Archives for the year of: 2013
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Jonathan Lovell Channels John Keats While Reading “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
12

Jonathan Lovell teaches writing at San Jose State in California. A few weeks ago, he sent me a couplet from Alexander Pope to steel me when angry critics lash out. These were the lines:

“Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me.” 

I met Jonathan in Berkeley last week and signed his book. He wrote a few days later that he had been reading the book aloud to his wife, a practice they both enjoyed, reading and discussing. And he sent this note:

I’ve been searching my mind for a way to adequately describe the impact of listening to this book read aloud, slowly, chapter by chapter.

Here’s the best analogy I could summon, with the gravest of apologies to John Keats:

On First Looking into Ravitch’s *Reign of Error*

Much have I travell’d in education’s realm
And men like Cremin hold in high esteem.
Round many an author have I plied my helm,
And some have made me weep, and others, dream.
But of a wide expanse had I been told
Which one called Ravitch held with sway supreme.
Some travell’d there, its wonders to behold,
And many found their thinking newly clean.

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Error speak out loud and bold;
Then felt I like some watcher in the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like Balboa, when with eagle eyes,
He stared at the Pacific. Just so your fans
Now view each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

With both affection and regard,
Jonathan

Can there be any greater reward for a writer than such a response? I think not.

Categories Reign of Error

Larry Lee Reviews “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
2

Larry Lee is a native Alabamian who has been writing about education in his home state for many years. He has been writing about rural schools, in particular, which are often forgotten and greatly in need. This is his review of “Reign of Error.” It appeared in the Anniston Star.

His study, “Lessons Learned from Rural Schools,” is a powerful testament to the children, families, communities, and educators who struggle to provide good schools under difficult circumstances. Larry Lee is a member of the board of the Network for Public education.

Categories Alabama, Reign of Error

COW Charter May Close Due to Low Enrollment

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
12

The charter chain called Citizens of the World opened in Brooklyn, hoping to attract a white affluent crowd. Despite intense community opposition, the school opened with room for 126 students. Only 65 showed up. The school may be forced to close due to its low enrollment. No waiting list. Only three children from the neighborhood enrolled.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City

Parents Boo NY Commissioner John King and Boo the Common Core Too

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
78

New York Commissioner John King thought it would be a good idea to hold a series of town halls with parent groups around the state.

No doubt he expected to be showered with praise for his leadership in quickly implementing the Common Core.

He was in for a big surprise. He was met with outrage by parents who do not like the Common Core, hate the testing, and despise the State Education Department for imposing it on their children and teachers.

The parents booed and jeered. They ridiculed everything the commissioner said.

Anthony Cody has some of the video here; parents have sent me many more. They all show the same spectacle: the state commissioner as the object of angry parents.

Commissioner King has canceled all future public meetings with parent associations.

Did he learn anything? Will he reconsider the course that the state has embarked upon?

Don’t count on it.

The authoritarian mindset is impervious to change.

Lesson: in a democratic society, there are no shortcuts to the democratic process. This is supposed to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Bill Gates and Arne Duncan do not own our minds or our children. They are not for sale. The public will be heard.

Categories Common Core, New York, Parents

Ka-Ching! For-Profits Dominate Teacher Education

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
9

In its relentless quest to improve education in the United States, corporate reformers are turning teacher education into an online, for-profit business. Advocates say it is very successful because future teachers can beam into the classroom from their homes. Not much interaction with peers. Not much opportunity to practice teach in classes with living children, but who needs living children when virtual children are available and cheap?

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Lubic: The Cozy Nepotism in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
22

Might Makes Right When Viewing LAUSD and California Nepotism…..or does it?

