOn would be a perfect fit. In no time at all, a beautiful partnership was formed and Khaliyah was invited to join the BuildOn team and travel to Nepal in January to help build a school for a rural village! Afterwards, she will be conducting research for her senior thesis on orphaned and vulnerable children in relation to Identity Economics.
Khaliyah embodies everything our school preaches. She is everything we want TEAMsters to be. She works hard, makes no excuses, takes no shortcuts, and wants nothing more but to be the change she wishes to see in the world. I urge you, your friends and family to invest with me in Khaliyah’s future. The return on your investment will exceed all your expectations. There is no one more deserving of a chance to realize all her dreams, and change the lives of those less fortunate in the process, than Khaliyah.
Below is the link to her fundraiser. Please help out any way you can. She needs the funds raised by DEC 31st.
Khaliyah’s Nepal BuildOn Fundraiser
12) Another great appeal in NJ: http://www.yourschoolsyourcall.org
Does “Harry Potter” still rule, or has the “Twilight” series taken the top spot? Or maybe Salinger’s classic “The Catcher in the Rye” or Fitzgerald’s timeless “The Great Gatsby” should get the nod.
What book do you think every New Jersey teen should read?
That’s the question posed by Teach for America, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary in New Jersey with a crowd-sourcing project to promote literacy.
The Best Book for Teens campaign wants to go beyond the typical “best of” lists to identify a true Jersey read, according to Teach for America New Jersey executive director Fatimah Burnam-Watkins.
“We want to start a conversation around the timeless books that transport us, no matter who we are, and draw out the favorite books that inspired our friends and neighbors,” Burnam-Watkins said. That’s what we’re after: a statewide kitchen table conversation about the books that help inspire teens about their futures.”
Copies of the winning title will be given to all 53 of Teach for America’s partner schools in northern New Jersey. And to encourage participation, organizers are holding a random drawing for a Kindle reader. Every submission gets a chance in the drawing.
13) Yale’s annual Education Plan Business Competition is open for submissions:
Yale Education Business Plan Competition: Submit Your Innovative Idea Today!
The Yale School of Management’s Education Club is excited to invite you to submit your innovative K-12 education business idea to our 2014 Education Business Plan Competition! The competition invites teams from a variety of fields to submit new business ideas that will positively impact the U.S. education system. All teams must include at least one current graduate student.
Applicants will compete for prizes of up to $10,000 and consulting support to launch their ventures, and will also gain the opportunity to meet other aspiring education entrepreneurs. Top three finalists will have the chance to win prize money. The 1st Round submission, a 2-page executive summary of the proposed venture, is due by January 13, 2014. We will likely hold a Q&A session in the coming weeks before the submission deadline for interested parties. For teams that advance beyond the 1st Round, a full 10-page Business Plan will be due on February 17, 2014. Finalists will present their full business plans to a panel of esteemed education reform judges at Yale SOM’s Education Leadership Conference on April 4, 2014.
If you have any questions or are interested in participating in a Q&A call about the competition, please reach out to us at educationbusinessplans@yale.edu or see http://elc.som.yale.edu/competition for more information.
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14) StudentsFirst is hiring:
StudentsFirst
Vice President of Development
http://www.studentsfirst.org/
StudentsFirst, the bipartisan, grassroots national advocacy organization launched in 2010 and led by Founder and CEO Michelle Rhee, education activist and former Washington D.C. Public Schools Chancellor, is seeking a seasoned fundraising professional to grow and lead a comprehensive, modern, and sophisticated fundraising/development program. Reporting to Rhee, the Vice President of Development will serve as the lead executive responsible for building a sustainable major gift-focused fundraising culture that is seamlessly integrated with the organization’s marketing initiatives in order to further StudentsFirst’s mission of aggressive and transformational education reform. The successful candidate will be an accomplished senior development professional with gravitas, a proven track record in building sustainable high-performing development programs, and a demonstrated history of successful interactions with high net-worth individuals including institutional leadership. S/he will have leadership experience within a sophisticated fundraising operating preferably within an education-related enterprise, a foundation or organization dedicated to education reform, or innovative mission-based environment; a broad background in development with at least five years in leadership posts, including work in all core functional areas of fundraising, is required. A bachelor’s degree is required. A master’s degree in a relevant discipline that will be credible to donors, with strong academic credentials, is preferred.
The organization is headquartered in Sacramento, CA, however, there is flexibility where the position can based.
Inquiries, nominations and applications (current resumes and cover letters) should be directed electronically to Beth.reeves@divsearch.com
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Johnson: The Common Core will help our children compete
Published: November 7, 2013 7:29 PM
By CRAIG JOHNSON
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/johnson-the-common-core-will-help-our-children-compete-1.6401432
Long Islanders are understandably anxious about changes in the way public school students are taught and tested. People attending community forums on the new Common Core State Standards are worried that their kids aren’t succeeding, their property values are going to plummet, and public education is now under the control of bureaucrats in Albany who are working to dismantle it.
