Jordan Weissman, a business correspondent for Slate, read the Vergara decision and noted that the judge’s conclusion hinged on a strange allegation. The judge quoted David Berliner as saying that 1-3% of the teachers in the state were “grossly ineffective.” The judge then calculated that this translated into thousands of teachers, between 2,750 and 8,750, who are “grossly ineffective.”
Weissman called Professor Berliner and asked where the number 1-3% came from. Dr. Berliner said it was a “guesstimate,”
He told Weissman, “It’s not based on any specific data, or any rigorous research about California schools in particular. “I pulled that out of the air,” says Berliner, an emeritus professor of education at Arizona State University. “There’s no data on that. That’s just a ballpark estimate, based on my visiting lots and lots of classrooms.” He also never used the words “grossly ineffective.” And he does not support the judge’s belief that teacher quality can be judged by student test scores.
Dr. Berliner mailed Weissman a copy of the transcript to show that he did not use the term “grossly ineffective.”
Weissman then called Stuart Biegel, a law professor and education expert at UCLA, to ask him “whether he thought that the odd origins of the 1–3 percent figure might undermine Treu’s decision on appeal. Biegel, who represented the winning plaintiffs in one of the key cases Treu cited, said it might. But he thought that the decision’s “poor legal reasoning” and “shaky policy analysis” would be bigger problems. “If 97 to 99 percent of California teachers are effective, you don’t take away basic, hard-won rights from everybody. You focus on strengthening the process for addressing the teachers who are not effective, through strong professional development programs, and, if necessary, a procedure that makes it easier to let go of ineffective teachers,” he wrote to me in an email.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“If 97 to 99 percent of California teachers are effective, you don’t take away basic, hard-won rights from everybody.”
The Vergara decision is the same as shooting the entire herd, because one horse out of thousands was running too slow.
“If 97 to 99 percent of California teachers are effective, you don’t take away basic, hard-won rights from everybody.”
Actually, that’s precisely what you do when that was your intention all along, and the “bad teacher” mantra was never anything but a veil for that..
Stuart Biegel’s statement is a complete non sequitur. If a 1-3% of teachers are grossly ineffective, or to use the language that Berliner replied “yes” to in his testimony, “consistently have strong negative effects”, this does not imply that the other 97-99% are are effective. It implies only that they do not “consistently have strong negative effects”. They may consistently have moderate negative effects, or inconsistently have strong negative effects, or positive effects, and so forth. It does little credit to UCLA that one of their law professors would make such an utterly illogical remark
It was then endlessly quoted in media. It’s now “truth”. The record will never be corrected and anyone who listened to or read the media coverage will believe it’s a fact.
“Treu wrote that one defense witness “testified that 1% to 3% of teachers in California are grossly ineffective.” That works out to 2,750 to 8,250 poor-performing teachers. For Treu, this was evidence of a constitutional violation.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-teacher-lawsuit-20140611-story.html#page=1
And that “guesstimate” was an irresponsible act of ego, with little concern for the consequences. Yes, you are right that the record will never be corrected and it will be good teachers who are harmed by such loose lips.
I thought that, too. What was that professor THINKING by just riffing some number off the top of his head?
Never blame a bad teacher for their own existence. The vey small percent of truly bad, “grossly ineffective” teachers cannot fire themselves. The blame rests squarely on inexperienced, unqualified, incompetent, and lazy MANAGEMENT.
What dont these reformers get about this simple fact?
NYS Teacher: I unfortunately have firsthand experience—different jobs, different states and cities, blue- and white-collar—to confirm what you wrote.
In answer to your question: because the self-styled leaders of the “education reform” movement are [in general] the sort of management you describe.
What is truly mind-boggling is that too many people seem to have bought into the idea that those who interview, hire, manage, evaluate, discipline, suspend and fire—are under the control of those under them!
That is, the lesser controls the greater, the subordinate is in a position of power and authority over the superordinate.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” [George Orwell]
😎
KTA
We might be further down the rabbit hole than I thought.
Has anyone given any thought to improving the management skills of administrators trhough more applicable and relevant cerifcation programs?
Clearly this is the weak link in the chain.
There are ‘fast-track’ certification programs that clearly trade expediency for substance.
NY Teacher: good question but let me put it to you this way—
Bill Gates is justifiably associated with “stack ranking” [aka forced ranking/rank-and-yank/burn-and-churn]. He and others are furiously committed to mandating the same for public schools and public school educators [currently, by means of VAM and the fuel that propels it, the scores of high-stakes standardized tests]. But just how did that work out at Microsoft?
[start quote]
At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.
“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review,” said a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
[end quote]
Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
What goes unmentioned in the above fine article is that Bill Gates was not forced to undergo the same demeaning, demoralizing, disruptive and destructive hazing ritual. In other words, he couldn’t learn from experience how wrong he was because he excused himself from the effects of his own worst management practices.
Or to put it another way: he put himself in a situation where he prevented himself from having the opportunity to self-correct.
I know you won’t be surprised at what I write next: don’t expect the leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement to, er, “reform” themselves. They don’t know how to self-correct.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Is it that they don’t know how to self correct? or Are they blinded by their own arrogance? or Do they feel a need to put up what is essentially a defensive front disguised with false bluster? I have worked for so many different principals in 34+ years of teaching that I’ve lost count. However, I can count on the finger of one hand the number that were exceptional managers and unafraid to confront bad teachers in a professional way.
