2013 had some surprises for me, both good and bad.
This blog turned out to be a huge preoccupation. I spend 4-5 hours on it every day. You help me write it, as many of the blogs are your comments, explaining your experience as a teacher or parent or principal or superintendent.
The blog is now approaching 9 million page views, and it started only in April 2012.
I am not data-driven, as the numbers have no consequences for me or anyone else. I won’t get a bonus or be fired for not hitting a target. It is just great to know that there are so many people participating in the conversations, contributing to them, learning together about what is happening in other states and in one teacher’s classroom.
I blog more than I tweet, but I have been trying to cut back on the number of blogs, so that readers don’t feel overwhelmed. That is why some days you will see only 5 or 6 or 7 posts, whereas I used to send out 15 or 20, with no regard for what I was doing to your email inbox. So, yes, I am trying to restrain myself, and I turn to Twitter to tweet interesting stories that I don’t post.
My Twitter following is now over 70,000, which means that whatever gets posted here on this blog automatically reaches the Twitter followers. That enlarges the conversation. I direct the conversation, but I don’t limit it to people who agree with me. There can’t be a good discussion if everyone agrees on everything.
I thank you for helping me to create a space where we can celebrate, commiserate, and offer one another encouragement and information.
I consider all the readers of the blog to be my friends, and it is always a treat when someone comes up at a speaking engagement and introduces himself or herself by their blog name or Twitter I.D.
I know every one of you, believe it or not.
I try to read every comment.
Thank you.
A few more pieces of good news:
My latest book Reign of Error was published in September 2013 and was on the New York Times bestseller list for four weeks. It was listed by Apple as one of the best books of the year and by the Nation magazine as the “most valuable” books of the year.
I won the Grawemeyer education award for 2014, not for Reign of Error, but for my previous book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. I will be in Louisville on February 1 to speak to the Kentucky School Boards Association, and will return to Louisville to receive the Grawemeyer award on April 16.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that when I was near the end of my fall speaking tour, I became very ill with deep vein thrombosis. That means blood clots in the legs, in my case, both legs. That means i must get up and walk around when I fly, and that means I am on blood thinners for the rest of my life to avoid a recurrence. I had to cancel speaking dates in Chicago, Madison, and Las Vegas. But I start up again in mid-January and I will be traveling again. I will post my spring schedule in the next couple of weeks.
I feel very hopeful about the future. I feel that the tide is turning in our struggle to reclaim our schools from the misguided policies of the past dozen years of NCLB and Race to the Top. All the competition, testing, accountability, merit pay, privatization, and other policies have failed. They fail again and again. They don’t improve education. They are damaging our precious public school system, skimming off the best kids when they can or discouraging them by taking away the joy of learning.. They are hurting children, demeaning education, demoralizing educators. They fail and fail and fail, and sooner or later the public will awaken to the great hoaxes that are being perpetrated in the name of “reform.”
I believe in the basic common sense of the American people. They will not willingly allow themselves to be tricked once they are on to the game. The game is almost over. there are no miracle schools, just games that adults play. The billionaires will get bored and go back to playing with their yachts and polo ponies. Common sense will prevail. We owe our children a far better education than the impoverished game of test-and-punish that is now mandated. We owe them more than test prep. We owe our teachers respect and honor. We owe our society a great educational system.
And I am convinced we will persist and we will reclaim education.
Thank you Diane for all you do on behalf of public education and good sense. I wish you a happy and healthy new year and really value your blog as a much needed antidote to the insanity of “reformers.”
Thank you for your commitment, passion and sharing your knowledge. What you share and do inspires me. I’ve learned so much and I share all of it. Your writing is wonderful and full of information that engages me all the time…regardless of the number of posts you make. Reading this blog is part of my daily diet. Happy New Year! I wish you great health this year and beyond! xoxoxo
And we all thank you for all of what you do and have done. Interesting note. I was invited to speak at an anti common core forum at a South Carolina Tea Party Convention. So I guess that’s not limiting the discussion to people who agree with me, although I have gotten some serious backlash from progressives who are afraid of discussions with other deeply concerned people about who runs schools. I find that ironic.
The only way to stop the Common Core is to forge alliances. I argue this point in a blog: http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2013/12/forging-coalitions-to-stop-common-core.html
Keep up the great work, Diane! I read your blog everyday for ideas and inspiration.
