The Wall Street Journal responded to Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio’s choice of Carmen Farina as chancellor with bitterness. The editorial calls her “a competent steward of the failing status quo.” How could they overlook the fact that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the status quo for twelve years? How could they neglect that federal education policy–George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top–is the status quo? They are right that the status quo is failing. But how can they imagine that a man who has not yet taken office, a man who comes to the mayoralty after 20 years of Guiliani and Bloomberg is the status quo? A rational thinker might conclude that de Blasio represents a serious challenge to the status quo, which is very upsetting to the Wall Street Journal, defender of the status quo.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Review & Outlook
The Inequality Contradiction
Mayor de Blasio’s schools chief is a competent steward of the failing status quo.
Dec. 30, 2013 6:59 p.m. ET
The Bill de Blasio era begins in New York City on New Year’s Day, and the new mayor is saying his main preoccupation will be reducing inequality. No doubt he means it, but his appointment Monday of Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor won’t do much for that cause.
Ms. Fariña is by all accounts a competent steward of the education status quo. Known as a fine teacher herself, the 70-year-old served for a time as a deputy chancellor during the Bloomberg era but wasn’t a reform leader. Mr. de Blasio made a point in his Monday remarks announcing her selection that she had retired because she was unhappy with the direction of the Bloomberg reforms.
Those radical reform ideas included more competition (charter schools) and more accountability (measuring school and teacher performance in part by how well students do on tests). Ms. Fariña is said to favor collaboration, rather than competition, among schools. Collaboration is a nice word, but it will achieve nothing if all it means is accommodating the demands of unions for less school choice and less accountability while demanding more money.
The contradiction of the liberal inequality agenda is that it ignores the single biggest obstacle to upward economic mobility—the failure of inner-city public schools. Mr. de Blasio built his “tale of two cities” mayoral campaign, much as President Obama has built his economic agenda, around income redistribution. Raise taxes and spread the wealth.
But no amount of wealth shifting will raise the lifetime prospects of kids who can’t read or can only do 8th-grade math before they drop out of school. The education reform agenda is about reducing income inequality the old-fashioned American way—upward mobility and economic opportunity. By accommodating the education status quo, Mr. de Blasio will make the income gap even larger.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Disgusting. How can they explain away income inequality as being almost communist in its rectification, when 1/4 of the city can barely afford a sustenance no-frills lifestyle with brutally hard work for little pay for many? It’s not because of the schools that they’re there – and there are many qualified educated people who cannot get work either.
How is it acceptable to make it sound like if the schools simply did a better job, it would overcome hungry sick children with poor/absentee parents among other barriers thrown at them?
If this were a starting line, upper class people would be halfway to the finish line and our students would be a football field back from the starting line.
How will schools create social mobility or economic opportunity – how are schools to blame for the collapse of Wall Street and the disappearance of service jobs overnight due to a lack of disposable income by those who will use it rather than hoard it?
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By the Bloomberg administration’s calculations, 43% of New Yorkers are poor.
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That editorial sounded more like it came from the New York Post–oh wait, it did–the Wallstreet Journal was bought by Murdoch–owner of the Post and Fox News. Well–so much for journalistic integrity–e.g. Obama and income distribution???
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The little monarchies and princes of Wall Street are still trying to scare the “inequality” threat into all of us by berating a non-Bloomberg model of school systems. Who knows who Carmen Farina was and now really is.
I can say that on a personal note, she helped my wife and some parents at the school she was teaching in by reversing a horrendous policy where children were forced to change teachers and classrooms after two months of being in kindergarten. Ms. Farins recognized this sudden shift to be a worst practice and put a stop to it in two days or less.
Carmen Farina, unlike the Wall Street Plutocrats, was actually a real teacher and climbed the ranks after many years.
As I said, time will tell who she decides she really ends up being and therefore governing.
This article came from Wall Street.
It is Main Street that sends its kids to public schools.
Even if some of those Mainstreeters are angry white moms from the suburbs.
It does not matter.
Screw Wall Street, in plain English.
They at the very very top there have been screwing us for years . . . . . .
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Ah, if the WSJ, with their school choice (privatization) and accountability (blame teachers, test test test) reform agenda, doesn’t like Ms Farina, that says De Blasio made an excellent choice!.