Administrators have always been the biggest problem in education because they work basically unsupervised and aren’t held accountable for their actions. There is no real chain of command in education where an abused teacher can go over a supervisor’s head and grieve it to a principal’s “supervisor” clear across town. That’s ostensibly one of the reasons why “due process” protections are there for teachers and why they are supposed to have effective unions, which are all too rare.
Administrators in most cases today are either not teachers at all or found out they couldn’t cut it in the classroom or hate kids or want an easier, more highly paid position. Because they have political connections, they “fail up” in the organization. I had two like that, and both of them are still employed by the district when they clearly should have been fired. This despite the fact the narcissistic nitwit who “dismissed” me over nothing keeps getting moved from job to job to job. This despite the fact the other principal admitted to having sex with subordinates–a firing offense in my current state and subject to license revocation–and was demoted to teacher.
Administrators are backed to the hilt by school districts. The reason is because to fire a principal means somebody else further up the ladder, like a superintendent, look bad. Can’t have that.
The horrible abusive principal I had a few years ago had a 65-70% turnover rate of teachers per year. She was made state principal of the year.
The worse these principals are, the better they do.
Let’s face it: a “bad teacher,” unless it is a person who clearly committed a criminal or brazenly unethical act, is strictly a matter of opinion.
So should be going around destroying careers on the basis of one person’s opinion, the opinion of an unsupervised, unaccountable principal? Once you are canned by these cretins or otherwise forced out, it is next to impossible to EVER go back into teaching again.
I have already said literally thousands of teachers around the country are dumped by administrators each year. The decision by a right-wing judge is based on a pack of lies that it is “impossible” to “fire” a teacher because so “few” of them are “fired.”
It’s only the handful of teachers who avail themselves to administrative hearings and lose. The vast majority do NOT go through them but take severance agreements called “settlements” for a promise not to sue a school district. Most teachers take the severance agreements mistakenly thinking they can resume their careers. There’s no evidence to support it. It’s basically an admission of guilt in the eyes of other school districts if you take a resignation in lieu of a dismissal.
To reiterate, as I know this process, albeit in a different state, intimately, and know how the game is rigged against teachers from the time they are hired:
One thing the liars who hate “tenure” fail to note is the fact school districts play fast and loose with the terminology. The fact is the only teachers who are considered “fired” or “dismissed” in the educrat world are those post-probationary employees who actually bother to go through the hearings and “lose.” However, school districts get rid of vastly more people than those who go through the hearings.
Here are the instances where teachers are fired for all intents and purposes. They number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, a year. The vast majority have not committed any criminal act or act that would have their licenses sanctioned:
Teachers are forced to resign.
Teachers are forced into early retirement.
Teachers who are probationary and are not “renewed.”
Teachers who resign in “lieu of a dismissal”; i.e., those who take the severance agreements after the district has decided to terminate their employment.
Teachers who go through the sham tribunals and are “dismissed” because they “lost.”
The only instance where teachers are NOT fired but are let go is in the event of a layoff due to a position being eliminated or because of budgetary reasons. Those are called “reductions in force.”
I KNOW Berliner never said or meant what the judge claimed. The judge literally pulled his ruling from his backside and was probably on the take.
That’s exactly where this ruling should go, back into his backside. To base a decision on a guestimate after teachers have fought so hard to obtain these rights is criminal on his part. I say dismiss the judge.
Wonder if the Harvard profs who testified as experts regarding teachers would support the same notions for university professors.
Don’t worry. REAL tenure is next on the agenda of these cretins, at least for public universities and colleges.
The probationary period for tenure stream faculty is over three times as long as California’s probationary period and I suspect that most tenure stream faculty think the long time frame is appropriate.
I do agree that the end of mandatory retirement will force significant changes on the concept of tenure in higher education. With mandatory retirement, a tenure decision made at 34 (assuming college graduation at 22, Ph.D. at 28, tenure granted at 34. These are optimistic assumptions.) tenure was a 33 year commitment. Without mandatory retirement, tenure has turned into a 45 or 50 year commitment. This is one reason, I think, that colleges and universities have become more reluctant to hire tenure stream faculty.
How many standard deviations is grossly ineffective? Is that above or below supersucky on the Bell curve?
Whatever a principal says it is. And most principals these days are complete and total idiots and cretins. Most of the good ones left before the “reformers” seized the public narrative.
“The Fall of the Teachers Unions” in Politico.
It’ll be a LOT easier to privatize with teachers out of the way! 🙂
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/teachers-union-california-court-decision-107816.html?hp=f1
I dug a bit deeper about the Chetty et al. study. Here’s what I found:
The study was first published as an NBER working paper at http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/value_added.pdf in 2011. It was submitted to American Economic Review and accepted after being split in two papers. Preprints can be found at http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/w19424.pdf and http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/w19423.pdf.