But slowing implementation of the Common Core standards, as some are calling for the state to do, would be a step in the wrong direction. This change has been difficult because the old way had become comfortable. Kids on Long Island looked good on paper: In 2012, 62.4 percent of eighth-graders met or exceeded proficiency standards in English, and 72.7 percent did so in math. Those of us invested in our children’s education were coasting on complacency, even when we knew it wasn’t necessarily serving students well.
The Common Core reforms are a necessary recalibration. While it’s easy to get caught up in the vitriol, it’s important to ground the debate over Common Core in the facts.
Setting state standards is nothing new. The state Education Department has been outlining what students should know in English language arts and math for nearly 20 years. But, as in many states, those standards were often vague and cumbersome, a mile wide and an inch deep.
The Common Core standards are a definite improvement. They are clear, focused and rigorous — something even critics acknowledge. In the early grades, the standards emphasize foundational reading and math skills, and they acknowledge the importance of play to learning in kindergarten classrooms. By high school, they are focused on ensuring all students do the kind of demanding daily work that will prepare them for the range of opportunities that await them after graduation.
Peer-reviewed research by a leading expert on international mathematics performance has compared the topics in the Common Core to high-performing countries in grades K-8. The study found that the Common Core math standards closely matched the standards of high-performing nations. It also found that states whose standards more closely matched the Common Core tended to have higher scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the largest nationally representative assessment of American students — than those that didn’t.
Similarly, the demands of the Common Core are a response to research that has shown that, even as the demands of college-level reading have increased, the difficulty of the texts students read in grades K-12 has dropped for years.
State Education Commissioner John King has correctly noted that certain tests are unnecessary and should be dropped. The goal has never been about testing our children into the ground. Any reduction of testing, however, cannot be at the expense of halting implementation of the Common Core.
New York is a national leader in Common Core implementation. In many states, teachers are clamoring for guidance. New York has begun developing a curriculum for all grades in both English language arts and math that has been highly touted by educators nationwide. The materials are well-aligned to the Common Core and available to every New York teacher free of charge.
As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has noted, the Common Core rollout has been rocky. But it’s a smart way to go if we want to ensure that Long Island’s young people are ready for the world that awaits them.
King was a teacher in Massachusetts when that state implemented the most ambitious curriculum and standards in the nation. He knows what disruption looks like. He also knows how important it is to get this right, so teachers can ensure that our students will flourish.
Delaying this important progress, rolling back these well-thought-out policies, and ignoring the problems they’re intended to solve won’t make the issues go away. And it certainly won’t do any favors for our kids.
Craig Johnson, a former state senator from Port Washington, is chairman of Democrats for Education Reform New York and a managing director at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.
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Kudos to Diane Ravitch for Owning Up to Her Mistakes
on November 14, 2013
http://www.lauraandjohnarnold.com/547/
Recently, Diane Ravitch posted on her blog an egregious personal attack against me, ostensibly regarding my and Laura’s efforts to keep Head Start programs open during the recent government shutdown. Professor Ravitch, among other things, accused me of “fleecing” Enron investors and sought to link me — through outright misstatements, innuendo and implication — to disgraced Enron executives and their criminal activity. What she wrote was intentionally defamatory and contained outright lies about my background.
Laura and I spend the majority of our time on philanthropy. Several years ago, we co-founded the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which seeks to effect transformative change in some of our nation’s most pressing and complex policy areas, including education, criminal justice, research integrity, public accountability and health care. The issues that we address, both personally and through LJAF, are at times enormously complicated and controversial. Reasonable minds can intensely disagree on everything from how to define a problem to how to solve it. We therefore expect, and welcome, vigorous debate on every issue in which we are involved. We expect opponents of our policy proposals to criticize our work, and to do so passionately. That is the essence of our democracy — vigorous public discourse and debate in every forum.
When we committed to do this work, we accepted the reality that “vigorous public discourse” would inevitably include unsavory and unfair commentary from those who opposed our positions. We believe in and are proud of our work, and we are therefore prepared to endure distorted facts, personal insults, material omissions and even blatant misrepresentations of our positions, beliefs and policy objectives. In the past months alone, I have been referred to as everything from a “young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation’s Koch brothers” (despite my very vocal support of President Obama and my numerous contributions to left-of-center causes) to a “lipless, eager little jerk.” Some have accused our pension reform efforts as a “craven plot to abuse workers,” ignoring the fact that the most important beneficiaries of our pension work will be those very workers. Others refer to our “Enron fortune,” blatantly disregarding the fact that the source of our wealth, the hedge fund that I founded and ran for ten years, had nothing to do with Enron. Some have criticized our work in education reform, falsely accusing us of seeking to “privatize” education to further allegedly sinister motives. I have even been included on a teachers’ union “watch list” of hedge funds that manage pension money but whose managers advocate for pension reform – despite the fact that I no longer have a hedge fund and that, when I did run a fund, I never managed any pension money. In all of these instances, neither of us, nor anyone at LJAF, was contacted for comment or even for a fact check.