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I can’t believe that highly educated, thoughtful people could believe this claptrap. The reform mantra has got to be sounding very tired even to the people who originally bought into it. Diane, can you understand how so many of your former colleagues can seriously look at the results of the reform movement and claim with any credibility that it has done anything to advance education in this country? I have to believe that thinking people are if not appalled at least feeling a dissonance between the message and its roll out.
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2Old2tch: I can’t understand my former colleagues and they can’t understand me. They think I have lost my mind, and I think they have no heart.
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Your former colleagues have lost their minds and hearts; you have gained wisdom. I don’t know how you tolerate so much, but I have learned from you that engaging in meaningful dialogue with anyone from any camp is far more productive than emoting, reacting, and feeling hopeless.
Lesson learned; brain permanently wired.
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A couple of thoughts:
1.Your old ‘comrades’, despite their level of schooling, have no tolerance for cognitive dissonance; they can’t accept a world that is rife with contradictions;
2.They honestly believe that the public schools are either in the dumpster, or heading in that direction; consequently, they are looking for a desperate fix to avoid ‘dumpsterdom’, or the perceived diminution/loss of american exceptionalism.
3.They have no ‘stomach’ to confront or ameliorate the core issues of income inequality, and the perverse redistribution of wealth that directly affect schooling;
4. They are either directly or indirectly benefiting from he ‘reform’ agenda’;
5. They have a conception of the role of education in a democratic society hat is fundamentally at odds with yours;
6. They are fundamentally liberals or conservatives who are committed to preserving the under-girding structures that drive american political economy.
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I worked in the business world for a while. Management. It’s about numbers. Being able to make “sense” of things through statistics. Everything is quantifiable. Very convenient. Saving money.
I think that’s one of basics of the reform movement, if not the front liner. The business world has taken over and is pushing it’s weight around. They don’t understand that education, because it involves children, adolescents, and young adults and their evolving minds, is an inexact science that requires much, much more than just statistics. They also don’t want to deal with the huge array of variables involved with such a diverse set of student needs. Thus the cookie cutter models we keep seeing.
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It takes a while, I have found, to get people to see that.
I have a friend and mentor who, several months ago, told me Obama had done more for education than any other president. I begged to differ and began sending him links to articles and blogs about what is going on–even shared my experiences watching RttT play out and FINALLY he admits a little bit that reforms since 2002 have not been positive (but he was a data guy himself). So I think some people are still blinded by the measurability aspect and the notion of “efficiency.” To them it feels good, like cleaning out your garage or something.
I know for a fact that there are people who would still be thinking the reform movement is grand had I not given them Diane’s book or pointed them towards things to read. So we just have to keep it up.
My relatives who see the reality have mostly chosen to send their children to private school just to avoid the whole mess. But we have to keep talking about it for people who do not have that option.
(I am proud to say my mother now reads this blog—hi mom!)
Synergy. It can’t be out with the old and in with the new. It has to be a blending of what was beautiful about each. Surely that can exist.
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They overlook it because to admit it is to go against their own agenda.
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It is about systemic change, teaching kids not robots http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-personal-map-to-success.html
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The old-fashioned American way-upward mobility and economic opportunity. Must be the model India uses as they outsource to Poland.
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So there is clearly the attitude of many that anything that resembles how things have been done over the last seventy five years smacks of something to be shunned and avoided. It’s like a prairie-burning or something; there is an attitude that any semblance of a teaching force that was trained before last year is no good. And that anyone of that ilk should be avoided.
Well that is silly.
Why does everything that has to do with this issue have to be so polarized? I would say that anyone supposing and assuming that all aspects of public education prior to 2010 must be avoided simply has some type of agenda that is not about synergy.
Synergy is the only way this will ever get sorted out. Public education is not a two-sided coin; it’s a marble. And if you shave off part of the marble it will no longer roll.
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The financial and mortgage crises that plagued our nation (and the world economy) began with the trickle-down policies of Ronald Reagan. Trade and budget deficits exploded, and the national debt quadrupled in only a dozen years.
The proliferation of the rich is the core element of supply-side economics, the preferred policy of Republican presidents and legislators, and the Wall Street Journal has been its main cheerleader. Yet, while the rich have prospered, their prosperity has come at the expense of the rest of the citizenry.
Supply-side policy speaks for itself. Budget and trade deficits. A huge accumulation of debt. Taxpayer-subsidized off-shoring of jobs. Laissez-faire regulatory and enforcement policies. Rampant rigging of “markets.” Socialism for corporations and the wealthy.
