I wrote yesterday about Néw York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman and his glowing report on his wife’s boarding school for African-American youth in Baltimore. I concluded that it was no model because of its cost ($40,000 per student), its attrition rate (about 64% don’t make it to graduation), and my sense that efforts to “save” a few students distracted attention from systemic problems of poverty, segregation, and racism. It is not reasonable to think that every impoverished black child should be separated from their families and communities, and it smacks of a sort of neoliberal colonialism. As one reader commented, it is reminiscent of the Indian boarding schools of the late 19th century, intended to strip Indian children of their culture and make them more like whites.
Well, it turns out I was a namby-pamby. Here is a column that eviscerates Friedman and his wife and their school. If I wrote such vitriol, I would be the target of a major Twitter assault and a score of outraged posts.
Read it and let me know what you think.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m used to being disappointed in Friedman, but I’m appalled the NYT allows itself to be a vehicle for this type of self-promotion. Journalistic integrity be damned, evidently. At least make him take out a full page ad with little 6 point type that announces it’s an advertisement.
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Diane….I made my views known in your prior post today on Friedman and SEED. However, to laud this article by an IT guy, not a trained educator, seems counter productive to solving even a modicum of the disaster of lost children. It is not a question to me of this particular private charter run with public money, which you know I always vilify. Rather it opens the issue of public boarding schools, for INFORMED discussion, about whether separating children from verifiable abusive parents and homes, and communities that are endlessly damaging, to a situation that could be a partial solution and a good use of taxpayer funding.
As Nino shows below, programs like this are succeeding and the public education establishment needs to learn from them. I worked for two years with Sisters of Charity who have a track record of similar housing programs, but under the aegis of the church. This too can translate into a public education solution.
The rest of the rancor and palaver here is based on emotions and politics rather than on the insights and data of those who work daily in the field.
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A part of me saw what Friedman was saying, because I really love the education which my grandkids get at Newark Academy. Is it worth 25k a year, when once-upon -a-time only a few decades ago, all Americans could get a really great public education?
You have a point Ellen.
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Poverty is a socio-economic issue impacting families and communities and needs to be addressed as such, including with work programs and jobs with livable wages. Just as with charter day schools, serving only the strivers (which is what you’re left with when you have over 60% attrition) in residential schools is no answer. And child abuse/neglect is not specific to low income children of color; it cuts across socio-economic and cultural groups.
I’ve also worked with children and teens who were abused or neglected and who became wards of the state due to that. The state placed them in a faith based group home and the kids attended a therapeutic day school, subsidized by both the state and the school district, or, if they ready, they went to neighborhood schools. The children received ongoing therapy in the group home as well, which was structured, regulated and well-monitored –nothing like what has been reported lately about group homes in California. If kids have been abused or neglected, this kind of arrangement provides a nurturing home like atmosphere with guidance and supports, which is much more appropriate than sending them off to boarding school.
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Adam Johnson is a freelance journalist. He writes regularly for Alternet.
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There is a program, ABC (A Better Chance), which simply takes very promising students from areas where, statistically, they have a high chance of failure, and puts them in academic communities such as Swarthmore and Radnor, Pa where they go to the local public high schools. The cost per student is very nominal and the success rate is very high. This is a program that gives more “Bang for the Buck” than any i’ve seen, and is run from donations. I encourage everyone to look in to this. It is limited to students who are already high achieving, but it really works.
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I think what frustrates people is that these things are presented as “a solution”. The program you cite sounds great and I’m happy for the kids who take part, but it isn’t a replacement for public education.
I don’t even care about Friedman. What I care about is how often and to what extent policy leaders LISTEN to Friedman.
Surely we can get more diverse opinions than 3 columnists for the NYTimes on something so universally shared as public education.
They have an OUTSIZE voice in our policy, is my complaint, and frankly, they are NOT representative of “most of us”.