In my view, these attacks lack journalistic integrity and pursue sensationalism over truth. Although I vehemently disagree with their tactics – selectively reporting facts, distorting truth and name calling – I deeply value the rights of the authors to express their opinion. In fact, Laura and I are among the largest financial supporters of organizations dedicated to safeguarding First Amendment rights. We would never seek to silence anyone who cares to comment on our work, our viewpoints or any other aspect of our public life that he or she deems worthy of public discourse.
But with the power of the pen comes responsibility. Professor Ravitch’s blog post crossed the line between acceptable public debate and malicious, defamatory — and therefore impermissible — personal attacks. Challenging our policy positions is fully within Professor Ravitch’s rights; falsely accusing me of a crime is not. Earlier this week, I reached out to Professor Ravitch and asked her to retract her post. To her credit, Prof. Ravitch acknowledged that her incendiary post had gone too far, and she agreed to correct the misstatements in her post and issue an apology. Unfortunately, her apology was equally careless with the facts, self-serving, and laden with animosity and ambiguity. It would be pollyannaish to expect that her tactics will ever change.
Unlike many of the most vocal critics of the reforms for which we advocate, we have no financial interest in the fields in which we work. We have no vested interest, financial or otherwise, in the status quo. We do not stand to profit, or otherwise benefit, from any of the Foundation’s projects. We do not sell books. We do not collect honoraria for speeches. We do not sell financial products. We are engaged in this work for the sole purpose of making our country better. We do not pretend to have all of the answers to the problems that our Foundation seeks to address. We therefore believe there is great value in constructive – and even combative – conversation based on facts. In hopes of fostering that conversation, and so that tangible good can come from this recent experience, we will make a $100,000 donation to http://www.factcheck.org, whose mission is to “monitor the factual accuracy” of political discourse, “apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship and to increase the public knowledge and understanding.”
The issues our country faces are multiple and complex, and at times rightly evoke debate that is acrimonious and emotionally charged. But they are too critical, and the dialogue is too important, for us to collectively surrender to malicious misstatements and character assassination rather than true public debate. Kudos to Prof. Ravitch for recognizing when the line has been crossed, and for attempting to correct her mistakes, however half-heartedly.
– John
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Vote for the 1 book all N.J. teenagers should read
must-read-nj-teen.jpg.jpg
The Newark Arts Education Roundtable and Teach for America are asking New Jerseyans to nominate and choose the one book all NJ teens must read. (File Photo)
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http://connect.nj.com/user/pamcglon/index.htmlBy Peggy McGlone/The Star-Ledger
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on November 11, 2013 at 12:15 PM, updated November 11, 2013 at 7:16 PM
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/11/vote_for_the_1_book_all_nj_teens_should_read.html
Does “Harry Potter” still rule, or has the “Twilight” series taken the top spot? Or maybe Salinger’s classic “The Catcher in the Rye” or Fitzgerald’s timeless “The Great Gatsby” should get the nod.
What book do you think every New Jersey teen should read?
That’s the question posed by Teach for America, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary in New Jersey with a crowd-sourcing project to promote literacy.
The Best Book for Teens campaign wants to go beyond the typical “best of” lists to identify a true Jersey read, according to Teach for America New Jersey executive director Fatimah Burnam-Watkins.
“We want to start a conversation around the timeless books that transport us, no matter who we are, and draw out the favorite books that inspired our friends and neighbors,” Burnam-Watkins said. That’s what we’re after: a statewide kitchen table conversation about the books that help inspire teens about their futures.”
Copies of the winning title will be given to all 53 of Teach for America’s partner schools in northern New Jersey. And to encourage participation, organizers are holding a random drawing for a Kindle reader. Every submission gets a chance in the drawing.
Burnam-Watkins said her organization is targeting teens because it is when habits are formed that will continue for life.
“A love for reading will follow them wherever they go, unlocking possibility after possibility,” she said. We want the next generation of great writers and thinkers to come from our teens, and it starts with being great readers.”
The Newark Arts Ed Roundtable, a program of the Newark Arts Council, is helping spread the word about the effort, roundtable director Paula Jacobs said.
“It’s extremely important to make the connection between high quality arts education and literacy, and how imagination and creativity help to create a strong foundation for academic achievement and student engagement,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs nominated “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee’s novel that was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie. She taught the novel when she was a high school teacher, she said, and remembers how acting out the story helped bring it to life.
Anyone with a tie to New Jersey can participate in the campaign’s two phases, the nominations and the voting. Nominations for the best book for seventh through 12th grade readers are open through Nov. 26. The titles will be narrowed down to the Top Ten, and voting will be open from Dec. 2 through Dec. 16.
The winner will be announced Dec. 20, but Burnam-Watkins hopes the discussion continues.
“The conversations — or more accurately, debates — that are already happening make the process as much of a win as the result,” she said.