Nicholas, what do you do at Fordham? I went there as an undergrad and worked at the grad school of Ed as field specialist and adjunct
I suppose I can’t speak for others, but please don’t worry about cluttering my inbox or overwhelming me – the more the better! The only limit to your blogging should be your own interest and stamina, which seem to be startlingly limitless.
If people are overwhelmed by the volume in their inbox, the can always unsubscribe and just check in here directly when and if they feel like it.
This point of view brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful woman and such a fine lady. This view from Ms Ravitch truly is the purpose of why we do what we as teachers, parents, grandparents, and community members, do. Special interest groups? Call us whatever you like. Communicating such as this is what makes me go on day by day and know what I truly believe is right for all of our children, can be done through each of us. Slow down NEW YORK and enjoy life’s most precious jewels…our children. Thank you Diane Ravitch. You rock.
More than anybody else, it was your tireless effort that is turning the tide. I truly believe that you will be ranked with Mann, Dewey and others as one of America’s greatest educators. It is one thing to educate children, but quite another thing to educate a nation as well as fearlessly speak truth to power. Happy New Year and please keep healthy.
“I believe in the basic common sense of the American people. ”
Finding your blog in April of 2012, gave me a perspective and an assurance that my sadness and anger regarding “reforms” was not an “over-reaction”. Your clear and scholarly writing, your unselfish and relentless work to get the truth out to the public is invaluable. There is no way to fully “measure” the positive effect your body of work has had and will have. Take care … we love you.
Diane, thank you for keeping us focused on what’s most important regardless of reform efforts — i.e. the quality of education that we offer to ALL children in our country. Happy New Year!
Diane, thank you for giving us a voice and for your dedication to public education. You speak with clarity to both our brains and hearts.
Happy New Year and all the best.
Diane, thank you for this New Year message of hope. What you have created with this blog is a home and safe place for learning and supporting one another once we “get it”. Sadly, the most beloved teacher at our middle school took his own life on Christmas day. It has been unbelievably difficult for all of us. Here is the Parents Across America – Suburban Philadelphia facebook page posting that went viral about him, and one of the many efforts he made to educate our community. We are the kind of school district that people think of as safe from corporate reform. But people must realize that we are not. We must speak up for all public schools, including our own. One fb commenter stated, “He was so right. The reasons why I send my kids to a private Friends school.” And that is the very danger that we all are fighting against. No matter the socioeconomic level, all children deserve what a private Friends school offers, which is certainly not the CCSS and high stakes standardized testing. Please consider sharing the post below and allowing the words of Todd Marrone to reach even more people.
https://www.facebook.com/paaphillyburbs (Please like this page if you are in the Philadelphia area)
Lower Merion School District lost art/gifted teacher, Todd Marrone on Christmas Day. He was a warrior for the arts and real learning. He spoke up against standardized testing and the privatization attacks on public schools. He got the big picture. Read some of his powerful words below and speak up loudly to keep his message alive. There is a reason the kids loved him and learning from him so much.
“THE ROLE OF STANDARDIZED TESTING
Standardized testing does a few things very well. It creates an abundance of objective data, it creates a uniformed inventory of knowledge, skills and measurement, it gives the student the impression that there is one correct answer for every problem and it gives the public a sense of educational accountability and transparency. Fairly irrelevant to what we’ve already defined success to be.
Standardized testing also effectively creates a great deal of anxiety and stress, judges the success of a student, school and district based on their “performance” on a few particular days. It suggests that exploration, experimentation and failure are enemies of success, as opposed to compliments of success. It measures left-brain functionality while completely ignoring right-brain functions. It discourages divergent thinking. It implies that reading and writing are infinitely more important than speaking and listening when it comes to effective language use. It insinuates that mathematical thinking is number specific, finite, precise and exclusively expressible by a base ten system. It implies that knowledge and understanding is subject-specific and independent of other subjects. It implies that memorizing and regurgitating facts and processes is more important than creating a tangible product or alternative solutions. It prizes independent problem solving over collaboration. It virtually outlaws the use of technology. It causes teachers, parents and administrators to look at a sheet of numbers when discussing a young person instead of actually speaking to the young person. Should I go on?
Now, recognize the fact that EVERY decision is working backwards from a definition of success that is tied to success on those tests. The quality of the school, teachers, administrators, district and even property value are tied to that measurement system. This is not an over exaggeration. “Data-based instruction” simply means looking at test data to improve test scores. Sound like a recipe for disaster? Of course.”