None of this had to happen. But big lies repeatedly told can be hard to deflate. As conservatives engage in recycling the same ludicrous supply-side economic ideas, and use the same big lies to support them, The Wall Street Journal has the loudest megaphone.
The fact that the failed supply-side ideas and policies are given even a shred of credibility by the American public and most of the mainstream media is cause for very serious concern.
Anyone who claims to be a “journalist” should believe in and adhere to former Washington Post owner and publisher Eugene Meyer’s principles of “ duty…to the public at large,” “to tell the truth as nearly as the truth can be ascertained,” and to “tell ALL the truth,” because an informed citizenry is “necessary for the public good.”
You will find very little – if any – of those principles in operation on the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal.
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The Wall Street Journal has a unique opportunity to explore the issues of the NYC public schools. They need to roll up their selves and get into the game. Perhaps they could urge their readership to do the same.
Imagine mentors who have the wealth and power to make changes.
Instead of being critical, get your hands dirty so you can speak with true authority. One full week should do it, although I would hope for a longer commitment.
To you, it’s a game. To many, it’s a way of life. Don’t just spout opinion, speak with authority. You might just change their world for the better.
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Reblogged this on Middletown Voice and commented:
WSJ is the guardian and defender of capitalism…thee public relations department for a group of financiers who have declared corporate socialism for themselves and free market capitalism for everyone else where the privileged begat privilege and the working man is “lucky to have a job.”
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“The education reform agenda is about reducing income inequality the old-fashioned American way—upward mobility and economic opportunity.”
If one puts the entire burden for reducing income inequality on public schools one can safely ignore all the other factors that contribute to income inequality: the demise of organized labor, a tax policy that favors wealth over earned income, the outright purchase of politicians by monied interests, completely deregulated political campaigns, the selling off and privatizing of whole sectors (including public education), and a business culture that favors paying those at the tippy-top huge salaries and focusing on the next quarters profits rather than long term growth.
Public schools are an easy target. Attacking middle class teachers as greedy and lazy is a lot less risky than challenging people who are actually powerful, which is why every politician and editorial page seizes on attacking public schools.
It’s easy, a “solution” to income inequality that doesn’t anger or offend anyone who is important or powerful.
By the way, this editorial could have been written by Arne Duncan. It’s all but identical to his mind-numbing recitation of talking points.
The funniest part to me is, this is considered “brave”. It’s a joke. Dumping the entire blame for income inequality on public schools isn’t brave at all. It’s a coward’s dodge, but it’s a very comfortable rhetorical groove they’ve all settled into, and it sure sounds good!
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I’ve been following this blog with great interest and my day job – one I’ve had for 30 years – is to protect the health and safety of occupants in public schools by conducting independent evaluations of indoor environmental problems and offering solutions to fix them. This is “boots-on-the-ground” work – I have conducted over 1000 inspections in public schools – & I have come to recognize how intertwined the deficient conditions that I see are not just with occupant health but also with academic achievement and fiscally sustainable management. I know that a healthy building is a “foundational” element critical to high quality and socially just education and that allowing unhealthy conditions to persist ensures adverse consequential impacts to our children, our educators and support staff, and our schools.
My work – doing independent environmental science assessments [I’m neither a union member, staffer, employee or teacher nor do I work for the school district ] is conducted at the direction, & on behalf of a teacher’s union which cares not just about the health of their own members but also about the health of the children in their charge and all other building occupants. In my experience, the same can not always be said for school district managers. Despite the words of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and, recently, the Wall Street Journal, in it’s editorial about Carmen Farina, collaboration and cooperation is a key element in the success of any organization.
While the notion of “competition” in the sense of challenging people to improve, to be innovative and passionate about their work, within an organization, has many positive aspects, the Klein-Rhee-Wall Street Journal attack on collaboration in public schools, is simply nonsense. Even from a corporate point of view, wildly successful private sector companies, Amazon and Google among them, foster, promote and publicize their culture of cooperation, collaboration, active involvement and input from staff and peer-review. The ideas of Klein, et. al. are not “reform” nor are they innovative or even successfully corporate – they are instead a tired robber-baron rehash that is more Enron that Amazon.
In my world, the lack of collaboration by school district management, has led to incredible [and continuing] waste, dishonesty and very real impacts on occupant health and on the fiscal health of the school district. Manage practices and approaches have also seriously negatively compromised credibility, morale and social justice. The real and hazardous conditions in many of our buildings – in both scale and scope – are offensive and egregious and are too hidden from the view of too many; we would be shocked to see where our kids actually sit. It is a lack of openness, transparency, collaboration, and knowledge that, I think, lies at the heart of many of the problems we face.