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Tilson writes nasty things about me frequently. He has never apologized. I apologized to John Arnold because I erroneously said he left Enron with $3 billion, but he made it after he left. my error. Also, I didn’t want to be sued by a billionaire. Would you? If I make a mistake, I am not embarrassed to apologize. I have written over 6,000 posts. I’m not perfect.
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If a billionaire sued me, they’d end up. . . .! Can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. Although I might be forced to plant a bunch of turnips for it (oops, meant him/her).
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I am Diane’s strong supporter Ellen Lubic, who is a public policy educator and I feel that is imperative to not only be a rahrah rooting section and preaching to our choir here, but to post things that are reprehensible on occasion as a counter point. We need to read the other side of the issues so as to defend against them. Of course if Duane was a careful reader he would have seen over the past few days that I do identify myself, and that earlier on this page it is obvious that Woof, the name I had to take to bypass the software, is strongly anti reformist, anti hedge fund guys, and deeply anti Arne.
Please old ally, Krazy TA, take note as well.
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Perdóname, entonces, Sr. Thomsen.
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Debo añadir: Lo siento.
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“As I’ve said many times before, I’m not sure which is a bigger crisis in our educational system: the utter failure of the bottom 10-20% of our public schools, or the low bar and widespread mediocrity affecting the middle 60% of schools. These schools appear, superficially, to be good: there’s no violence, everybody is happy, etc. – but most kids aren’t being prepared to do four-year-college-level work, much less be on track to successfully compete in the real world.”
If that is a real quote from a real email (and you have not supplied any references/sites etc. to document what you claim) then Tilson is bloviating edudeformers talking points.
Not sure where you, Woof Thomsen, are coming from with all that, except maybe a sad attempt to “set a trap”.
How about a little background info on yourself, a teacher? what subject? how long? etc. . . .
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Could Woof Thomsen be Wtilson?
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Duane Swacker: I am uneasy too.
I make no exceptions for the need to document such items, particularly when they are so vile. And most especially on a blog that advertises itself as “A site to discuss better education for all.”
Why?
The owner of this blog has set standards qualitatively higher than those required on the edufraud websites. Whether the comments do or don’t appear to be from Whitney Tilson is immaterial—
I won’t accept them as proof of anything until they can be verified as actually representing the POV of Mr. Tilson.
Period. I won’t follow the edubully playbook of sneer and smear in the thoughtless pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$. One of those old Greek guys knew the type over 2,000 years ago:
“Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.” [Sophocles]
The owner of this blog and many of us who post here have a different standard: “Better not to exist than live basely.” [Sophocles]
True then, even truer in this Most Cabegusting Achievement Gap Crushing Twenty First Century.
Or any century.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
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Sorry it is so long…but remember this is the same guy who offers classes to his clients and other traders on how to invest in public education.
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Man, break those down into separate posts and connect them to a post to which each part applies.
Otherwise I smell wolf in sheep’s clothing with that kind of post.
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Duane, it is hard to believe I know, but hedge fund manager and DFER Whitney Tilson kicks out this round up of opinions and news regularly. And anyone can subscribe to it. He really likes to use EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! He rants unconscionably about Diane Ravitch, Randi Weingarten, Karen Lewis and others. He is eager to name drop. And he loves his wealthy lifestyle: see me in Kenya! See me at another Wall St. charity event! See my lovely family! And always there is his undying, single-minded support of charters, vouchers, ed-tech and any other way to make a buck on education around the globe. Weird but true.
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The fact that Duncan’s face represents that of our nationa education system is black comedy I assume other countries use when America is the butt of a joke. Frankly, I am wondering where the irreverent SNL type skits are in the US where we make funn o of ourselves gleefully. Arne has given comics a great opportunity, but that is not what I’d call his contributions to public school children. Has he or anybof these folks looked at the common core? Whoever constructed this mess clearly has little understanding of child development and even less about the nature of human intelligence and emotional growth. Certainly,Common Core creators and Duncan are clueless about learning, teaching and personalized approaches these require because each child is unique, unlike Windows software or the gods’ forsaken tract houses Broad has made his fortune with. This was a country where architecture had integrity that symbolized the American spirit, which was educated, enlightened and self-reliant. Independent!
Children are not the mass produced plastic crap they sell at Walmart.
Yet these billionaires have commandeered their young lives and claimed public school children as their “assets.” As former “human capitol” I can tell you the reformers do not value articulate, creative intelligence or passion, much less children.
Qualities like cunning are appreciated, as are other lower forms of intellect as long as they are tempered by an utter lack of character and shamelessness. Compliant consumers wage slaves are what reformers want to cultivate in our schools,
Teachers are best when they are untenured temps delivering scripted lessons with cold demanding indifference. Leadership is a mercenary role in the schools planned dor the near future. Arrogance is clearly a qualification all of thses leaders must have, as Duncan demonstrates.