All the charts in all versions of the papers violate scientific data presentation standards:
– all Y-axes are “super-extra-stretchy” (Bruce Baker), exaggerating the purported statistical effect by orders of magnitude;
– none of the charts have error bars or confidence intervals; if they were shown, the error bars would certainly exceed the purported statistical effect by far;
– no r-square values or correlation coefficients are given; the r-squares are likely to be very low;
– the sample sizes on which the regressions are based are not shown; although the study drew on millions of student records, most of the records were incomplete and the actual regressions are based on only a fraction of the records.
Criticisms of the working paper by Bruce Baker (http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/fire-first-ask-questions-later-comments-on-recent-teacher-effectiveness-studies/) and Moshe Adler (epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/download/1264/1033) are worth reading. Adler points out that Chetty et al. report a small (albeit visually wildly exaggerated) but statistically significant effect of teacher VAM on student earnings at age 28 *but they found no effect at all on earnings at age 30*. Explains Adler:
“However, although the result they found for 30 year olds is not statistically significant, the words “not statistically significant” are nowhere to be found in their study. Instead the authors write, “The 95% confidence interval for the estimate is very wide. We therefore focus on earnings impacts up to age 28 for the remainder of our analysis.” … Furthermore, they didn’t just “focus” on earning impacts up to age 28; instead they proceeded as if the result for 28 year olds, an increase in income of .09%, was also the result that they found for 30 year olds, and made the assumption that this would have also been the result for any subsequent age group. Based on this assumption, which is contradicted by their own evidence, they calculated a life-time benefit of $25,000 from an increase of one standard deviation in teacher value-added. … After conducting a study its authors cannot ignore the results; science does not permit cherry picking. The result that teacher value-added does not have a statistically significant impact on earnings at age 30 must be part of any conclusion drawn from the Chetty et al. study.”
Damningly, the AER version of the paper omits even mentioning the negative finding for earnings at 30. The language from the working paper has simply been removed from the AER version! The editors and reviewers of AER must answer some hard questions about their scientific standards.
Thanks for trying to set the record straight. Too bad that your research was not available for presentation to the judge. Also, it is sad to see that David Berliner has provided the fodder for media exaggerations in this case.
Actually Moshe Adler’s excellent critique was available. See http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-measuring-impact-of-teachers.
One has to wonder why the defense didn’t dig a little deeper there. Of course I realize they didn’t know this judge would base his ruling of this..
You might note that graphs 1c, 2b, 4, and 7 all in fact DO have the 95% confidence interval drawn into the graph, the standard errors of all coefficient estimates are reported in the tables, and Chetty gives a response to Alder here: http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/Adler_response.pdf
There was no negative finding at age 30. The point estimate of earnings at age 30 was higher than 28. I believe poster uarktransparency is mistaking statistical significance for magnitude as Alder did.
“There was no negative finding at age 30.”
In statistical parlance, a finding that is not statistically significant IS a negative finding. And magnitude has nothing to do with it. If you do a statistical study and come up with a result that is not statistically significant, you report that and stop there. Your finding means that the null-hypothesis – no impact – cannot be rejected. That’s it. True, it doesn’t prove there is *no impact*. By design that *cannot* be proven. But you are bound by the scientific method to accept the verdict of the statistical test and that is that you cannot assume there is an impact.
If something is not statistically significant we do not know enough to be able to say if it is true or false.
Suppose I am concerned that two coins are unfair, say when flipped each will land on heads with a probability of .7 and tails with a probability of .3. I flip coin A three times and get the patter HHT. Do i have enough information to make a judgement about the fairness of coin A? No, I do not. There is not enough information yet to decide if the coin is fair or not. Suppose that coin B is flipped 10,000 times and I observe 5,080 heads and 4,920 tails. Do I have enough information to make a judgement about the fairness of coin B? Yes, I do. I can say that it would be very unusual to see this number of heads and tails out of 10,000 flips if the coin had an actual probability of landing heads of .7
There was not enough information about earnings at 30 to make a reasonable judgement (though the point estimate showed a larger magnitude difference than at age 28). This is because there were fewer data points available for age 30, that is there were fewer flips of the coin.
Did the authors of Chetty assume there was an impact at age 30?
Did you find the confidence intervals in the figures yet?
That’s part of the new narrative, quote an inaccuracy or a lie and just continue to quote it until people start to believe it even when it is proven wrong. This is what the media does. Look at Iraq, people kept quoting that there were weapons of mass destruction in the country long after it was proven that it was a lie. It’s almost like brain washing.
I thank him for being honest about what he said and where the statistics came from It’s really too bad the defense didn’t ask him that in cross examination. Seriously, and on what do you base those statistics professor. Oh I just picked them out of the air from my visits.
Really? So it could be considerably less than that, isn’t that a possibility? Yes it is. Judge might have rethought his decision, although since he blatantly ignored the fact that the prosecution didn’t have one single example of a grossly ineffective tenured teacher to show him, I think he might have had help in making that decision from the billionaire boy’s club. Allegedly of course.
Because Dr. Berliner was a witness for the defense, the defense would have to have challenged their own witness. It would be awkward and have to take place during redirect questioning, not cross examination.