By Ellen Lubic, Educator and angry taxpayer

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times printed two stories that affect public school education, and those who ‘dabble’ in it. One was by journalist Howard Blume on the Billion Dollar iPad scandal at LAUSD, and the other was written as an op-ed team by Eli Broad and Richard Riordan, two of our always prominent LA billionaires.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-lausd-ipads-20131007,0,7268509.story

This tag team, who own between them the wealth of a small nation, self-describe their activities, generosity, and community spirit, as the most major of philanthropists. It seems to be a rationale of why the majority of us should love, cherish, and probably obey, America’s billionaires. This self-serving op-ed, comes on the heels of the Times finally allowing Blume to recently print truth about what is happening to taxpayers, students, parents, and generally, public education in our community. It was at very least a ‘quid pro quo’ day at the Times, with the ipowerful billionaires getting their half page of self aggrandizing space, and the rest of us getting to read some accurate information about the farce Supt. Deasy, Eli Broad’s chosen/mandated guy, has once again perpetrated on us all.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1008-banks-education-ipads-20131008,0,2823736.column

Today, we get more bad news, but now about LAUSD School Board President, Richard Vladovic, regarding charges that not only were made 13 years ago on his management style, but that were carefully reviewed some months ago. Vladovic today apologized for things said in anger. So why bring them up again now?
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/174490330#fullscreen

With the amazing behind-the scenes power that Broad and Riordan have with their battery of O’Melveny and Meyers legal team, and their best in the world Public Relations team, they seem certainly to be able to join with Deasy to create a new ‘spin’ to deflect We, the People, from focusing on the huge waste of our tax money and the ongoing deficiencies of their chosen Superintendent Deasy.
The possibly sweetheart iPad deal made for the over-retail cost Apple iPads, with Deasy having been entangled with Apple both as a stockholder and on an employee level wherein Apple used him in their ads to promote the iPads, and with the Deasy/Broad resigned Asst. Supt. Jaime Aquino having worked for the British corporation, Pearson, which made endless millions with their Common Core software for the iPads, and who knows how much more secret dealing, all this should alert the public who pays the freight for all these bad decisions.

Looking purely at costs to the public, not at ethics, these fiasco deals that we now know about, and factoring in the multitude of lawsuits against LAUSD from teachers in teacher jail which are never publicized, are all costing us a fortune of our hard-earned tax money. The clear evidence of terrible management of LAUSD should certainly be obvious to all, and present the only solution, to rid the district of these managers and do a national search for managers who are not tainted by being trained by the Broad Academy to be corporate CEOs rather than academic leaders of our public schools.

To add to this egregious LA nepotism, we learn today that our new Mayor Eric Garcetti, compounds his position of appointing charter school supporter, Ms. Melendez (with her own sweetheart deal surrounding her pay check, by staying on the LAUSD payroll although working for Garcetti, to eventually have the highest level of pay for her retirement 10 years from now) to lead his Dept. of Education.

http://laschoolreport.com/la-unified-board-expected-approve-marquez-bond-committee/

Today we learn that he has appointed Mrs. Abigail Marquez ( holdover from the Villaraigosa days), his big campaign contributor and fund raiser, to be on the Construction Bond Committee (see LA School Report today for these stories, and the LA Times). This is the pseudo advisory Committee that approved using the Construction Bond funding for the IPads purchase in the first place. And this woman, when googled, shows no business nor academic background for this appointment.
We California taxpayers will be paying for the long outdated and obsolete iPads, with big interest, for the next 25 years as we pay off the Construction Bond. In addition, the new Mayor’s wife worked with/for Riordan some years ago to implement his charter schools. It does not take genius to figure this out, but it makes you wonder if only highly educated people with proven business acumen, and no personal axes to grind, should have oversight of our tax money, not rich housewives who get political perks for their donations to legislators.

Many folks will certainly be looking into the business connections of all these interrelated elected, appointed, and just plain uber rich, overlords who are mangling public education with the goal of turning our system of universal free education into a big free market investment opportunity. (Suggest everyone read the Tilson Blog Site to see how this hedge fund manager is working to this end…all of this info herein can be found online.)

http://edreform.blogspot.com/

We must also keep in mind how the input of our former Mayor Tony Villaraigosa, (an outspoken lover of charter schools, and soon to be a candidate for Governor of California, who now works for the questionable pyramid-run company Herbalife while his longtime pal Fabian Nunez works for charter promoter Michelle Rhee whose husband is Mayor of Sacramento where they closed 23 public inner city schools this year), whose cousin is now Speaker of the House in Sacramento, factors into all this. Tony saw to it that his billionaire contacts like Bloomberg and Murdoch and the Waltons sent considerable millions to influence the last LA School Board elections, to get pro-charter school candidates elected. That failed when Steve Zimmer and Monica Ratliff beat the billionaires, proving that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

It is seems like a game of Monopoly. Who owns “boardwalk”…who owns our public schools????