Precinct reorganizations and county conventions will be occurring within the next few months. Every educator should participate in their respective political parties. If we came out in mass, we could take over our respective parties or at least be a force to be reckoned with. Within my state party, my educator friends and I attend everything. We are on the hunt for other active educators to connect with. We have adopted a set of core beliefs that we will be submitting as party resolutions that are based on your two books as well as some other progressive writers. We use these core beliefs to question candidates. We have challenged our candidate for lieutenant governor to a book study of your book in January. He has agreed to participate if we have 20 participants. Now our candidate for governor includes discussion of small class size in his stump speeches. We are doing many other things. I will be presenting a PowerPoint outlining your book at our county women’s group in March.
I do not see much discussion about how we can work through our state political parties to control the debate and narrative at this level. I would like for you to take a look at our proposed resolutions to give use feedback and to discuss how we can circulate our set of “model resolutions” to other educators. We need to blog about what we can do within our respective political parties to control the narrative locally and at the state level. Most local and state candidates, at least in my state are responsive to what is said within party meetings. Within this structure, it is quite easy to have conversations with candidates running for office at all levels. Often these meeting are small and if 5 or 6 educators are in the audience, we can keep the conversation focused on our narrative. We need to leverage this tool and simply overwhelm these meetings with our voice.
Diane,
Overhwhelm me as much as you want with your posts. I can’t get enough.
But please don’t do so ever at the expense of your own health. We need you for a very, VERY long time!
And in the same breath, we are hardpressed to appropriately ask ourselves, “How will I bear the torch. How will I become more engaged, more aware, and more active in the poltiical process of education . . . . of democracy?”
This, Diane, is your greatest gift and our greatest empowerment.
Happy New Year to you and your family, one filled with light, joy, love, peace, health, prosperity, and social justice . . . . .
The same goes to all who read and write on this blog, even those I disagree with.
Diane,
As a President I received the same comment to reduce the number per day. I learned from a PR person to send ONE per day with all of the links in it. Busy people told me the will read 5 bullets and then they delete so I tried it and had more opens and click throughs of those who wanted to read further.
Thank you for all you do. Please stop in Orlando after your visit in the panhandle. We would pay your expenses and hold a simple Q & A .
Diana Moore
CTA President
Local 7448
“Clear eyes, pure hearts, can’t lose.”
We’re going to win his thing. That’s just … common sense!
Have a Joyful New Year, Diane! Thank you fro your commitment to our children, schools and educators. Thank you for inspiring so many people to speak up for our children. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed as I research and uncover more and more corporations exploiting our education system and manipulating educational policies to their own ends. I think it would take a miracle to overturn tihs mess, especially here in New York where the political and corporate ties are so entrenched. However, i do believe in miracles! Everyday, when I read your blog, i am reminded that miracles are possible. Thank you Diane, you are a blessing!
Thank you Diane, for all the work you are doing!! As a retired teacher, I’m very appreciative of your efforts. It is inspiring and encouraging to read what you post and then see what other teachers have to say.
I read your blog every day and send some of the articles to friends of mine who are still teaching. It is giving them hope.
Thank you, Diane, for everything you are doing for our children. Thank you for including us in the conversation and valuing our opinions. There is no one quite like you in this world & I am proud to be one of your Twitter followers!
And to add to your positive message Diane, there are still many good teachers still in the field who are obstinate and refuse to leave despite the horrors they and their students have endured during this hideous “reformy” period. Let us hope that the signs of a light at the end of the tunnel help more teachers stay when they might have decided to leave!
Thank you for your support, inspiration and positive example. Happy and healthy New Year to you Dr. Ravitch!
I am good with the number and length of the blogs. I very much rely on your blog to guide my further reading and to know what else is happening within our country. I do not want talking points, but deep, thoughtful conversation about the issues that concern us all. I generally read them all of your blogs as well as attached links. If I do not have time to read a days worth of blogs, I just save them for later.
Your blogs have introduced me to many other thoughtful writers that I would not have had the good fortune to find on my own. Your blog serves as a very valuable central clearing and distribution house for our ideas. I also often order books you reference.
We need to understand these issues and what is happening. Our very profession is at risk. We are an educated and well-informed group. We can handle more than a list of talking points. Keep sharing what you are thinking with us.