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SEED is not a solution. It just detracts from the problem. Children deserve to grow up in a caring, nurturing and loving home with a stable family life. The real issue is what is eroding family. POVERTY… chronic poverty is a killer.. inability to earn a living wage, to have affordable housing, have access to health care and nutritional food etc… These are the issues eating away at family stability. SEED just takes a very small group of children away from their impoverished families while the majority of their community languishes in poverty. THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION. The solution is not something one percenters want to hear about or act on as it decreases their enormous bankroll. If our political system is ever restored to a system of “checks and balances” perhaps a more caring humanistic approach to community can be voted into place so our nation can govern with the notion that we are only as healthy as our weakest. One percent AGAINST THE REST is destroying the fabric of our democracy. SEED is a distraction that does nothing to solve the underlying issues.
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Is this similar to the METCO program in Boston?
See: http://www.doe.mass.edu/metco/ for more information. This has been around since 1966.
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ABC and METCO are different. In METCO, students continue to live with their families, and simply travel to a their school each day. In ABC, students leave their families and go to with with another family in a suburban or rural district.
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Spot on and very frank analysis of what happens when people have too much money and not enough common sense to do something useful with it. Friedman is a piece of work.
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Elites in this country have lost all sense of reason and morals. Both you and Fairtest are being overly kind to this pro-war neocon.
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“We’re about to turn the corner in Iraq..Give it six more months” Thomas Friedman said almost weekly for years.
Of course he left out the second “o” in corner:
“The World according to Tom Friedman”
The world is flat
My wallet’s fat
We’re turning cor(o)ners
In Iraq
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This is why 6 months is known as a Friedman Unit.
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I stopped reading Friedman years ago, but if you want to have some fun while seeing him exposed as the fraud he is try this: http://www.thomadfriedmanopedgenerator.com
If you ever had a sense of deja vu while reading him, this will show why, and it’s hilarious…
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That oped generator is hilarious. I wonder if Friedman has taken to using it. Ha ha!
Matt Taibbi has also written some very funny stuff about Friedman, eg, about Friedman’s “napkin graph” in “Hot, Flat and crowded” (see here)
The sad part is lots of people think this guy is an oracle.
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No surprise, here. He loves the school. Those with the access to the media, can write whatever they please, and NOWHERE is the truth. Orwell reigns. YOU nailed it with your facts about how many kids actually make it to graduation in 12th grade.
My own grandkids go to Newark Academy, one of the top ($25k a year per child) private schools.) Kids there do graduate, and well they should for that chunk of change…small classes, dedicated faculty etc.) My son, a cardiologist and his wife (also a doctor) love the school, too. No supplies. Blind to the rest of the nation’s children.
My other grandkids in Texas are homeschooled.
Friedman knows economics.
Wouldn’t it be grand if there was a weekly column by YOU, for example, or Linda, or Valerie, or… ANYONE who can actually tell the public about the war on teachers which UNDERSCORE the war on the INSTITUTION of public education.
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You have to love how our policymakers take the pulse of America by listening exclusively to 150 well-off people who have opinions.
It’s a VERY broad debate. It ranges all the way from Bill Gates to Tom Friedman!
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which means it ranges all the way from Bill Gates to Bill Gates
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Sigh!
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And, don’t forget the ability to pick who attends.
I am not a fan of private education. I have taught in them.
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Just how it looks to me: I read the linked article and I have read and heard (in person) much much stronger language re race and other matters.
So I respectfully state for the record—although it was meant in jest—that the owner of this blog is no “namby pamby”: it takes strength and courage as well as great self-control in service to a higher cause, to be polite and measured when under attack from the sneer, jeer and smear crowd aka corporate education reformers and their enforcers and enablers.
Thank you for doing the right thing even under duress. Honestly, I wouldn’t have the patience.
As for one small piece of the substance raised by Mr. Friedman: what I object to most strongly is the unshakeable rheephorm insistence that social triage is acceptable. Over and over again, in all their various hues and colors and shapes and sizes, there is a single argument that gets repeatedly endlessly, especially when they use phrases like “a variety of options” or “a portfolio of choices”:
That it is not just acceptable, but absolutely necessary, to sacrifice the many for the sake of the few.