Defense counsel could have done it on redirect. But like you suggest, you don’t want your expert to testify that he was just pulling numbers out of thin air. They could have asked him to clarify his testimony, but I don’t see a whole lot to clarify that wouldn’t force Berliner to start contradicting himself and open up a bad re-cross. There’s no question that Berliner agreed that it’s reasonable to estimate that 1% to 3% of teachers in California “consistently have strong negative effects on student outcomes no matter what classroom and school compositions they deal with.”
Professor Ravitch, Either get involved in the litigation and appeals in Vergara and other cases with the knowledge that you and those you know have that can bring profound change or SHUT UP. Dedicated professional teachers who have been targeted by LAUSD and other districts like it around the country call me on a daily basis. Their lives have been turned upside down. They have been ostracized by their fellow teachers- “you must have done something wrong or the district never would have gone after you”- divorced, lost their homes and some are living in their cars.
And you continue to engage in mental masturbation after the Vergara fact? Shame on you. Your actions now are in complete derogation of the insights your illustrious career has stood for. Your lack of coherent action that could use your academic celebrity status gives comfort to who? Why is that? Do you really think this country can survive as anything that even remotely resembles a democracy, if you sit by and allow public education to be dismantled in the courts?
Maybe- hell, there’s a good likelihood- that the courts are fixed. But at the very least, we owe ourselves the obligation of speaking truth to power in a judicial venue, so that the dishonesty of the privatizers will at least be made public. Right now, with a corporate owned media, the majority of American citizens that are your natural allies don’t even know that you exist and are only aware of what you so aptly called “the dominant narrative” of great charters school and pervert overpaid teacher, because you refuse to get out of your self-imposed academic ghetto.
Few have the power to make a difference. You do and yet hide behind your age and retired gardener status, but somehow find time and energy for your ego-tripping blog. Shame on you, a person of your intellect knows what must be done, but for some reason chooses not to. Afraid those in power wont ask you to lunch?
Lenny@perdaily.com
Wow. You’re being quite the jerk. I feel terrible for those who are being directly affected in California, and for all of us around the country who are indirectly affected. But you should not castigate one of the few major allies we as teachers have in the nation. Dr. Ravitch is almost 76 years old and has just recovered from major knee surgery. The fact that she is still providing us with excellent information is a blessing.
If you have such a problem, start your OWN blog. Get the word out yourself! Diane is doing this with no paid stuff and no pay whatsoever. Why do you expect a non-lawyer to file an amicus brief? Or do you expect her to pay for a lawyer?
And, Dr. Ravitch, PLEASE remove him. What an *** to dump his garbage on your lawn.
And sorry I jumped in here, Diane. I know you can fight your own battles. I’m just horrified when I see stuff like that. I can’t remain silent. Have a great day!
Perhaps a little perspective would be in order here.
When Diane Ravitch was born, her mother didn’t go around bragging to one and all “Isn’t she just the most darling little punching bag you ever saw?”
She’s a human being and doesn’t deserve such ill-treatment. And I remind the viewers of this blog that the sneer, jeer and smear are typical of the leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement and their edubully enforcers.
This blog is like Diane’s online living room. Sharp exchanges, yes. But this, IMHO, goes way over the line. It degrades, distracts, diverts and defeats the very purpose of this blog.
Respectfully, I hope not to see this poster again.
😡
Groupies? Conveniently, the substance of my criticism is ignored. If Professor Ravitch can logically take apart the holding in Vergara and other cases like it after the fact, why hasn’t she done so before the court decided the case by active participation in legal process?
Age and a bad leg doesn’t seem to stop her from preaching to the choir in this blog. No energy to actually contend with the forces around the country that are destroying teachers lives and the future of public education for money and the further dumbing down of America?
Ad hominem without substance is reminiscent of staff developments where teachers talk, but the purposeful failure of public school is allowed to flourish 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education said “Separate but equal is inherently unequal.”
I wont bother you folks anymore. Get in touch when you or somebody you know gets targeted. Lenny@perdaily.com
From a very dead, very old, and very Greek guy:
“Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.” [Homer]
😏
Not necessarily groupies (well, I am, but that’s not the point here), just people who don’t particularly want to see the kind of invective you hurled throw at ANYONE, let alone our host. I would certainly hope that you did not use those kinds of phrases around your family, neighbors, colleagues and students.
“No energy to actually contend with the forces around the country that are destroying teachers lives and the future of public education.”
Exactly what would you expect any one person to accomplish?
Diane has offered to enter serious, televised debate on the issues, only to be avoided at all costs. She has written a best selling book that has pulled back the curtain on the current rein of [t]error. She has been refused a seat at the table at every turn. She is only flesh and blood like you leonardisenberg. I don’t appreciate critics who have nothing to offer themselves. Why don’t you try directing your obvious anger and vitriol at those who deserve it.
He tried. He did. You do not know how hard he has fought to do what you say. This is the wrong place to express his feeling so strongly, it is years since he did what YOU say he should do, and nothing happened , because he, like myself and all the teachers are nobody.
Diane does what she does and she goes by her heart and what she can accomplish without ruffling feathers in battles and losing the war. This site is her contribution and I, for one are grateful for a place where YOU can speak out like you did.
That said, I wondered the same thing when I read her analysis… why didn’t she talk about this earlier. I don’t want to second guess her. She has her path and he is a fighter on his… but both are fighting the same war.
Lenny, you are an insufferable jerk. This was entirely uncalled for. Get lost and get a clue.