As I head into the classroom for a few hours today to be ready for the return of my students tomorrow I know that they, and also you Diane, are the only reasons I continue to teach. Without your work to make sure I know that I’m not alone in my beliefs, efforts and frustrations I could easily lose heart and give up. So I get back into the fight with your support, and the support and words of all who contribute here. Thank you. What you do makes a difference to so many of us!
Diane, about the Clot thing….FWIW, the universal solvent (Water) may help.
The purer the water, the greater the solvent action…RO water will EAT through
copper! Drink more PURE water, untill your “Flush” is the color of light straw.
“If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the outcome
of a hundred battles” The Art of War 400 BC Suntzu
“I know every one of you, believe it or not.”
I really appreciate the sentiment, Diane, as well as your efforts to try and get to know each of us but, honestly, I feel pretty certain that you do not know who I am –and I’m fine with that.
You concern for our families and schools is heartfelt. My New Year’s wish: that all children have the best educational opportunities, not drill and practice, but inquiry based, filled with exploration, discovery and wonder. We all deserve that!
Diane, I do believe you are correct. the tide is turning slowly. I am hopeful that our precious public schools will be saved .You are inspired me to be an avid advocate and I am doing it everyday,. I was finding myself becoming upset and bitter, but my new passion is to take the high road, continue voicing my mission in newspapers and my blog. I will continue our mission. Thanks for all you do .
Please take care . We need you .
Not until the populace as a whole recognizes the frauds of President Obama will it also awake to the frauds of the public school “reformers.” How soon will that be?
Great question.
The public IS waking up to the reform movement. But it will be mainly middle and upper middle class public school parents who fight it.
Thank you and job well done, Dr. Ravitch! I have learned much and will continuw to learn from this blog. happy new year to all!
Thanks, Diane. I’m a constant reader of your blog and look forward to your posts. Stay healthy – we need you.
I have ten more years until I retire. I hope I get to see the end of this “test and punish” reign. Where I stand, it doesn’t look good as I prepare to endure another “Common Core” training session. Keep up the good fight Diane.
Gettin common cored are you???
I’d rather visit a proctologist. At least a proctological test has a healthy purpose in contrast to being common cored and tested.
Thank you so much Diane. I remember earlier this year and checking your site every day because none of the “reforms” that were happening seemed to make any sense. I sometimes still struggle to keep hope alive, but then the growing voices, BATS, and Laces lift me up and then I can encourage others or speak truth to power. Have a great year!
Diane,
From a regular reader who doesn’t comment all that often, I want to thank you for the tremendous amount of work you do taking on the corporate education reformers. I think you are the most valuable voice in this field in the entire country. You are our most important and most heard voice for sanity.
Thanks for everything, Diane. Best Wishes in the New Year.
You give me hope, Diane.
Take care of yourself; we need you.
Diane, thank you for demonstrating in practice the advice of Thomas Paine:
“It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.”
And Robert Rendo is right: be mindful of your own well being while looking out for the well being of so many others.
😎
Thank you for your passion, your insight and wisdom. There are days when I feel so overwhelmed and discouraged by the reform movement. Your blog gives me hope. Tomorrow begins a new year for all of us to take a proactive role in standing up for ALL kids who deserve a public education without agendas to make the privateers rich. Thank you, God bless you.
Thanks for all you do. Your voice means so much to all of us throughout the country who are trying to do the best for children. 2013 has been a tumultuous year of change for me personally, but my goal remains the same: to provide the best possible education to the most at-risk students in my community. I know what a good education can do for them, and I am determined to help provide it.
Thank you Diane for everything you do. Last year was a tough school year for me , reading your blogs helped me during the toughest time.
Happy New Year to you. May your health be good and may the so called ‘reformers’ of education call you and say you were right all along, education is best run by those who work in the field , have studied education
and know what they are talking about.
Diane,
Thank you so much for your effort. As a septuagenarian, myself, I appreciate and envy your energy. I, also, admire your strength to make such a distinct change of course as you continued to learn about the nature and competence of the vast majority of America’s teachers.
As a retired teacher of 35 years, both public and private, and with certification credentials, most at the graduate level (Ohio and New Jersey) in five different areas of study, I cannot believe the audacity of no-nothing billionaires who impose their ignorant plans on our proud, public school legacy. I’ve taught the sons and daughters of a few of them, and the wealthy parents were happy to listen to my advice and defer to my expertise. What they failed to understand, however, is that those teachers who work in the “public” system are every bit as committed and competent as I.