That is, all the sacred cows of self-styled “education reform” like charters and vouchers and VAM and the uses and abuses of the scores derived from standardized tests, assume that there will be winners & losers, the few that count for something & the many that don’t. Their “choices” have built-in disadvantages, especially for the already disadvantaged, so even when they can impose a “variety” of them, there are still, well, let’s riff off of one of their most fervent mantras:
Most Children Left Behind.
In other words, they present the same putrid “better fewer but better” wine in slightly rebranded new bottles, with the same results every single time: send THEIR failures back to the dreaded “big gubmint monopoly schools” aka “factories of failure” aka “dropout factories.”
The reality is, the students didn’t fail, the rheephormsters failed, and they can’t deal with their own failures so they dump them back on everyone else. That’s what selecting out and counseling out and pushing out and midyear dumps and stack rankings via VAM and such are all about: avoid taking responsibility for their own failings.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
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That article wasn’t all that vitriolic. It’s also very strange that these people like Mr. Duncan and Mr. Friedman don’t see any problem leaving the turmoil in those neighborhoods.
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Now we are on the right track. You want data? Here is the guy to give it to you. I love it
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Good heavens. $40,000 a year! How about taking that same amount of money to “help” one child (who will have a 36% chance of graduating) and helping 40 classrooms full of kids in public schools. Any classroom teacher given $1,000 could find some awfully good ways to spend that money. For example, you could buy books, crayons, CD players, fish tanks, magnifying glasses, puppets, personal journals, a beanbag chair or carpet area for quiet reading, calculators … oh, the list is endless. WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE!
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How about the trillions spent by the military on aircraft that never are used, like the latest one that cannot fly near lightening storms. If that money was put into the schools…. Bill Maher did a piece not this… it wasn’t funny that these planes have to avoid flying general storms!!!!
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In addition, aircraft carriers cost a lot more, and the US has more aircraft carriers than every nation in the world combined.
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Sigh!
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:o| Is this a sardonic grin?
And the U.S. is building more that cost more with weapons right out of Star Wars.
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I sigh because of the powerless we Americans have in the face of the oligarchy that is running not only our nation, but the world… and they are running it into utter destruction.
It is hard to know the facts about what another degree in temperature will do to our planet, and to realize, after reading all the science and the news this very day, that it is inevitable. It is hard to accept that what we have now, and what was our American Life for the last half century is over, and there is no going back.
I have often written about the ages of transformation, and the inadvertent consequences that are only visible from the ‘lofty’ (hee, here) position that hindsight provides. Only, now, I see a future where human life, if it exists at all, will look back on our ’empire’ and wonder at the lost opportunities to create a paradise instead of a desert!
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Yes, Susie Lee, as you know I agree. Just read my many articles online on the subject of the oligarchs takeover. However, if every one of Diane’s readers would vow to tutor one student at least once a week, that would make a dent in the lives of poor kids. Too many only voice the same opinions, but never get involved.
Every public library has a tutoring project to join as a volunteer teacher.
You and Roxanne and Lloyd and others including me, who have been actual educators in the trenches for a lifetime, recognize the true needs, but too many talk the talk without walking the walk. Lloyd often uses powerful words to describe it all. It is a many pronged battle to change the leadership, to do away with poverty, to re-engage with humane and democratic values and do away with the Wall Street greed, but each of us can concurrently help at least one child in need. Pollyanna, maybe, but helping to save on child is better than all the words on these sites.
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Indeed. We have to walk the walk, and it is not easy. As you know I follow Lenny Isenberg’s revelations about what the school system has done to the black and latino populations in LA. How do we ever make that right.
