Watch Bill Moyers Tonight and This Weekend

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1. Retelle, Ellen (Educational Leadership) says:

   March 28, 2014 at 6:47 pm

   CENTRAL CT STATE UNIVERSITY MARCH 29 11:30-4:00. Free wheeling conversation! Critical Conversations about Connecticut’s Educational Reform: What are the Issues? What’s Next?

   “The truest aims of education are to produce people who are morally good, intellectually competent, socially sensitive, spiritually inquisitive, and committed to living full and satisfying lives.” Nel Noddings

   Ellen Retelle, Ph. D. Associate Professor & Chairperson Department of Educational Leadership & Instructional Technology School of Education and Professional Studies Central Connecticut State University Retelleelm@ccsu.edu TEL: 860-490-8563

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2. Dottie says:

   March 28, 2014 at 7:27 pm

   I watched the whole thing and have forwarded it to many, including one of my Republican representatives. It is important for everyone to view this video. Dr. Ravitch is a wonderful speaker. If I can’t attend Dr. Ravitch’s speech at ASU, I may have to sneak in. We are so fortunate to have a speaker and leader like you, Dr. Ravitch. Thank you for all you are doing.

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3. Bob Shepherd says:

   March 28, 2014 at 7:57 pm

   http://billmoyers.com/episode/public-schools-for-sale/

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4. joe prichard says:

   March 28, 2014 at 8:02 pm

   I am doing what I can in st. Louis………I joked about our local pbs station blocking the showing….I was not that far off. It will air Sunday morning, at 10:30 local time on the main station…the other five times will be on their third station, buried deep in all cable lineups, and not available with rabbit ears.

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   • Bob Shepherd says:

     March 28, 2014 at 8:28 pm

     Joe, see the link above. The interview is posted on Bill Moyers’s site. Get everyone you know to send the link out to ten others.

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5. Bob Shepherd says:

   March 28, 2014 at 8:27 pm

   Wow.

   Diane Ravitch is a warrior for kids and teachers!

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6. Richard Holsworth says:

   March 28, 2014 at 8:56 pm

   I didn’t know Randi went to the Ukraine. The theme of privatization is what the newly installed neoliberal puppet is there to push.

   “What was US teachers union president Randi Weingarten doing in Kiev? –
   Weingarten visited Kiev not on behalf of Ukrainian teachers—who will face devastating cuts as the new Western-backed regime imposes a Greek-style IMF austerity plan…”
   http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/26/wein-m26.html

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7. barbide says:

   March 28, 2014 at 9:32 pm

   Fastest 30 minutes I’ve watched! Thank you for your perseverance in keeping the the current onslaught against public education in front of millions of citizens!

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8. Allison White says:

   March 28, 2014 at 9:32 pm

   you continue to inspire all of us in the grassroots!

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9. chemtchr says:

   March 28, 2014 at 10:18 pm

   What a polished interview, from both of you.

   One thing we can do to reach people out of our current following is to tweet out comments and praise from Moyers’ own website. That gives them something to retweet under their own logo.

   I’ve been getting very interesting results tweeting from other media outlets’ onscreen twitter buttons, too.

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   • dianeravitch says:

     March 28, 2014 at 11:24 pm

     Bill Moyers’ show is true craftsmanship. They check facts. They retape if anything was misspoken. Real artisans. And he, of course, is marvelous. A good man.

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10. Ed Shejen says:

    March 28, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    Good News and Bad News.
    I’ll start with the good news first because its going to take a lot less time.
    1. I agree with keeping public education. I believe that education is a right and it is the great leveler. I worked at a public shipyard for 34yrs and we did have unions and had labor rights under the law. We did not however, have the right to strike. We did not say no to any job we had to do. You can be sure that with private education there is going to come a day when the contractor is going to ask for more money to educate your kids and it is not going to be because of increased costs in doing business.