I have often observed, first hand, management policies that have impoverished and harmed our schools; and that it is the lack of collaboration, honesty and transparency that is a primary cause of much of what we are seeing now. After inefficient management, lack of skill and experience, malfeasance, and other destructive policies result in great pain and waste, our “managers” then cry poor claiming that they need to fix everything on the backs of teachers, other school district workers, parents and children. Accountability for the managers — not really — it’s not their fault, what can they do? – they are trying their best; instead let’s fire some teachers, cut our maintenance and custodial staffs, lay-off nurses, librarians, music and art teachers and some others, let mold grow and allow our buildings to crumble while, of course, making sure the parents, the students, and those educating and working for and with our kids, understand that collaboration, coordination, honesty, input and involvement is for fools and sissies.
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Unfortunately, the WSJ’s big lies are painless to adopt and require no sacrifice on anyone’s part— except those unfortunate enough to be born into poverty. Worse, the WSJ’s big lies are difficult to undercut because the narrative that accompanies them is embedded deeply in the psyche of WSJ readers. The WSJ readers believe that government is inefficient and the “private sector can do it better”; believe they can have quality public services without paying taxes; and who believe it is possible for a poor child to improve his or her lot in life by applying themselves or “getting three consecutive high quality teachers”. Their magical thinking is supported by faith and not by evidence and, as one commenter notes, even data-mongers have difficulty overcoming faith-based beliefs. Those of us who want to help children raised in poverty need to change the perception that we oppose accountability. We should use the unarguable evidence provided by the testing regimen that charters, union-busting, and school-closing are NOT working and the higher expenditures in suburban districts DO make a difference.
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I beg to differ…there are plenty of Wall Street Journal readers who KNOW that what the WSJ peddles is pure hokum…but they just don’t care. They favor their private bank accounts over any commitment to democratic values.
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I wonder how many WSJ staffers who report on education have spent any significant amount of time in the classrooms of underperforming schools (even a few full days would be eye-opening, I would think…) I believe they would generally see hard-working teachers who are constantly trying to overcome the realities of their students’ live OUTSIDE the classroom.
As an urban teacher in an “underperforming” school in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of my city, every morning starts with trying to settle some of my middle schoolers who have been up half the night playing video games, or coming in to school so angry about an abusive parent or parent’s boyfriend/girlfriend, or coming to school late and hungry because they missed the free cafeteria breakfast…(I always have some type of food available…). Of course I could go on and on. Quite often, these students are not grateful that I am trying to “take up the slack” by answering their needs…instead, I am the one that it is safe for them to lash out at because they are so angry and bewildered about the dysfunction that they are forced to endure in their homes. Those children who do come from more stable homes are affected because the others cause such disruption no matter what my lesson plans are. This is compounded by a principal in my school who doesn’t support his teachers’ efforts for positive discipline.
It is only when I have reached these angry kids by ministering to them before, during, and after school (usually at my own expense) that I have been able to improve their ability to concentrate and try their best to accomplish our academic goals. Children are not widgets…one size does not fit all, and often, when I put myself in some of their home situations, I wonder if I would be able to concentrate on my education either in their situations. The process to help our students be ready for education in these instances takes time, and patience, and when these children are “over-tested,” their confidence slides back to zero, and they have looked at ME like I have betrayed them…
So, WSJ writers/editors, I challenge you to go see what is going on for yourselves in these “underperforming” schools, and not just for a few hours when the district/principal knows you are coming, and puts on a little “dog and pony show.” Yes, we need reform, but we need to start with social policy that discourages teens from becoming parents, that requires parents to take responsibility for the children that they bring into this world, and that attempts to establish values that can move families out of poverty instead of just doling out the welfare that freezes them there…
Here’s one last thought, what if EVERY citizen had to give one day of service per year to an impoverished public school, helping a teacher in the classroom? Any adult can help simply by their presence with no need for training. My kids need so much attention that just having someone else circulate and encourage them makes a huge difference in my classes of 25 students. I think a day like that would be quite an opportunity in education FOR ALL!