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“I went to Baltimore and talked to teachers after the riots,” Duncan added. “The number of kids living with no family member is stunning. But who is there 24/7? The gangs. At a certain point, you need love and structure, and either traditional societal institutions provide that or somebody else does. We get outcompeted by the gangs, who are there every day on those corners.”
This also brings to mind the Stolen Generations of the aboriginal children of Australia. One of the main reasons they were removed from their families was “child protection.”
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Democracy Now ! just did a piece on the 1st Nation children of Canada. Seems the same argument was used back in the early 20th century.
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It went on in Canada through the 1990s and it was reported this week that “6,000 Kids Died in Residential Schools: Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission” http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/02/6000-kids-died-residential-schools-canada-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-160555
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What the Catholic Missions priests did to the Indians in Canada and in the US over 100 years ago has nothing to do with the situation of inner city poverty and childhood degradation today. Public boarding schools, not private, with professional educators supervision, could do much good in alleviating the disasters these kids face in their daily lives. The use of terms like ” civilizing savages” is a misdirection of this discussion. These are American children being savaged by their damaged parents and their failed communities, not by public schools.
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The intent of military style boot camp charter schools for poor children of color is precisely for “civilizing savages.”
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You don’t get it Ed…I am not saying that the charters goals might not be to “educate the savages” (for we find charters run by pretend do-gooders like the Waltons, and perhaps like the Friedmans, suspect) but those are not the goals of public school educators who might do a far better job of incorporating social services and volunteer surrogate parents. Although some group homes furnish these services for small numbers of students, there is a stigma attached to group homes. Take away the term ‘boarding schools’ and perhaps make it ‘public live-in learning environments’. What I suggest is a trial study to investigate the efficacy of this idea. A 1 out 3 grad rate is better than many inner city schools are producing.
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No, stop kidding yourself. They have the same very high attrition rate as charter day schools that want only the easiest kids and those who will bring in high test scores. Group homes may have a bad rep in your area but not in mine. We got rid of orphanages long ago for good reason. Children did not thrive in institutional care and were in need of smaller home settings.
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Thanks for pointing out the connection to Tom and his wife. I see ads for teachers for that school all the time. Didn’t know my tax dollars went to supporting that. It has to be a brutal Baltimore to Potomac, MD commute everyday. Must be worth it. Perhaps Tom and his wife can have a few overnights with the Balto kids at their 7.5 acre, 11,000 sq. foot house/compound. I pass by his neck of the woods frequently. Perhaps I’ll ring the bell or buzzer at the door/gate/moat and suggest it.
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Private schools, charter schools, religious schools, tax subsidies for religious and private schools, super-majority tax caps….all of these parts of our “public” life undermine the idea of an equal education for all children. Clearly American elites have decided to destroy this idea, where once they understood that they had to accept it. Democratic and Republican leaders, Bishops, Orthodox Rabbis…the frenzy is on. Destroy the very idea of democracy.
Not all children are entitled to a good education. Only the rich or lucky are. The conflict is becoming very simple. (If luck or paternalism can be equated with the principle of equality, then we really are brain-dead.)
Which side are you on?
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In a nut shell, my response: a perfect truth
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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This reminds me of Newt Gingrich’s orphanages back in 1995 when the Republicans launched their Contract on America. I recall the nightly news programs doing pieces on orphanages and thinking to myself, have you all gone mad?!
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I wonder what that mother who hit her son for joining the protests would say about this. I wonder what our young people, who live in poverty would say about this, and not just the “high-achieving” ones.
I wonder what the gang members would say about this.
I wonder what the Native Americans, now adults, who were taken from their families would say about this. Both those who ended up with successful lives and those who didn’t.
Is it ever better to separate children from their families? Under what circumstances? And what was it that made it successful for some?
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I give up.
Let the kids stay with their “family” abusers and grossly negative role models until the gangs pick them off. Brilliant ideas you pose. Have you ever been in inner city classes with 52 teens in a room, and with teachers who are having nervous breakdowns trying to handle this untenable situation? And with principals who hide in their locked offices?