    I’m afraid that is the end of the good news though.
    1. First let me say that public education has put itself in this situation. There is a good reason why every kid says that “there was one teacher that really turned things around” for them. It was probably because the rest were (for lack of a better word) terrible.I received a public education and I had two good teachers in thirteen years.
    2. We probably cannot blame the teachers completely though since most secondary educational institutions could not create a good K-12 teacher if there were a gun to their head.
    3. As far as grading teachers in their performance, we need to determine what a performance really is first. As a machinist, Semi-annual performance appraisals, were the norm and included metrics such as attendance, quality, schedule adherence and cost. Other areas of your performance were evaluated and included in the final report but “Creating a quality part on time at the lowest cost” was your goal. If your performance was not up to the required standard, you received training, if that training did not work…….neither did you. No one is owed a living, especially teaching our kids.
    4. Finally, anyone involved at the highest levels of public education that has served under multiple presidents is the cause of this problem not the solution. When we are serious about paying the greatest minds what they are worth we will start to see an up-swing.

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    • chemtchr says:

      March 29, 2014 at 7:11 am

      Ed, this is one of the most popular memes in the opinion-molding industry because it’s so easy to “personalize” it. I, too, had only a few transcendently good teachers. The rest were just ordinary people doing an essential job, which requires them to take up the responsibility of representing our society to its own children. And how is that grounds for a gripe?

      We’re both old enough to have seen schools and shipyards from both sides now. As a child, I was glad to see that people thought we were important enough to build a school for us, and fill it with educated and kind people. Honestly, I understood America was offering us the very best teachers it had among its people, and sometimes they were less than I wished, and sometimes more than I even dreamed of. Like America.

      So, who do you write for now? What if they reach their goal of beating down the public school teachers, and we no longer have that ever-growing carpet of genteel, educated and empowered ordinary people spread over every town and city? Will our towns and cities be better off without a college-educated middle class?

      Our civilization has raised up its human cohort of teachers from among its own people, finally including many of the African-Americans who walked across our college stages in the seventies.

      My generation’s first-of-family college graduates are our pride and our legacy and we became teachers proudly, many of us explicitly to fight for social justice in education opportunity. We gave back the great gifts of literacy, math, engineering, history, medicine and the arts. We passed on a public system that reaches every rural township and urban wasteland.

      And we raised up another generation of educated teachers from among our own people to carry on the mission. Profit-seeking technocrats are determined to degrade, humiliate, scare and fire the current generation of them. What will our children have instead, that you think would be so much better?

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      • Ed Shejen says:

        March 29, 2014 at 11:02 am

        Here is my “personalized” approach.

        Peak Performance in Public Education
        a. Goal – Prepare 100% of students for careers and civic life.
        Short Term – percentage improvement for school year (TBD).
        c. Metrics – Attendance, Quality (TBD), Schedule, Cost. (In that order.
        d. Strategy
        Elementary – Basic skills with broad foundation.
        Middle – Preparation for High School.
        High School – Careers and Civic Life (TBD).
        e.Analysis
        Teacher/Administration effectiveness – Performance Appraisals
        Teacher Development Programs linked to Metric Deficiencies.
        Policy Reviews – Operational Standards.
        Cost Justifications for Policy Changes.

        In manufacturing we used this approach everyday. You can bet your “competition” is.

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11. jon says:

    March 28, 2014 at 11:31 pm

    Great job Diane! Glad Moyers finally gave you this opportunity. If he wasn’t convinced about the motives of ALEC from his previous discussions that I have seen, you clearly left an impression. You left no stone unturned in a short amount of time–spectacular. He got the message: promoting charter schools is a smoke screen and distractor for reformers to evade dealing with poverty as there is no profit in doing the right thing.