So, America, who says Los Angeles, and California, cannot compete for the dirtiest, most nepotistic, politics award?

Categories Los Angeles

Reader: Some Miss the Good Old Days of Academic and Racial Segregation

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
58

Yes, we do know the secret of getting high test scores!

Exclude the kids who might get low scores.

Kick out the kids who do get low scores.

Only strivers need apply. Only strivers will be admitted.

It is the formula for a miracle school!

All children get high scores!

All children (who weren’t kicked out) graduate and go to college!

This s the golden dream of Race to the Top.

Cull the best, forget the rest!

Chentcher writes:

“Edweek has closed the comments on Bridging Differences!

On this very topic, Petrilli wrote a column today defending policies that “dump” the vast majority of inferior, undeserving needy students. He calls on today’s reformers to establish a mercilessly demanding environment like the one that once allowed a few exceptional, highly motivated and “deserving” negro students a straight and narrow path upward:
“Though relegated to second-class status and stifled at every turn, Dunbar produced a coterie of graduates that the most elite schools in the country would envy. Doctors, lawyers, Ivy League professors, generals, and titans of business all graced and were graced by Dunbar’s faculty and community.”

After waxing nostalgic for the Golden Age of segregation, Petrilli actually wrote these words:

“And this, of course, was in the Jim Crow era.
Dunbar later became a regular, de-tracked, “comprehensive” high school–and started its long slide. Would anyone argue that Washington, D.C., is better off as a result?”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2013/10/the_especially_deserving_poor.html

I just want to say, with all my heart, yes. Please consider all that rose up, among the generations of “undeserving” poor children who gained access to our public schools. I want to say, a promise has been made that can’t be called back.

Anthony Cody has written a column in response, “Social Darwinism in the Gilded Age”
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/10/social_darwinism_resurrected_f.html

Comments have been closed on Cody’s blog, also! Diane, please link his column, and write about this where we can discuss it.”

Categories Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Did ACT Scores Go Up in Dallas Because of Data Manipulation?

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
9

A reader sent the following comment. I can’t vouch for its authenticity but urge reporters in Dallas to do so:

 

A newly exposed DISD controversy involves claims that college readiness improved in 2012/13 under Mike Miles. This claim is on page 218 of the “Data Packet for 2013/14 Planning,” online at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/CILT2014/DP1000.pdf . It shows the average ACT score as having gone from 17 to 18, numbers that for the first time in DISD history are rounded to whole numbers in all public reports for 2013. The more precise averages are 17.2 for 2012 and 17.6 for the 2013 ACT average.
On the same page 218, the normal average annual 17+% increase in minority students tested since 2007 suddenly decreased 23% from 2012 to 2013. The percentage of Black students taking the ACT decreased 20.9%, the Hispanic percentage decreased by 24%, but the White percentage increased 0.8%. It is obvious that any ACT improvement are only due to the 23% decrease in the minority student populations tested, populations that have a tragic history of low ACT scores.
Why has this significant decrease in minority students tested not been covered by the media? It has been known for over 3 months by DISD. It is setting back minority percentages tested over three years! It has not even been mentioned by DISD staff at any DISD Board meetings during these months.
Mike Miles came to Dallas with the advancements of ACT average scores being among his central claims to fame in Colorado. More and more it appears the 33% drop in senior enrollment in his Colorado District was a central factor in that gain. It now appears that DISD is already on the way to a 5% loss in senior class enrollment for the Class of 2014, the first such loss since 2006! Last years enrollment was a 30+ year record senior class enrollment!
Categories Accountability, Testing, Texas

Needed: School Nurses

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2013 //
42

Earlier today, I posted Daniel Denvir’s article about the death of a 12-year-old who was having an asthma attack. The school in Philadelphia has a nurse only two days a week, and that day there was none.