You don’t know me or the literally hundreds of dedicated and falsely targeted professional teachers who call me on a daily basis after being labeled the functional equivalents of “insufferable jerks” by their school districts on clearly fabricated charges. Many are Nationally Board Certified and were teacher of the year in the same year they were targeted.
Like these school districts you ignore the reality that we are 60 years after Brown vs Board of Education with a public school system that is significantly more segregated today than it was in 1954- LAUSD is close to 90% Latino and African American and about 6% White. “SEPARATE BUT EQUAL IS INHERENTLY UNEQUAL.”
Targeting and removing teachers at the top of the salary scale- 93% of those in “teacher jail”- will clearly not make public schools better. Leaving our public school system in corporate hands run by those like morally challenged opportunists like LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy is not acceptable, since their only concern is taking as much as 40% of the annual $1.2 trillion a year spent on public education. In the past, 87% of this money went to certificated and classified staff- no longer. Think credit default swaps and sub prime for comparable scams.
Professor Ravitch has the knowledge and historic context to address this and does nothing, so I should say nothing? Professor Ravitch said, “NYC Public School District came into existence in 1906 to overcome the corruption of small corrupt [charter-like] schools.” So 108 years later we are having charters shoved down our throats because a corporate media run by 5 corporations refuses to let the public know that 17% of charters do better, 47% do the same, and 36% do worse than public school (Stanford Study).
Ravitch has the celebrity to do something without spending anymore energy than she presently spends on this blog and other endeavors where she preaches to the choir. Asking why she doesn’t say the same thing in the context of judicial action makes me an “insufferale jerk?”
Address what I say here and in 700 posts that I have written over the last 4 years at http://www.perdaily.com and at CityWatchLA.com. If you can find fault in what I say as opposed to personally attacking me, because you can’t, I’ll shut up. Or, go on in your self-delusive circle jerk and leave my name out of it and I will leave you to your ethereal world which in no way resembles the tragic one targeted teachers have to deal with and predominantly minority students don’t have the luxury of escaping.
And you don’t know me, but I taught for thirty years south of LA in schools that aren’t that different from some of the worst in LA unified and the administration was about the same.
Your anger is obvious but you are directing it at the wrong person. Ravtich doesn’t just sit around writing a Blog. Before surgery on her knee after a bad fall, she often traveled the country giving lectures even with poor health; she’s willing to debate the fake education reformers any place and any time, but it is obvious they are afraid of her, and she gives interviews on TV. Have you seen any of those interviews where audiences in the millions have heard her message?
It’s all there if you take the time to learn that she’s much more than this Blog.
And this Blog has had more than 12 million views and gets between 20,000 to 70,000 views daily.
In addition, a few months ago, she held a convention/conference in Texas with several hundred educators and politicians from all over the country, who organized an Education Bloggers Network in addition to other efforts to get the word out. You may find out more about this network from this post on one of my Blogs.
http://crazynormaltheclassroomexpose.com/2014/05/06/education-bloggers-network-supporting-the-public-schools/
How many views does your Blog get or is it just a place where you vent your hot air?
There is a certain contradiction and disconnect between Professor Ravitch’s blog getting “12 million views and … between 20,000 to 70,000 views daily” and a public education corporate sponsored privatization minority that is nonetheless able to shove Vergara down our throats. This in complete derogation of reality, which they are able to get away with by having academically compromised experts testify as to things that Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Pedro Noguera, Charles Kershner, Sam Culbert, Lois Weiner and many many more true academics know to be a complete fabrications of public education reality. Whether you choose to recognize it or not, this effectively leaves the 1% effectively controlling the 99% that could easily turn around public education, if their numbers were felt.
Logic dictates that it is far easier and significantly less expensive to educate naturally curious students than not to so, so that they can wind up in a criminal justice system that has gone from 380,000 in 1978 to 2.4 million today- 60% are Latino and Black. And yet people who have no track record of success are still somehow left in control while Ravitch and Co. are on the outs?
While there is no guarantee that the judicial system is not also rigged, one must reasonably wonder why Ravitch confines herself to responding after the fact to a fabricated reality she has always known to be untrue, instead of seeking a more proactive and clearly less demoralizing role that might final allow people to hear the public education tree falling in the forest.
It is precisely because she has the audience that myself and others do not that makes it incumbent upon her to use her celebrity to actually do something that those forces seeking the privatization of public education can no longer ignore with impunity. The theory is that in a democracy the majority and not the oligarchy decides.
What you rant about in your comment is well known here among the regulars and all of your points have been made many times here and on other blogs in the Education Bloggers Network.
Ravitich is but one voice and she will use that voice to the best of her abilities based on who she is and the situation that life puts her in. She is not Batman, and we should be glad she isn’t because Batman only fights crime in one city—not an entire country. But maybe your site is the virtual Batman for Los Angeles and because of that, consider joining the Education Bloggers Network.
Do you expect Ravitch to turn herself over to you and let you manage her? And do you fool yourself and think that would make a difference and reach more people?
The Vergara court case and decision is but one battle in a war that is raging across the United States in every city and state. Ravitich reveals as much of that war as she is capable of on a daily basis, and that spreads her thin. But to ignore one city or state for another, I think, would be wrong.
