As states cut the budget for public schools, lay off teachers, increase class sizes, fire librarians and social workers, guidance counselors and teacher aides, we hear the same refrain: Sorry, the money’s all gone.
But is it? Read this article and you will find where the money went.
A Korean camera crew showed this photo-essay to me. I think they had a hard time understanding the number of police officers that created “safe passage” for students on their way to school in Chicago.
They came to interview me about how money affects the politics of education in the United States. The producer had a copy of The Death and Life of the Great American School System, translated into Korean. I gave him a copy of Reign of Error to take back to Korea. I asked whether there were any charter schools or vouchers in Korea. He said, “No. But there are alternative schools. The alternative schools are for children who misbehave.”
He asked me again and again to explain why political leaders were closing public schools. He found this concept incomprehensible.
Korea is one of the highest performing nations on international tests. It has the highest proportion of college graduates of any nation in the OECD.
Alfie Kohn has a terrific article in Education Week with the title above. It is behind a pay wall and I can’t repost it in full, lest I get an angry scolding from Edweek.
But here are a few good excerpts:
“It pains me to say this, but professionals in our field often seem content to work within the constraints of traditional policies and accepted assumptions-even when they don’t make sense. Conversely, too many educators seem to have lost their capacity to be outraged by outrageous things. Handed foolish and destructive mandates, they respond only by requesting guidance on how to implement them.”
And, what do courageous educators do?
“Digging deeper. It requires gumption to follow one’s principles wherever they lead. One may hope, for example, that children will be lifelong learners. But what if evidence and experience tell us that interest in learning declines when students are graded and made to work on academic assignments at home? Are we willing to question any traditional practices-including grades and homework-that interfere with important goals?”
And:
“Even when practices seem to be producing good results, a courageous educator questions the criteria: “Wait a minute-we say this policy ‘works,’ but doesn’t that just mean it raises scores on bad tests?” “My classroom may be quiet and orderly, but am I promoting intellectual and moral development, or merely compliance?” “Aren’t our graduates getting into prestigious colleges mostly because they’re from affluent families? Are we helping them become deep and passionate thinkers?””
There’s much more, but you will have to dig deeper to find it.
This letter is a moving tribute to everyone who works in schools every day to care for, nurture, and educate children.
It was written by Nebia Marquez-Greenhad, who lost one of her two children in the Sandy Hook massacre last December.
Her daughter Ana Grace died, her son survived.
In this letter, she thanks all of those who dedicate their lives to education.
Since teachers, principals, social workers, psychologists, librarians, and other school staff seldom get the thanks they deserve for their selfless work, I print her letter in full here.
As another school year begins and old routines settle back into place, I wanted to share my story in honor of the teachers everywhere who care for our children.
I lost my 6-year-old daughter Ana Grace on Dec. 14, 2012, in the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. My son, who was in the building and heard the shooting, survived.
While waiting in the firehouse that day to hear the official news that our daughter was dead, my husband and I made promises to ourselves, to each other, and to our son. We promised to face the future with courage, faith, and love.
As teachers and school employees begin this new year, my wish for you is that same courage, faith, and love.
It takes guts to be a teacher. Six brave women gave their lives trying to protect their students at Sandy Hook. Other teachers were forced to run from the building, stepping over the bodies of their friends and colleagues, and they came right back to work.
While I pray you will never find yourself in the position of the teachers at Sandy Hook, your courage will support students like my son, who have lived through traumas no child should have to.
Your courage will support students who are left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter. At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school. You will have kids facing long odds for whom your smile, your encouraging word, and your willingness to go the extra mile will provide the comfort and security they need to try again tomorrow.
When you Google “hero,” there should be a picture of a principal, a school lunch worker, a custodian, a reading specialist, a teacher, or a bus monitor. Real heroes don’t wear capes. They work in America’s schools.
Have faith that your hard work is having a profound impact on your students. Of the 15,000 personal letters I received after the shooting, only one stays at my bedside. It’s from my high school English teacher, Robert Buckley.
But you can’t be courageous or step out on faith without a deep love for what you do.
Parents are sending their precious children to you this fall. Some will come fully prepared, and others not. They will come fed and with empty bellies. They will come from intact homes and fractured ones. Love them all.
When my son returned to school in January, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Imagine the difficulty in sending your surviving child into a classroom when you lost your baby in a school shooting. We sent him because we didn’t want him to be afraid.
According to the 2011-12 National Survey of Children’s Health, nearly half of America’s children will have suffered at least one childhood trauma before the age of 18. They need your love.