I did not think Duncan could possibly be as dumb as he looks but after reading a few interviews I started to wonder. He commented on the Alanta cheating scandal over a year after the story broke,misstating that it was an isolated incidnt even though the news was full of test cheats and controversy about the scores. A reporter asked ifthe cheating undermines data they used to evaluate teachers, rate schools and so on. Duncan npsaid it was not an issue, and I wopanted to know how it couldnt be, but the reported did nit ask what I would have. Shouldnt the guy in charge look into cheating to assure the system had some integrity if it was going to justify the dismissal of teachers and school closures?
Apparently not. Arne Duncan recently posted a strange rant about people living in bubbles. It was incoherent, almost sounded like he was high on LSD or had a hitch in his psyche, and I thought of all the bubbles students were penciling in for this bubble headed bobble doll, and realized Arne was human capital of the best kind.
It is pretty obvious he is not the sharpest tool in the shed, which tells me there is only so much a good school and affluent upbringing can do to improve one’s IQ. Thatnis the good news. The bad news is, all that matters is who you know and where you livel in other words, a c student like W. gets the white house and a genuis in the hood becomes at best a teacher who will be toppled before he can even get a decent pension or pay off his tract house before it is in foreclosure, But then again, we know appearence is what matters to the puppet masters. My dirt poor students who have poor test scores are much, much brighter than this man; they have critical thinking skills, integrity, mad talents, which is exactly what reformers want to snuff out if you ask me. What could be a bigger threat to plutocrats than the proletariate intelligensia emerging from the hoods and often realized by teachers like you and me? No wonder they hate us.
Arne Duncan is the sort of benign meat puppet they need, but is it possible the refirmers underestimated the public?
Remember, Duncan did not make a fool of himself. He is a fool and I think people are picking up on that quickly as he makes a bigger mess of things. The man is, simply put, stupid.
Maybe it is a choice he made because I believe we can improve our brain function by using it, by challening ourselves. Studies confirm this and that ongoing intellectual enrichment and learning new things will keep the mind fit. Simply doing equations and crossword puzzles is likely to fend off senility and depression in much the same way diet and exercise will keep one’s body fit and firm. Sure, shooting hoops with Obama keeps his body rightous, but I cannot imagne Arne holding his own in a conversation about civil rights for undocumented citizens or the impact of the industrial revolution on Demoocracy crafted for a new nation built around agricultural economics and immigration . He could not even follow this kind of discourse much less contribute to it.
That vapid speech and vacant stare is rather obvious and unnerving, in my opinion.
How can we miss the ironic twist of this Howdy Do Dee look alike being appointed secretary of education! ?
Swift could not have conjured finer satire. If we factor in the celebrity and billionaire influence on our schools, it seems like we are being punked ( Punking is a post modern twisti on the show Candid Camera) . I expect Ashton Kutcher to step up any minute to greet this mom, laughing his head off as he points to hidden cameras. Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter. We live in a country where 6 year olds have anxiety & angst over testing because at 5 they were told to write an essay before they learned the alphabet. Our schools are dangerous dark places run by criminals who congregate and conspire against their teachers, who are being more than merely oppressed; like students, they are being deprived of their constitutional rights and apparently eagerly sacraficed by an ignorant public swayed by silly propaganda. We are censored by the media and victimized by a witch hunt that rivals anything Puritans or McCarthy would dare to do.
Have we forgotten the fascists came after educators first? Are we that dull and indifferent that we cannot see what is happening? I dunno what will become of us or our children if we don’t overthrow these corrupt Imperialists and their minions soon, but ainknow it will not be good.
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Though it may seem that Arne Duncan is a clueless oaf, he is not. In order to lie so effectively and never get anywhere near the truth, you have to know what the truth is to avoid what for Arne amounts to ‘stepping in it’. Now as to the oaf part, that is something we all have gotten right. In a broader sense, this is one of the major indictments of reformers in general, all of their lies assiduously avoid any inclusion of the truth beyond the minimal amount needed to muddy the waters and sow confusion.
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Dear Ms. Ravitch,
You are tired of reading my stuff I’m sure, and I don’t want to become a pain in your neck. Nevertheless, I feel that I have to try to see if there is any way to sort some things out for myself and possibly others. Your book, The Revisionists Revised isn’t in any of the local libraries, but I found it on Amazon, and while I couldn’t order a copy at the moment, I read three quite illuminating reviews. I believe I have somewhat of a handle on the nature of the controversy. I will offer some thoughts on it here.
First, I want to say that even though personal and anecdotal evidence is not scientific, it cannot be rejected as of no consequence. Your nostalgia for your school days, your pride in your school, and a belief that your experience there made a major difference in your ability and desire to excel certainly have relevance. I don’t believe I have underestimated the positive value of contributions made by dedicated and caring teachers and the various sources of inspiration and meaningful learning that students open to those influences often experience. I often repeat Holt’s quotes that, “School is bad for kids”, and, “School makes kids servile and dumb”, always trying to be cognizant that there may be as many exceptions to the rule as there are validating examples.