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I was lucky enough to have some of those angry kids for more than a year as a special ed teacher in a self contained classroom. I often wondered myself if I could have survived much less overcome their home and neighborhood environment. Just like you, I spent an inordinate amount of time on preparing them to learn. I definitely failed any grading based on time on task. I too felt like my students who were ready to learn were being shortchanged, but no one was going to learn anything while the atmosphere was so full of tension from those kids who were ready to explode. That extra time I had with many of my students made a difference.
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One of the problems with special ed in my area is that they place everyone together. Heaven forbid your only problem is a learning disability. How can a child even think of learning when they have to deal with emotionally disturbed children who continually disrupt the class. Then there are sometimes disabled children who have their own needs. Also autistic kids and children with severe Tourette’s. Plus, way to often, those kids are placed then forgotten. My dyslexic son would never have functioned. We kept him in a regular class with help from a teacher aid all through elementary school (it was a fight). Ironically, I couldn’t get him extra time on the assessments because his scores were too high. Behavior wise, he was a model student and he was well loved by his teachers. Recently I was at an in service and ran into some teachers who worked at his old elementary school. They were not his teachers, but they all knew exactly who he was, even though it was over ten years since he had graduated from fourth grade. He still is close to his second grade teacher and her husband.
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Yes, even before I was “retired,” I was a non-categorical special ed teacher. That meant that they could put everyone in my class who was not severely disabled or prone to violence. We did okay since class size was limited to 15 with a TA. Unfortunately, too many people believe that least restrictive environment means the general education classroom. For some students it is not appropriate for either them or the mainstream classroom. They are too far behind and end up acting out or zoning out.
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My son was actually very well behaved. The teacher aide’s job was to keep him focused on the task. We got him through eighth grade. The speech and reading teachers worked with him in middle school and taught him to read. You would never know he had any issues just by appearances. He is a handsome, athletic young man with a heart warming charm. High School was too much. We (his parents plus the school district) tried everything, but realized it wasn’t working and convinced him to get his GED. He actually ended up “graduating” early. He didn’t fit the special ed mold they had in place.
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None of the kids fit the mold. That’s one reason I loved teaching special education. There didn’t use to be a mold; we did what worked. The array of students I taught over the years needed that smaller, nurturing environment that was geared to them individually. I taught middle school/jr. high students in upper middle income suburban communities and high school in a urban/suburban lower socioeconomic community. The need to have someone believe in them and to help them believe in themselves was the same no matter where I taught. Your son was lucky to have your strong, knowledgeable, support.
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In middle school he had a wonderful resource teacher. There were six boys in the class, three are still his friends (they all work at restaurants). She gave them many confidence building experiences, including an overnight camping trip. The school district was amazing, financing special programs to meet student needs, especially in the younger grades.
I’m sure you did the same sorts of things with your students and their lives were the better for the experiences.
Isn’t that what we want for all kids.
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Wall Scrooge Journal. (And that’s putting it too kindly.)
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Considering who owns the WSJ and hundreds of other “non-news” sources, I would expect no less from them. They are a mouthpiece for charter, privatized schools–hate anything public.
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Yep, WSJ remains the corporate status quo mouthpiece.
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Tragically, before the accountability movement professional educators were always saying follow the research. Today, it is follow the money. The push back on de Blasios appointment illustrates how far from power educators are. The absurdity of calling out the new Mayor for appointing a professional educator—an individual who has actually been in the classroom— is astounding. I continue to blame the President and his hapless Secretary of Education, for doubling-down on an ideological framework that had turned our profession upside down: holding educational credentials makes you unqualified to hold an educational leadership position. This is not only happening in our profession–throughout the public service sector the degree after you name required to assume a leadership role is M.B.A.—all other degrees (M.D, Ph.D,) are invalid.
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Thank you Dianne Ravitch for educating me on what is really going on in public education-especially in NYC!!! I wish you a very happy and healthy new year!! Thank you so very much!!!
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Orwellian Doublespeak (and double $$) torture the truth and rape our reality. Um, Murdock. Um Fox News. Free press? No.
Thank you, thank you, Diane for speaking out!! Please live forever and have a wonderful and Happy New Year.
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Different Subject but you may want to read this column by James Gill, former editor at the Times-Picayune. http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/7945767-123/james-gill-voucher-program-not. I don’t know how to make it live, but it is his 12-31 column. Strangely, in Bobby Jindal country it was only printed in the Advocate.com edition, not in the paper.
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Wonderful column. Good to hear the truth for a change. Too bad it was hidden away from the average reader.
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