A few weeks before the shooting, Ana Grace and I shared a special morning. Lunches were packed and clothes were picked out the night before, so we had extra time to snuggle. And while I lay in bed with my beautiful caramel princess, she sensed that I was distracted and asked, “What’s the matter, Mom?” I remember saying to her, “Nothing, baby. It’s just work.” She looked at me for a very long time with a thoughtful stare, then she told me, “Don’t let them suck your fun circuits dry, Mom.”
As you begin this school year, remember Ana Grace. Walk with courage, with faith, and with love. And don’t let them suck your fun circuits dry.
Jan Resseger, previously selected as a hero of public education, lives in Ohio, where she has seen the pernicious effects of dire poverty, privatization, and profiteers who make generous campaign contributions to politicians who protect their faltering privately-managed schools.
Here is her review of “Reign of Error.”
She writes:
“My personal favorite chapter on first-reading the book is “Trouble in E-Land,” an exploration of the history of for-profit virtual charter schools and their growth in particular states at the expense of the public education budget. While I already knew a lot about this topic, the chapter connected the dots for me in new ways.
“This book should feel threatening to supporters of today’s school “reform.” Ravitch has built and documented a formidable critique of their movement and a deeply principled defense of public education.”
Michael Paul Goldenberg decries the critics who think I am impolite, shrill, shrieking, noisy–and he notes, I am none of those things. The problem, he says, is that I disagree with the critics, and they are not used to that. If I were a man, they might use other adjectives. How familiar it is to hear powerful men complaining about a woman, a grey-haired woman at that, who doesn’t know her place. Why, Goldenberg says, I am just plain “uppity.” He detects sexism. So do I, though I am usually the last to raise that banner.
He concludes:
I realize that it would be much nicer for these wealthy, powerful, dishonest people if everyone would treat them with complete politeness, respect, and diffidence. They would prefer that we trust them completely and let them do their “good works” unmolested by critics and criticism. Or to put it bluntly, they’d like those of us who aren’t dead from the neck up to shut our mouths and go away. Their motto may well be, “Quiet! Capitalist at work!”
Diane said several years ago at the premiere of THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT “WAITING FOR SUPERMAN” that there are no billionaires coming to save us – teachers, parents, students, and citizens of good will. We have to rely on us. And she’s been sounding that battle cry in many forms and forums ever since. And I’m confident she will keep speaking out, keep writing, keep analyzing, keep inspiring and igniting more people to think, look, and act to preserve the crucial democratic institution of free public education, devoid of commercial interests and corporate control. And thus, she will continue to aggravate the piss out of both the billionaire education deformers and their various lackeys, frontmen, and minions.
What she won’t do is be quiet, be overly polite (though she is, in fact, unusually polite), be a docile woman or a schtummer Yid*, no matter what insults and invective is sent her way. But she cannot be expected to do it alone. So neither can we stand by and let her do all the lifting or face the Ravitch Hawks alone.
*silent Jew
Former State Superintendent Tony Bennett left detailed fundraising lists on Department of Education computers. Whether he broke the law or was merely careless is under investigation. Meanwhile, the files are public due to a Freedom of Information request by reporter Tom LoBianco of the Associated Press.
This review by Mercedes Schneider was written with teachers in mind, because Mercedes is a high school teacher in Louisiana.
She writes with her usual spunk and verve.
Spoiler alert: She likes the book.
Read her penultimate paragraph and laugh out loud
Three years ago, when my last book was published, I heard from a professor in Pennsylvania named Tim Slekar who asked if I would join the opt-out movement. I told him no. I thought it was too extreme. I don’t think so anymore. Testing has become extreme. It is now the driving force in education. The only way to make it stop is to stop cooperating with those who see children as data.
I support those who see children as unique human beings, not as Big Data or data points.
Testing is not teaching. It takes time from teaching.
Testing is valuable when teachers and students get prompt feedback and learn where students need help. But in New York, neither teachers nor students were allowed to see the questions and answers, only the scores. Of what value is that?
Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out informed me that her worthy organization has selected “Reign of Error” for its book club. That is great.
Opt out.
Anthony Cody, one of America’s best teacher-bloggers, reviews “Reign of Error.”
He ably summarizes the major ideas in the book and refutes the claim that I “paint with too broad a brush.”
And he concludes:
“Educators feel that Diane Ravitch speaks for us in a way that few others do. That is clearest when she writes this, in bringing her book to a close:
Genuine school reform must be built on hope, not fear; on encouragement, not threats; on inspiration, not compulsion; on trust, not carrots and sticks; on belief in the dignity of the human person, not a slavish devotion to data; on support and mutual respect, not a regime of punishment and blame. To be lasting, school reform must rely on collaboration and teamwork among students, parents, teachers, principals, administrators and local communities. “