My school experience was generally positive and beneficial, also. I do not harbor any great resentment or disdain relative to my time there, and even the pressure to meet deadlines and to slog through material I found difficult or boring surely added to my level of awareness, competence, and knowledge (even applying the peculiar and restricted definition I have for knowledge). Yet, I did discover when I entered college, after four years in the Air Force and getting married and having our first child, that my “education” had been woefully inadequate. I was semi-literate, inept with respect to scholarly endeavors as well as to functioning in a marriage and a workplace, socially awkward, and pathetically ignorant of what was happening around me or in the course of history. I was immature and naïve, even after my military training and experience.
In fact, I daydreamed through most of my days in school. I found it hard to concentrate, was easily distracted, especially by Cindy Johnson, one or two other female students, and the young Home Economics teacher in my last two years, and I had zero interest in most of the information I was tasked to learn in English, history, social studies, and other “subjects”. I somehow passed the NY State Regents exams and maintained a “B+” average, graduating in 1959, but I hated class lectures, homework and class projects, one or two of my teachers, and having to speak publicly. My Dad was an alcoholic and family conflict and insecurity were big factors in my particular lack of engagement.
The point of all that is to suggest that nostalgia is an unreliable indicator and that one’s school experience depends too much on one’s own receptiveness, attention span, native academic or intellectual capacities, prior instruction and awareness of the external world, degree of anxiety or calm, factors such as sight or hearing deficiencies or tolerances, etc., etc. School may not be for every child or for every age prescribed by so-called experts, and accommodating the specific needs or proclivities of every child is not feasible when school is taken for granted as the one appropriate place for all children of “school age”. How many are you willing to let slip through the cracks in order to accommodate the demands of the society? What level of discomfort, distraction, discrimination, dissatisfaction, disability, or disdain is okay with you with regard to those students whose discomfort or concealed misery or confusion is below anyone’s radar? My friend who taught junior high history has frequently stated that most young people are not ready for serious academic work or study until their late teens, if then.
The reasons that some slip through the cracks are many and diverse, but the primary factor is that the school is assigned an affirmative mission and the mission is broad and universal. Educators can promise and commit to taking special care to know what each child needs and experiences, but they have innumerable limitations as mere mortals, and the scope and tenure of the mission and the demands of serving too many students complicate matters immensely. Now, add the dimension of coercion due to the attendance law and you have an impossible situation. If a kid is primed and secure and adequately prepared, or if at least one teacher can see through the fog and reach the child, school doesn’t have to be all bad. However, for far too many, too much is taken for granted and when someone discovers a problem, it’s already too late.
I have to admit I had never heard of the “revisionists” that are mentioned in the reviews of your book. I read Tolstoy early, who was decades ahead of the curve in predicting the morass. I read Holt, Dennison, Goodman, Illich, Friedenberg, Greer, Wise (Legislated Learning), Postman & Weingartner, A.S. Neill, Leonard, Kozol, and Dreikurs, among several others. While some of the facts or statistics may have been questioned and some of the theoretical projections or rhetoric may have exaggerated the scope of the problems, one would have to be delusional to deny that there were and are monumental issues that call into question the whole enterprise.
I’ve been dealing with young graduates and drop-outs for a very long time and the low levels of language ability, confidence, awareness, engagement, thinking skills, civic responsibility, interpersonal development, and other preparedness for adulthood are truly shocking. And, I am an ultra-liberal with tolerance to be embarrassed about. The only things that we are left to discover are; who or what is to blame, and what can we possibly do to mediate the damage that is still very much a part of the day-to-day administration of public systems?
Has pointing fingers and demonizing people ever been constructive? You know the answer to that question. I have said some very unkind things about Arne Duncan and I will continue to be critical of officials who are part of the circular firing squads and the blame game without getting down to basics. Still, a look at the larger picture shows that, regardless of intentions or biases, these kinds of turf wars and philosophical clashes don’t resolve the chronic long-term inadequacies of schooling. Privatization, charter schools, vouchers, and whatever else is going on now are merely the current manifestations of longstanding mistakes. I like to refer to the “Error of the third kind”, which is solving the wrong (usually superficial) problems, while more fundamental missteps are assumed to be immutable and essential features of the landscape.
From what I know of you, I believe I’m safe in assuming that you are not one of those people who have such low regard or tolerance for children that you can’t wait for them to be transformed into miniature adults or for the opportunity to break their spirit and change them into something they are not and should never become. So, why would you support robbing children of initiative, autonomy, mobility, parental affection, serenity, or the sensation of liberty by subjecting them to becoming seat fillers for the purposes of obtaining federal tax dollars? Why would you advocate their subjugation and conscription in an institution regardless of their discomfort and confusion in an institution that isn’t what you hoped it would be?