In fact, the Vergara decisions may offer a wake up call to the sleeping giants who have been dozing at the wheel: the teacher unions and their 3.3 million members.
As for the visibility of her Blog to search engines on the topics that appear in her posts and the comments of those posts, let’s turn to Alexa to compare her search engine ranking to your blog. I’ll even throw in the search engine ranking of my Blog to put this all into perspective:
Your blog: 1,948,6221 (global only. Your site has no ranking in the U.S.)
My Crazy Normal Blog: 589,175 global and 100,075 U.S.
Ravitch’s Blog: 69,468 global and 14,269 U.S.
What does an Alexa search engine rank mean? It means when someone searches for a topic, Blogs with higher search engine rank (the lowest numbers with #1 being the best) appear based on their rank. Instead of landing on page 100,000 of a Google search where no one will ever discover a Blog, a site like Ravitch’s has a much better chance of landing on page one and finding readers who are interested in the topics she covers and she covers all of them from coast to coast. Alexa ranks about thirty million blogs and websites.
Search engine ranking changes daily and possibly hourly. I’m not sure how often Alexa updates its rankings.
I suggest that you shake your anger out of your head and start to think logically and not emotionally.
Leonard, this personal attack on Diane Ravitch was entirely uncalled for. She is doing more than any other person in the country, right now, to stem the tide of Education Deform treacle engulfing our country. She has been our Ida Tarbell, our Ida Wells-Barnett, our Upton Sinclair, our truth teller and courage grubber. And she has done this at great personal cost to herself, having alienated, by the positions she has taken, many former friends and allies—among them, many of the most powerful people in the nation. She didn’t have to take all this grief upon herself, but she chose to stand up rather than to stand idly by because she saw that kids and teachers were being grievously harmed. There are few people whom I unabashedly admire, for we Homo ignorans are a mixed-up lot, but she, who has shown such courage and integrity and compassion and wisdom, has earned that from me and from millions around the country, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit by and watch her being trashed.
In the days leading up to and during this trial, Dr. Ravitch, who is in her mid-seventies, was preparing for and undergoing major surgery. There were days when, lying in a hospital bed under medication, she still made the attempt to research and to post to keep her readers informed.
When people are working very, very hard for a cause and see a lot of injustice around them, it’s easy to start thinking that no one else is doing as much or giving as much and to grow resentful, but it is important to remember who one’s friends are and to be grateful for their contributions. I am have been extremely critical on this blog of the AFT and NEA for serving as propaganda ministries for the Common Core, but I also know that in many parts of this fight against deform—in protecting due process, in working to scale back the egregious overemphasis on testing, in fighting VAM—these institutions are extraordinarily important, and so I have refrained from making personal attacks against the union leaders eve when their stand on Lord Coleman’s Amateur Hour Powerpoint Bullet List infuriated me. It helps nothing and no one to sow enmity in the ranks of the Counterheeformation.
And Leonard, surely you don’t believe that Diane’s presence would have made a whit of difference to this kangaroo court.
While I agree that Professor Ravitch’s appearance would probably not have made a “whit of difference to this kangaroo court.” What I do know is that an LAUSD and districts like it around the country that encounter no legal opposition to their crimes just think of other crimes to comment. Case in point: Now in addition to targeting teachers at the top of the salary scale (93% of rubber room teachers), and/or about to vest in lifetime health benefits (which would cost LAUSD another $300,000 to add to the already $13 billion of unfunded benefits it already has), and/or disabled teachers, LAUSD is now making false claims of salary overpayment against these same targeted teachers, who do not have the wherewithal to defend themselves, since they have already been deprived of salary and benefits without fundamental due process of law. Ironically, in the majority of these cases, the teachers have actually been significantly underpaid, but are loathe to find anybody willing to help them against collection agency Valer coming after them without any proof they they were overpaid. But a bully like LAUSD has only been empowered by a complete and utter failure of unions and academics to confront their criminality in a timely manner.
Leonard Isenberg, I do not intervene in any employment disputes. I am not a fact-finder or mediator. I have no particular expertise–nor do I have time–to investigate your case or anyone else’s.
Bob Shepherd, Lloyd Lofthouse, NY teacher and Threatened out West: thank you for your comments.
The poster in question, whatever the merits of his grievances concerning LAUSD, on this blog is exhibiting the same kind of taunting contempt and despicable bullying that characterized LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy when he unfairly criticized and unjustly fired Ms. Patrena Shankling.
John Deasy or John Deasy-wannabees, when they engage in unacceptable behavior on this website they need to go elsewhere if they want to sneer, jeer and smear.
I respectfully urge the owner of this blog to bar the poster in question from this blog. Let him insult Diane from the safety—and loneliness—of his own blog.
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I know him for years. He is not a jerk, and not a troll, just incredibly frustrated and hurt after fighting so hard and losing in that cesspool that is LAUSD, and as always forgetting his audience and speaking what he thinks… unlike Harlan show rites to hear himself think out loud, , he is involved, a real flightier for teachers. His flaw, forever, often pissing be off, too, is his lack of a censor when he is fed up.
trust me, Bob, go to his site and then decide for yourself if he is a jerk, or merely so beaten down that he looks around and says… YOU! You have the pulpit… He doesn’t get Diane’s Blog, which is too bad, because it has it’s role as a meeting place… and BOB, isn’t it a place where people are free to express their displeasure… albeit, in a more subdued rhetorical style…
Dr. Ravtich has been incredibly tolerant of conflicting opinion on this blog. She is no censor and has been a tireless crusader for freedom of expression and for academic freedom (See, for example, her book The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn).
