This debate between Bruce Fuller of the University of California and me was just posted online by the New York Times.
Bruce takes the position that de Blasio and Farina should maintain some or many of the changes that Bloomberg made.
I argue that de Blasio has a mandate to stop closing schools, to get rid of the A-F grading system, to drop the failed Leadership Academy, and to drop the former administration’s attitude of hostility towards parents and educators. I also call for a revival of what was once a highly reputable research department, to take the place of the PR machine.
Feel free to make your comment on the NY Times website.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They were unraveling the day he implemented them.
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I agree with you Diane.
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I love the way they frame taking parent, student, and teacher reaction into account as “populist”. As the the corporate “reformers” see it, when you roughshod over people and destroy their human rights, any objections can be dismissed as “populism”.
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“De Blasio also wants to slow growth of charter schools and make them start paying rent in the buildings they share with traditional schools. But hard findings show the truth is that these human-scale options raise the learning curves of city students – half from neighborhoods in which the average family earns under $38,000 annually – more steeply than kids attending regular public schools.”
I simply don’t understand why the children who are already in the schools aren’t taken into account. He doesn’t even mention them, other than to compare their schools unfavorably to the charter school in the same building.
How does co-location affect the kids who were attending the public school when the charter school arrived? Are they harmed, benefitted, no difference, what?
There are two schools in co-location, two sets of kids. All we hear about are the charter schools. What about the other school in that building?
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I need some help with answering a KIPP story about their acquisition of a school in St. Louis…….the price…..the public school, provisionally accredited, but still under state takeover…KIPP will allow the public school to include its test results to help their rating with the state. is it ok for a public school to choose which charter schools will be part of their state evaluations, and exclude others?
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Well, a more nuanced version of that happens in public schools now with how kids are ranked in standardized testing. In my ordinary public school the whole school score goes up or down depending on the student population. Everyone here knows this although no one admits it openly.
We have a small rural high school and my eldest son’s class, as a whole, didn’t score as well as my daughter’s did two years later. My son’s class just happened to have a larger group of lower scoring kids. There isn’t a lot of mobility here, people generally stay put, so the kids move through the system as a “class of 20..” (with some variation, of course).
It’s one of the reasons I grew skeptical of claims of big gains due to one or another reform, watching the last decade of ed reform here.
I would say generally that it sounds like a bad idea, treating kids in such a transactional manner, where the higher-scoring group “saves” the lower scoring group from having their school closed, in return for real estate.
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Charters compete with the traditional public schools in which they are co-located for limited space and resources. In many cases, charter operators have strong connections to political clout and get preferential treatment, as evidenced in emails with Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academy charters in NYC:
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131210/new-york-city/eva-moskowitz-success-academy-gets-preferential-doe-treatment-emails-show
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He also used a Hoxby study for his support. Considering her political leanings and associations with Hanushek, Hoover Institute and recipient of the Fordham Prize, I think we can rule out her “unbiased” findings.
Note: I used my knowledge according to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6
Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.
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Loved your closing recommendation:
“We need a new paradigm for schooling, one grounded in the joy of learning rather than a cold-hearted love of data.”
How refreshing and truly forward-looking, compassionate and rational!
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Now they’re going after the libraries
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/los-angeles-library-diplomas_n_4568690.html
“A Los Angeles library plans to take its role as a place of learning a step farther and will start offering residents the opportunity to get an accredited high school diploma…
Applicants must pass an initial evaluation to become eligible for a library-sponsored scholarship to attend Career Online High School, a kind of private online school district through the Smart Horizons corporation, based in Pensacola, Fla. Career Online High School has been accredited through AdvancED Accreditation Commission, a private nonprofit agency, said spokeswoman Jennifer Oliver….
The library hopes to grant high school diplomas to 150 adults in the first year at a cost to the library of $150,000…”
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Ugh. Words fail.
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Interesting concept. They’ll have a few issues to deal with – especially since public librarians have no background in education. I can see the participants having questions that only a trained teacher could answer. And 150 adults getting a HS diploma in a year seems ambitious. They should select a sample group first and see how it goes, then adapt the program to deal with any glitches.
I’m more for implementors dipping their toe in the water with new programs, and not jumping in fully dressed (with blinders on).
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Why would a librarian need a background in education? Just give them 5 weeks of training and they will become highly qualified teachers.
/sarcasm
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As – ha, ha funny – as becoming a librarian with five weeks of instruction.
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How long before they use 1 billion dollars of library funds to purchase iPads for the students?
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Susan – bite your tongue.
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Just to answer your initial question:
Not unless you’d like him to go against everything people seemed to want when they voted for him; not unless you’re sold on bottom barrel public education; not unless you want to see the pillar of democracy vanish with no going back.
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The financial elites will find a way to get him to “toe the line” with reforms. There is simply too much money invested in the phony “reform” movement. That is why he is being ganged up on by Arne Duncan, etc. Attacks will come from all sides. There is a lot of money to be made. All of the reformers and their puppets will attack him now. Wait and see. He won’t be able to change a thing. Unfortunately…
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Gosh, I wonder why he picked that poor kid (Clinton) to swear
him in…
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Well, this is a real honor for Philadelphia public schools, I’m sure:
“Opponents of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett soon will no longer be able to say that he has never visited a Philadelphia public school.
This Friday, Corbett will visit Central High, a celebrated magnet. Philadelphia public schools have spun into deep fiscal crisis, thanks in part to deep cuts in state funding. Yet this is his first documented visit.
There will, of course, be protests — including, I’ll wager, from deeply unhappy teachers and students. Demonstrators will gather at Broad and Olney at 9:45 a.m., and march to Central for a rally.”
Ed reformer Governor Corbett makes his first visit to a Philadelphia public school. This is apparently a historic occasion, a governor deigning to visit a public school 🙂
http://citypaper.net/article.php?Gov.-Corbett-to-make-first-visit-to-a-Philly-public-school-18345
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I think unraveling Bloomberg himself would prove to be an equally enticing and productive endeavor . . . . .
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After reading this exchange, can anyone possibly fail to understand why Michelle Rhee and other stars of the “new civil rights movement” of our time won’t be engaging in an open and wide-ranging discussion with Diane Ravitch at Lehigh University on Feb. 6?
The first-stringers on the “education reform” team wouldn’t even make the second-string practice squad of the“better education for all” team.
IMHO, it is not so much a matter of personal qualities as it is revealing of the ‘power of their ideas’: no matter how you dress it up, the charterite/privatizer program is an endless series of eduproduct brandings, launchings, and sales pitches. In a fair and open exchange with those arguing with compassion, logic and facts for a “better education for all,” the charterites/privatizers can’t, don’t, won’t hold their own.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
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I totally agree – they have irrational thoughts and will never stand up to the facts and thoughts Diane and people like her present. The fact that Michelle is afraid of a debate speaks volumes.
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Should Mayor deBlasio undo the Bloomberg “reforms”?
Yes, he should. Giving up Mayoral control of the schools would be a big first step in the right direction.
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