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Yes, give it up. Advocate for equitable funding for neighborhood schools, to pay for smaller class sizes, a rich curriculum, counseling, wrap around services etc., instead of labeling poor parents “abusers” and aiming to take away their kids and send them to boarding school. If you know of abuse and you are a mandated reporter, file reports and let the state determine if kids need to be taken out of their homes.
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You obviously have not been reading my articles here, nor my posts, for the last two years. All you say with derision is actually what I have been doing, and am doing, and I am one of the few who uses my real name and does not hide behind a pseudonym. Lucky you to not have seen severe abuse. And to not have taught in the inner city.
Diane…surprised that you are avoiding all this.
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I have taught in the inner city for over 45 years and I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with child abuse and neglect, so stop acting like you know better than everyone else here.
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And BTW, if YOU were working as a teacher today and not just as a consultant, you’d know better than to expect teachers to use our real names here, because not all of us have union protections or another income to fall back on for survival.
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Ellen, thanks for your efforts to suggest that SEED can be a valid option. Thanks for your efforts to encourage people not only to post here or elsewhere, but also to be involved in other ways with helping young people.
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Ellen,
I have seen kids living in horrendous circumstances with parents who truly are not able to care for them. But that has nothing to do with this school. These kids aren’t selected because they come from abusive or neglectful homes. They are selected, in a lottery, based on their poverty, and as it happens, their skin color. It will do nothing to help the kids you rightly care so much about.
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Well, how could they go wrong when here you have it from the horse’s ass: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/education-secretary-backs-public-boarding-schools-certain-kids-we-should
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I find it absolutely horrifying that Arne Duncan wants to see the expansion of residential schools like SEED for low income children, which is a military style boot camp, just like no excuses charters only 24 hours a day, while he is ignoring the fact that kids of color are being taught to be white in those schools, just like Native Americans were at residential schools.
Instead, he should be funding the “Promise Neighborhoods” that were touted by Obama, but he hasn’t been. My guess is that real estate and gentrification are much more valuable to them:
“Whatever Happened to Obama’s ‘Promise Neighborhoods’ in NYC?” http://citylimits.org/2014/11/12/whatever-happened-to-obamas-promise-neighborhoods/
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TE – more than $200 million have been awarded to help create Promise Neighborhoods. http://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/funding.html
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$200M over 5 years is just a drop in the bucket, especially when so many areas across the country are in need. No sense of urgency.
And it’s not surprising the charter school lover Joe Nathan likes residential military style boot camp schools for poor children of color.
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First you assert that the Obama administration “hasn’t been” funding promise neighborhoods. Then, when presented with evidence of more than $200M, you say that it’s “just a drop in the bucket.” The Obama administration has had to deal with Congress which has Promise Neighborhoods in specific, and more funding for public education overall, as a lower priority than many other things.
As to the assertion of “charter lover,” I have a 45 year history of working with and supporting a variety of public schools, including more than 2,000 newspaper columns.
Here’s a recent column praising several schools, district and charter, than previously unsuccessful schools praise for the wonderful help they’ve received from teachers:
http://hometownsource.com/2015/05/14/joe-nathan-column-students-describe-triumph-over-tragedy/
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TFA got $50M from the Department of Education in 2010 alone, so $200M for Promise Neighborhoods across the entire country over a 5 year period is the promise of a bandaid masquerading as major surgery.
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It sure is a drop in the bucket. In 2010, the federal DoE gave out $650M in “Investing in Innovation” grants and KIPP also got $50M. (Just the kind of thing Joe loves and banked his career on.) The policy preference is clearly for promoting animal training by unqualified teachers in privatized schools over equity and funding wrap around services for community public schools in poor neighborhoods.
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ReTeach, my work since 1970 has focused on working in and with urban public schools – and that’s where our 3 children attended and graduated. My career has involved working on helping reduce problems in and outside of public schools, as described in this blog recently published in Ed Week.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2015/05/whats_are_priorities_for_a_pro.html
I’m glad the feds put $200 million in Promise. I wish it were more. I’ve also helped encourage some states (including this one) to put $ into that kind of thing.