But attacking her personally crosses the line, including the explicit criteria that she established, up front, for this blog–no foul language, no racism or sexism or other hate speech, and no attacking her personally. These comments were completely unacceptable. This blog is a place for people “to discuss better education for all.” Mr. Eisenberg was completely out of line. If this behavior is characteristic of his personal style, it’s no wonder to me that he is having difficulties with his employers. He should take a look in the mirror.
I AGREE AND I GAVE HIM A PIECE OF MY MIND. I have known Diane and communicated with her personally for over a decade. This is a special place, and no place for tantrums no matter how deeply held one’s convictions are.
Whoa, things just got real edgy here!
Leonard, to be part of a case like this you need an invitation, called standing, you can’t just walk on in. She wasn’t invited to testify, she wasn’t part of the defense team. Perhaps they could have done a better job, I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I suspect this judge selected the facts he liked and would not have been persuaded by any other arguments. Hopefully on appeal different conclusions will be reached. As for you, farewell.
Old Teacher: what you said.
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An amicus brief requires no standing. Getting others with standing to intervene on a clearly collusive lawsuit requires a phone call or an email. I never thought of Professor Ravitch as shy. Outing the academics who did testify in Vergara…after the fact…could have been done before a verdict. The earlier Reed case gave everyone forewarning as to where they were going in Vergara.
Unions had and have the standing, unless they are colluding with those trying to sell out teacher rank and files. Neither administrators of school district nor union leadership are ever going back to a classroom- just look at what UTLA past president A.J. Duffy did when his term finished- started a charter school, that he had opposed as long as he was UTLA president. So far UTLA has allowed 13,000 to be fired or forced into early retirement while doing nothing and then claiming they don’t have the money to litigate, because of the loss of dues from these forced out teachers is just pure chutzpah.
If administrators don’t go to work, school goes on. If teachers don’t, school is over. And yet some form of strike by teachers or students, which is at the foundation of collective bargaining is never a even a topic of conversation. Maybe over $400,000 a year Randi Weingarten can bring it up at her next speaking engagement at the Broad Academy.
A research professor not doing his research? Before appearing in a court of law? Speaking of the cuff without giving a qualification to the casual answer?
What were the defense lawyers thinking while they prepped this witness?
This is a huge gaffe.
David Berliner was one of the first people to call out the “reform” movement and bring public attention to their fallacies and war on public education, in the 90s. I bet he feels awful that this ruling hinged on what he said in court.
“The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On America’s Public Schools.” by David Berliner and Bruce Biddle:
http://www.amazon.com/Manufactured-Crisis-Attack-Americas-Schools/dp/0201441969/
This topic was posted as a comment in another thread. Again, Berliner should know better as a researcher than to give a short answer where there is no opportunity to qualify the statement. David Berliner is a formidable researcher, but it appears he was unwittingly used as a pawn in this case. Can he be brought in as a witness for the defense in an appeal?
good LG, you del with the topic and the point. Mr. Isenberg does not know this wonderful place where we talk. I have been here for only 3 weeks, and I am so grateful to Diane for what she has accomplished. She is who she is, and she does what she can as the person she is. I feel badly that Lenny undermined his wonderful work at Perdaily with his intemperate words, which do make an important point that is being missed because of the way he expressed himself. Vergara was well known before, and needed exposure. No one did it, so this judge, seeing no accountability in the media was enabled to do his stuff.
I am a big fan of Diane, and an admirers of Lenny’s long battle. He is more than this, and it pains me to see how his habit of speaking the truth as HE sees it, found its way here. Go to Perdaily.com and see why someone who is on the line, fighting the battle, may feel resentful that those who MIGHT do more, do not.
We need BOTH Diane and Lenny, and Karen Horwitz, and Betsy Combier, and Norm Scott, and Anthony Cody, and Lorna Stremcha, and Leonie Haimison, and Rene Diedrich and Lois Weiner… and ME, who listens to everyone, including Lloyd and Bob, and tries to get the story of the war on teachers and public education OUT THERE…
Susan, one of the reasons why the Vergara case was well known to educators all across this country is that Diane used her blog to get the message out about it. She gave this case a great airing nationwide via her blog.
And so, in the midst of everything else that she does, she put a lot of work into informing the public about this case.
I was attacked recently on this blog because I posted a comment saying that the teachers’ unions will become irrelevant unless they reassert the right to strike. The attacker went on to detail her local union work, of which I heartily approve, and to imply that it was easy for me just to sit on my duff and blog while others actually get out and organize.