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12. Mike says:

    March 28, 2014 at 11:36 pm

    Albert Einstein reluctantly tried to fight the Nazi movement in the early days. He was a very secular, apolitical guy, but he felt it was his duty as a prominent (world famous) Jew to try and do something. He traveled around Germany and gave speeches, but ultimately failed and emigrated. It is very similar to what is happening here. Dr. Ravitch will try, and most likely fail (sorry to say). However, history will look kindly on Dr. Ravitch. She may know deep down how hopeless it is, but she would rather go down fighting. What else can we do? We are living in dark times, just as dark as Germany in 1933-1934. This is our “crazy time” soon. The storm clouds are clearly on the horizon. Compared to the Germans, we are a very ignorant, childlike, easy-to-manipulate population (in general). I hope that Dr. Ravitch knows when the time is ripe to emigrate to Finland, etc. We all thank her for doing what she can, but won’t fault her for leaving.

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13. Jean Haverhill says:

    March 29, 2014 at 6:59 am

    at the recent SREE conference Sean Riordan presented a paper on the inequality issues; quoting his work at Stanford describes : ” research investigates the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality. In particular, I study issues of residential and school segregation and of racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement and educational success. In addition, my work develops methods of measuring social and educational inequality (including the measurement of segregation and achievement gaps) and methods of causal inference in educational and social science research.”
    You can download the slides and references he used at the SREE conference (march 2014) and follow up on the issues of inequality.

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14. Jean Haverhill says:

    March 29, 2014 at 7:05 am

    quote: “Title” Recent Trends in Socioeconomic and Racial School Readiness Gaps at Kindergarten Entry
    Sean F. Reardon & Ximena A. Portilla February, 2014
    Average Difference in Standardized Test Scores Between 90th & 10th Income Percentile Families
    Trend in 90/10 Income Gap in Reading, 1940-2005 Cohorts…

    You can download the slides for this presentation from the SREE conference at their website. (March, 2014) good references suggested

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15. patriciahale says:

    March 29, 2014 at 8:45 am

    Need some pro-Diane and public school comments at the Moyers site. The first two comments are anti-public schools.
    http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/28/charter-schools-a-marketplace-for-profits-or-ideas/

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16. Gordon Wilder says:

    March 29, 2014 at 11:31 am

    Bill Moyers has been a favorite of mine for years. Beginning way back when he had a program on “evil” throughout his “World of Ideas” to the present, Bill Moyers has been a light in the darkness for so very many of us. His choice of people to interview is spectacular and now includes our favorite voice for education. What a tribute to both of you.

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17. Jean Haverhill says:

    March 29, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    on the Bill Moyers site, I copied out a parent’s letter to the Globe in Boston.
    quote: “[charter school privatizers] are relentless. They push, badger, and insult without any desire to compromise. And why should they? In every aspect of their world, they have an advantage over the public schools. They get premium, protected funding. They get funding based on a generous calculation of the sending district’s expenditures and the money is guaranteed by formula. It is garnished directly from the municipality’s Chapter 70 disbursement, regardless of the fiscal health of the town or the legislature’s generosity (or lack thereof) in awarding local school aid.

    They have an exclusionary enrollment process. Children on alleged wait lists sit there, even if there are empty seats. Meanwhile, the children who don’t fit in are and sent back to the public schools. These charter schools have an unaccountable governance structure. They take money from towns without being reviewed in the annual appropriation process. Town meetings and city councils have no power to review the budget, and no say in the establishment of a charter school. Boards of trustees are self-appointing. They really don’t care about their impact on the public schools. It seems as if they want to deliberately inflict damage. ”

    Also, people should know that an unregulated “school” for handicapped children , with no oversight from the State department of Educaiton in Massachusetts siphoned of about 30 million dollars of taxpayer money to feather the nest of the CEO, his four homes and his girl friends. Opening up these regulations too l osely will lead to more of this “siphoning off” of the taxpayer money. After this highway robbery, the Commissioner of Education said “I heard rumors when I came to this state” and no one took accountability for allowing this to happen. These charter schools open up all t he loopholes in the regs and then bend them any way they see fit to enrich privatizers.

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18. Lesa Wilbert says:

    March 30, 2014 at 7:39 am

    You are fantastic! Thank you for all that you do for public education.

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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