I saw somewhere that you lost your middle child. I believe the year was 1966. I lost my 13 year-old son in a tragic accident in 1981. I lost my 20 year-old grandson due to medical malpractice in 2006. Both disliked school and my grandson had dropped out. My son displayed signs of school phobia and from the age of eleven began skipping school. I believe his second-grade teacher was abusive, having no compassion for the fact that he lost his Mother when he was four. I appreciate your strong support of public schooling and your efforts to eliminate the endless problems. As troubled as they are, we have limited options for most parents, especially a single parent as I was. Yet, it is exasperating when I hear all the happy talk and the false optimism about tomorrow, when we finally get it right.
I will repeat my mantra, once again. Changes are not coming to most schools until there is no state law requiring attendance. Schools may hope that they can be helpful in the attempts of students to become educated in a way that enhances their lives, but they cannot provide that education to any student except in bits and pieces and they have all they can do to create a hospitable and encouraging atmosphere, without pretending to transform children into scholars and professionals.
If you end up back in the hospital, I’m going to feel responsible. I’m sorry for my persistence. Please give yourself a break and try to enjoy the holidays. These battles have raged for well over a century. Children are incredibly resilient and so are teachers. The revolution is coming and it will be the students who make it happen. I hope you can help them see that intrusive and unconstitutional laws are the primary cause of the conundrum we all face. Kids are citizens too, you know.
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Dr. Rella’s letter to Mr. Duncan appears below in full. It is available on his school district’s website and on his Facebook page.
Secretary Arne Duncan
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202
Dear Secretary Duncan:
My name is Joseph Rella. I am the Superintendent of Schools in the Comsewogue School District located in Port Jefferson Station, New York. I am writing to you as a
non-white suburban mother to express my deep concern over recent comment that you made regarding criticism of the common core implementation.
You stated that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms” who all of a sudden their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
I do not believe that your statement was racially motivated but I’m having trouble understanding how it was not meant to divide. You need to know that if the common core initiative has succeeded at anything, it has succeeded in uniting all the disparate groups throughout our state and country – white and nonwhite, urban and suburban, mothers, fathers, educators, and politicians of all parties. I believe you’re missing the point. Ignoring our real concerns and engaging in divisive rhetoric will not make the issue disappear.
As educators, when we receive a complaint from a parent, skin color and gender are not
discounting factors to what they are saying. Further, parents are not pushing back because they -all of a sudden – discovered that their children weren’t brilliant or that their schools weren’t quite as good as they thought. Many parents are pushing back because – all of a sudden – their children’s experience of school had changed since the miserable implementation of the Common Core Initiative and it had not changed for the better. Children in our district, on Long Island, and across the state are experiencing increased levels of anxiety, stress, behavioral problems, sleep deprivation, respiratory issues, and in the worst cases, self-abusive and self-destructive behaviors…children are experiencing this. It is abusive and it is breaking their spirit. These behaviors are becoming more pervasive and they are occurring among younger and younger
children. The “Common Core Disorder,” as it’s coming to be called, is here and growing.
Now I’m sure I will hear that there is no proven connection between the Common Core Initiative and what our children are experiencing. Sacrificing a generation of students to prove or disprove a correlation or discounting it because it is anecdotal evidence and not based on research is completely unacceptable. After all, the Common Core standards were adopted by the vast majority of states without any peer-reviewed studies but many claims about how it would make us globally competitive, claims that have not been subjected to any serious scrutiny. If anecdotal evidence is good enough for the Common Core, it most certainly should be good enough for our children.
The growing outrage of parents and educators across our state is the result of the purposeful deafness of the educational leadership at the state and federal levels to our legitimate concerns. As a practical matter, student achievement has not improved anywhere this initiative has been introduced. We need look no further than New Orleans, Chicago, and Philadelphia to see the end result of the corporate takeover of our public schools. Significantly, not one single word was spoken about the effects of those grand initiatives on the children of those cities. We see a similar pattern here in New York. We don’t want that to happen here. We will do everything in our power to prevent it from happening here in New York. We will not be silent. We need
responsive leadership, not sound bites.
Sincerely,
Dr. Joseph V. Rella, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
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Dear Dr. Rella,
Thank you for your courage. Why aren’t you afraid? You could lose your job for making critical remarks about common core. I am with you all the way, but I need to work and can’t afford to say things that need saying.
An admiring no-one from the classrooms.
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Can’t wait to hear the next as the idiocy rises to the top. No, wait. The idiocy is over the top.
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Having just read ALL of the long comments below, and feeling pensive and, as always, in a journaling kind of mindset I want to say: it may well be that standards were needed, it may well be that expectations needed to be elevated, but it is the way and the method of attempting these efforts (if the attempt at improving public schools as public schools, and not for the sake of proving they need to be closed or taken over, by the DOE is genuine) that is actually slowing that task down. And causing vitriol in the process.
Ignoring the vitriol is not wise. People respond because they are affected, and their lives are real and matter too.
I recall a story my mother told of me as a stubborn child, who adored my grandmother Clara. If my mother suggested I wear certain dresses, I would not wear them. So she would tell Clara which ones I wasn’t wearing and Clara would suggest I wear them and so I did. I wanted to please her.