Well, in the past few years, I have but an enormous amount of time–hours each day–into writing about various issues related to the Education Deform–into informing people about SPECIFIC problems with the Common Core State Standards, with the summative standardized tests, with VAM, with ending due process for teachers, with letter grading systems for schools, with much of the computer-adaptive software now being produced, with nationalized database systems, and so on. That’s what I do. I am an ELA curriculum specialist, a curriculum developer, a teacher, and a writer and editor. I use the gifts that I have to fight the deforms as best I can, and I gain nothing from this except knowing that I am doing right by kids. Spending time doing this has enormous opportunity costs for me, and the positions that I have taken here and elsewhere have cost me dearly in work from clients who have not approved of what I have said here. I don’t typically mention these things on this blog because my interest, here, is in Deform and in presenting the arguments against it, and, in particular, in explaining why the CCSS in ELA and summative standardized testing as conceived and used are terrible for our country and our kids.
Diane has played in this anti-deform movement the role of muckracker, in the great tradition of the muckracking journalists of the past–of people like Tarbell, Wells-Barnett, and Sinclair. She has also been a key theorist and activist in the tradition of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There is no doubt whatsoever that this lone woman has been the de facto leader of the opposition to Deform and that she has worked TIRELESSLY at this at a time in her life when she could easily be resting on her considerable laurels. Given that, given her brilliance and courageousness and tenacity, and given the enormous personal cost to her of the fight that she has waged for children, it seems to me utter OBSCENE and IDIOTIC for someone to attack HER, of all people, for not doing enough. She is our Boadicea, our Warrior Queen. All honor to her.
“The attacker went on to detail her local union work, of which I heartily approve, and to imply that it was easy for me just to sit on my duff and blog while others actually get out and organize.”
During my thirty years in the classroom, I walked picked lines more than once outside the high school where I taught and the district office, and I can assure you that you have more of a chance to reach a much wider national and even global audience through the Internet and a Blog than walking in a line holding a stick with a sign that few driving by can risk reading for fear of an accident.
In fact, we organize virtually too. The Education Bloggers Network is one example. In addition, when we put away the signs and drive home, the sidewalks become empty and our protests fade to nothing. Only during the few hours we were out and about did people see us as they drove by. But here, everything that apears is there to read for anyone at anytime 365 days a year 24-7. Multiply that by all the other Bloggers posting on this subject and supporting the resistance, that will have a lot more lasting impact and is much more efficient than pounding the surface of a sidewalk holding a poster board sign stapled to a stick of wood.
I feel, Lloyd, that nothing can substitute for actual action in the streets. Look at the Arab spring, for example. It’s extremely important to create THEATRE that creates NEWS.
Theater—drama, comedy, tragedy—-does create news, but you have to think up something that’s unique, shocking and different so the masses sit up and pay attention for fifteen minutes before they get bored and move on.
But clearly, blogging is extraordinarily useful, the the two interrelate. This blog was instrumental, for example, in spreading the news about the protest at Camp “Philos,” and that protest got a lot of coverage in the press.
And doubtless this blog gave support and encouragement to the strikers in Chicago and to the MAP protesters in Seattle.
Which is why I have often referred to Diane using the wonderful phrase that Allan Ginsburg used to describe Walt Whitman, as our “courage grubber.” Her voice encourages. People know that they are not alone in their struggle.
On another topic but related, I am uploading the e-book of my memoir and have stalled on the seven keywords Amazon allows. Any suggestions.
The memoir focuses on one year in s classroom in a high school with a high poverty rate. More than 70% of the kids were on free or reduced lunch. I taught English to four periods to kids who read at 2nd to 12th+ grade level in the same class teaching out of a ninth-grade level textbook and my last period of the day was journalism staffed with mostly kids from AP and honors classes.
The contrast is shocking between the English classes and journalism.
The high school was surrounded by a barrio where violent street gangs ruled the streets and the marked just about every wall in sight in addition to curbs, poles, etc.
That’s a tough one. school violence. gangs. urban education. inner city school. teaching. school to prison pipeline. Some possibilities.
I very much look forward to reading this, Lloyd!
Thank you for the suggestions. I’m going to add them to the list. After I asked for any ideas you might have, I had another idea and went on Amazon to see what key words were used for simliar books. For Instance, Frank McCourt’s work.
I forgot to write them down and Amazon locked “Crazy is Normal’s” page while it is in “Publishing” mode. Amazon kdp says it could take 12 hours. Maybe later today or early tomorrow it will be up and then I can share the keywords I came up with.
Amazon limits books to seven keywords but you can use more than one word as a keyword. For instance, childhood poverty (counts as one keyword), which was one of the keywords I used, along with “teaching methods”.
You make an important point about the multiplicative effect of communications via the Net. There’s a Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon phenomenon at work here, and that’s important.
Often, I have seen a phrase appear on this blog and then, a couple months latter, crop up in newspaper and magazine articles all around this country. We need more of that.
I am still waiting to see op-eds in major newspapers or, even better, political campaign commercials, use the term Education Deform.
Lenny, Did you use the Search All Posts tool on this site, using the term “Vergara,” and read all the posts by Diane about this case BEFORE the decision came down? There were many, and a lot of people outside CA probably would not have known about the case if it was not for Diane informing us about it for months.
Did everyone read Berliner’s explanation of his testimony, in response to the announcement of his part in the judge’s decision? Very interesting:
http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2014/06/10/judge-rules-in-favor-of-vergara-thanks-to-david-berliner/