Generally, billionaires consider money at a measure of worth (as I raised my tutoring fees, my client base grew by leaps and bounds). They simply cannot understand that the best teachers choose education as a vocation (truly, a calling). To the financial elite, money is everything, and they are the more impoverished for their lack of vision.
There are, of course, limits to what we (past tense, in my case) will tolerate and, so, many excellent professionals have left or are considering such action. We will work for inadequate pay (based on qualifications) as long as we have social respect. This was the bargain I accepted. When, however, the respect disappears, either the pay must increase (to the level of the other occupations that require both a college degree, “certification” and continuing “education”) or the best will drop out. As the “squeeze” is instituted (ala-Coleman), fewer and fewer young people who are truly capable will follow their calling. How sad for all but the already-wealthy, who seek to cement their position as American royalty.
I think your recent understanding, and your personal calling (as facilitator of this most valuable blog) proves to me that intellectuals still exist. Thank you, so much.
Happy New Year to you and yours, Diane!
Thank you for doing this blog. “Death and Life” was the first encouraging thing I saw when things with NCLB were so grim. I bought a copy and gave it to friends when I had finished it. At last, someone who was supportive of teachers and believed that we worked hard and had our students’ best interests at heart.
Thank you for becoming a soapbox for public discourse on education. However, I am not as optimistic as you. Speaking up is one thing, but taking action is another. It seems that too many teachers are speaking up, while still continuing to perpetuate the abuse to children. Unless more are willing to take action and refuse to test, it will continue. What will it take for teachers to recognize “solidarity” and stand up together like the brave group of Seattle teachers and say “enough is enough”? What will it take for teachers and parents to do this together? Maybe each school in America should start a petition that states a “vote of no confidence” for their school district and refuse to test as a group since they consider it harmful to their children.
What will it take to get action rather than words? When it comes to Fight, Flight, or Freeze, how many have the actual courage to fight?
I am an artist teaching HS art in Mass. I cannot begin to tell you how much your book and philosophy have meant to me. For the longest time (20 yrs.) I have been concerned about the “innovations and reform” in education. It is so affirming to hear my worries voiced by someone else. In my art (jeanninehunterlazzaro.co) I have been exploring the ever, onward rush in our culture to buy, buy, buy and the “marketing is everything-everything is marketing” branding that has touched our youth. Being steeped in the education system as I have been for the past 20yrs. I could not help but feel this is permeating our system so deeply, but I was afraid that maybe I was seeing ghosts where there were none and looking through my art. My anxiety in this has been in the wave of elitism that has stretched across the system. The words that you have spoken and written regarding this have made me feel less alone.
The school district that I teach in is rather affluent. Students can readily take the SATs numerous times (as recommended by the College Board) and pepper their transcripts with AP courses (5 to 6 a yr.-also recommended or marketed). They apply to as many as 20 colleges in junior year. My immediate concern, as this has grown over the years, is that only a certain element of our society can afford this path.
It has also been obvious to me that the technology industry has found a “golden goose” in the public school system. When I speak up about this colleagues look at me strangely. However, I am beginning to think that maybe I am late to the game and others have known this for sometime. As you well know the teaching profession is kept so busy that when it comes to opposing reform they just cannot find the time (“everywhere in chains”).
I have been feeling that I want to get out of this calamity-retire. I have garnered some energy recently as a result of your blog and book. I see a war emerging and am ready for the fight. Let’s go!
PS I can’t be the only one to feel that there is a conflict of interest in the fact that David Coleman was the “architect” of the common core and has gone on to be president of the college board. Direct me to readings on this, please.
I don’t think anyone has raised a question about conflict of interest in relation to Coleman taking the job as president of the College Board but many have questioned his qualifications to write the nation’s standards, given his lack of experience as a teacher or scholar. His background is McKinsey and McGraw Hill. Read Mercedes Schneider’s blog.
From the beautiful Missouri River hill country of southern Warren County, MO I extend my hearty thanks to you, Diane, for all the effort you put forth for the most innocent of society, the students, and, especially, for the honesty in intellectual being that you are!
Many more harvest moons for you!
Duane
I add my hearty thanks. With your help we will be successful.
Diane,
Thank you! You have inspired me to be more vocal and you have given us all hope that we will win the fight to take back public education. I feel empowered and informed by your blog and the information you share with us.