Half the issue here is who is suggesting (and forcing, really) the dress to be worn. Rather than fight me or reason with me about the dresses, my mother left them hanging in the closet until such time that Clara came around and then she pointed me towards them.
Obviously the education of children is far more serious a pursuit than what dress to wear, but the point is resistance to force and the autonomy of choosing who it is we wish to please.
It is not the uber-wealthy that the average American citizen, likely, dreams of impressing. Rather it is the networks to which they are associated and with whom they feel a kindred spirit that will inspire them to action. So while cleverness, cunning and acumen may have been exercised by David Coleman and the long line of wealthy folks (or those rubbing elbows with them) who have escorted us to this point, a lack of understanding on how to speak to the American heart is clearly present; and so we resist. And rightly so. We live but once. While Obama and his team may have selected America’s wealthiest Americans as the ones who will suggest what they wear (so to speak), that is they are the ones they want to impress, so be it. But assuming the country would go along with that where our children are concerned was quite short sighted. We are right to say no, we want a hand and a say in figuring out what is expected of our children, no matter how right or how glorious the Common Core or any other reform idea might be. And once those who have failed to see this can quit shouting at us about what dress to wear, or threatening us if we don’t wear it, and will rather leave it hanging in the closet until such time that Clara or the vision we wish to espouse at our own determination comes along to suggest it, perhaps there is a beautiful meeting point. And our schools might look lovely in their new frocks, that they selected and considered and participated in displaying in a way that pleases them. Americans should not be faulted for the sentiments of wanting to participate in the development of their children’s lives. Yes, Dr. Coleman, yes Arne: we love our children and our country and we want to be involved. We don’t want you to pick out our dresses for us.
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You’ve nailed it. Our government shows “a lack of understanding on how to speak to the American heart.”
I have been watching some of the recent tv shows on President Kennedy’s fight for civil rights. He spoke to Americans ]at a time when much of the country was not willing to hear his honest explanations of how racist practices kept men and women from the full expression of their constitutional freedoms simply because they were born black. There is little I can point to having heard in recent years that approaches his eloquence describing his concern for truth, for justice, and for peace.
And there is nothing in the selling of the Common Core that has a similar basis in truth or justice.
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Duane…I have explained varous times in the past few days that although I am posting comments as Woof Thomsen, the name my collie is lending me, I am Ellen Lubic who has been not only been posting comments here for over a year, but who also has written articles that Diane has kindly used as lead ins for discussion.
Evidently my computer and the Word Press software here are not compatible, and is only in the past few days I found I could sign on at a different mailbox account and be able to join the conversation again…but without an effort to conceal my real name. Got it???
I am a lifetime educator, over 40 years, in higher ed on public policy and also am an educational researcher. If that does not calm your accusatory mind, then I am at a loss, for you do fly off the handle on a regular basis.
I posted the LONG ‘stuff and nonsense’ from Tilson because we must understand how the hedge fund managers who seek to make vast profits from public education actually operate. I rarely trust hearsay…but generally read links and have found corroborating information most helpful. I would be happy to read any links you offer.
For anyone who is interested, suggest you research Students First and all their Board to learn more about major investors who are leading the charge to turn our public schools to private charters, of course on taxpayer funding.
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Never thought I’d agree with this guy, but politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Here’s a previous letter to Arne Duncan in 2008 from none other than William Ayers:
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I’m sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and “privatizing” a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools—but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it “accountability”)—is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It’s one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you’ve supported—in effect—putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What’s done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”
Sincerely,
William Ayers
Want to make sure this letter gets heard—and acted upon—send it to Secretary Duncan.
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I’m sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and “privatizing” a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools—but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it “accountability”)—is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It’s one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you’ve supported—in effect—putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What’s done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”
Sincerely,
William Ayers
Want to make sure this letter gets heard—and acted upon—send it to Secretary Duncan.
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I’m sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and “privatizing” a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools—but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it “accountability”)—is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It’s one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you’ve supported—in effect—putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What’s done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”
Sincerely,
William Ayers
Want to make sure this letter gets heard—and acted upon—send it to Secretary Duncan.
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I’m sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and “privatizing” a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools—but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it “accountability”)—is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It’s one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you’ve supported—in effect—putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What’s done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”
Sincerely,
William Ayers
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Excuse me for this botched up posting. The stress here at school and my excitement got the best of me.
A shorter correct posting follows. This post should be deleted.
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Never thought I’d agree with this guy, but look what William Ayers wrote to President Obama (and Arne Duncan) in 2008!
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I’m sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
The landscape of “educational reform” is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You’re not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent—who’s to say?—these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan—endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits—now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there’s absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed—fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and “privatizing” a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools—but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it “accountability”)—is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It’s one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you’ve supported—in effect—putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What’s done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”
Sincerely,
William Ayers
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