This reader comments:

“I knew that this would happen. I taught in Phila for years and am now retired. Poor children seem to have high incidences of chronic ailments. Asthma is one. These children often share their inhalers with the rest of their families as the medications for asthma are quite expensive. Their diseases are not as well managed so they go into crisis more often than children who are able to keep up with the costs of the disease. Make no mistake. People die from asthma. The reason we don’t hear about that happening very often is that for most the medical establishment can manage it quite effectively, but it is expensive.

I have two stories. In one school, the nurse, who is excellent and has vast experience as an er nurse as well, made the call to send for a child’s parent’s due to the severity of that child’s asthma. Someone who was not a nurse decided that child should not go home. Thankfully the nurse knew it was her call and she did not have to listen to anyone else, including a principal to make that kind of decision. What if the nurse wasn’t there. What would have happened to that child.

My second story is this. Phila schools were taken over by the state over a decade ago. We are all aware that among all of the other cuts, there was to be only one nurse for every 1500 kids. That meant that there were schools that did not have any nurses. The pronouncement from on high was that each principal was to appoint a teacher to be the nurse, and that if a teacher did not take that job, they were to be written up as insubordinate. Thankfully there were some principals who had the brains to understand that this was a very dangerous call. I don’t know if that rule still applies, but I know that there are still not enough nurses and am very surprised that many more children have not either died or been hospitalized due to this ignorant and callous policy.

Kids go outside and fall or hit their heads all the time. What layman knows the signs of a
traumatic head injury? How can a teacher tell if a child’s asthma warrants a visit to the emergency room? What if an adult in the school is having a stroke and the nurse is the only one to recognize the signs.(it happened).”

Categories Budget Cuts, Philadelphia

Amy Prime Reviews “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2013 //
5

Amy Prime teaches second grade in Prime, Iowa. She also writes frequently for newspapers in Iowa. This review of Reign of Error appeared in the Des Moines Register.

Prime says that if she had designed the jacket, “it would include an illustration of Diane Ravitch, sledgehammer in hand, smashing a brick wall with the words “Education Reform.” We would see bricks falling down with words on them such as Race to the Top, Arne Duncan, NCLB, vouchers, Gates Foundation and standardized assessments.”

She writes:

“Teachers who read this book will identify with many of the discussion items and will come away feeling vindicated as evidence is presented that no, our schools are not actually “failing” or slipping but are as strong as ever. Gains are being made by all students and they have been for decades. Ravitch notes, “Students of all racial and ethnic groups are reading better now than they were in 1992.” She also shows how mathematics scores have improved significantly from 1992-2011.

Some other ideas that are successfully taken to task in Ravitch’s book are: the thought that testing students improves their education (in fact it doesn’t), the belief that charter schools educate children better than public schools (they don’t), the suggestion that merit pay is a fair and motivating way to improve teacher quality (it isn’t), the idea that class size doesn’t matter (it does) and that poverty isn’t an issue once a child reaches the schoolhouse doors (it is).

The most terrifying and pressing subject matter in Ravitch’s book is the clear and present danger facing our schools due to the greed of corporate entities and persons intent on the privatization of our public schools for their own personal gain. Any politician who has not already been bought by one of these groups must read this book to be made aware of the tricks, lies, and propaganda that will besiege them during sessions of lawmaking so that they can avoid making the job of destroying our schools any easier. Anyone who reports on education should read this book to have more facts about what is really happening and have less reliance on talking points from those with the loudest voices…..

Ms. Ravitch’s book equips teachers, students, parents, school board members and other conscientious members of our American community with the statistical, historical, and otherwise evidence-based data to fight the persistent and seemingly convincing rhetoric repeated by those with the attention of the media. Her voice as an advocate, along with strong pieces of writing such as this, will lead the charge for the take back of our public community and neighborhood schools until they are stronger than ever before.

 

 

Categories Reign of Error
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