The Mn legislature has just agreed to provide additional funds for some promise neighborhoods here. I hope you are encouraging your state to do the same.
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As with many states, mine is busy diverting funds from public schools to charter schools, and they told districts they’re using a new formula that is RETROACTIVE, so they were sued last month: http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/05/18/illinois-charter-school-funding-draws-fire.htm
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Here’s the comment I left that the Times published:
A costly secondary program that lost 63% of it’s students would not warrant national attention, but it led me to this thought experiment:
What would the results be if two small public secondary schools in a Baltimore neighborhood received an influx of money equal to the amount spent on the 80 SEED students with the proviso they had to develop a 24/7 wraparound program for their students? And what would the newspaper accounts of that program be if only 36% of the student population graduated?
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Hi Ellen and Joe Nathan:
I would suggest that please let’s get back to the basics of OUR ADVOCACY in the name of the unfortunates
1) necessary MINIMUM wages for laborers to cover minimum basic NEEDS for shelter and food with condition of free education in K-12.
2) fair ratio tax on earning income or PROFIT in order to contribute to the preserve of humanity, civility, and the cultivation of civilization on human RACE, not BREED.
3) Corporate lawyers, accountants, politicians and business corporation OWNERS shall be in the HIGHEST TAX BRACKET because these professions are the most CORRUPTED careers.
4) material support can TEMPORARILY alleviate physical needs. However, mental support by giving hope, skills for survival, and JOY OF LEARNING will forever make the BIGGEST IMPACT on JOY OF LIVING for all people whether they are blue collar, white collar, young or old, unfortunate or lucky.
Thank you Teacher Ed for your conviction on 45 years teaching in the inner city. Yes, GREED, LUST and EGO remain the CULPRIT in causing WARS amongst human race regardless of being civilized or savage.
I would love to repeat Dr. Ravitch’s last sentence of her thread as my conclusion.
“”Saving our children one at a time is a noble cause, but it is even more noble is to fix the social and economic conditions that put them at risk.”” May King
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In this Education Week blog, Deborah Meier and I discuss priorities for a progressive education agenda. We discuss the importance of working both on broader societal issues and on improving schools. Not one or the other. Both.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2015/05/whats_are_priorities_for_a_pro.html
Having visited the SEED school in Washington, I agree it is expensive and viable only if there are a number of public funding streams (such as $ allocated for public schools, for support of low income families, etc). So it is viable in relatively few areas where such collaboration can be created. The school also relies on some outside gifts.
Having said that, I think it’s a valuable option. No one is forced to attend. I talked with some participating students and parents who are pleased to have this option.
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Don’t fall for Joe’s claims of being on the side of public schools. Whenever his charter school agenda is revealed he plays that card. He has been involved in charter school expansion for decades. This is the man who believes appointed charter school commissions that are solely in place to expand privatization should be able to over-ride elected school boards and bring in charters to areas that don’t want them: https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/joe-nathan-defends-the-illinois-charter-commission/
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Chi-Town,
Joe Nathan has never criticized a charter school. When he reads the latest charter scandal, he always says there is a public school scandal somewhere
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Diane, you wrote, “Joe Nathan has never criticized a charter school. When he reads the latest charter scandal, he always says there is a public school scandal somewhere.”
Actually, Diane I’ve criticized charters . Here’s an example from an Ed Week blog earlier this year:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2015/03/what_does_the_charter_movement.html
After listing some things I like about chartering, I wrote:
Those are good things. Now here are a few of the things that concern me:
1. Failure to skillfully, successfully monitor how some charters operate. You’re familiar with scandals involving charters. Some people have exploited opportunities. This happens in some traditional schools and teacher unions too. But it is infuriating, wherever it happens. We are learning more about how to monitor schools. But there have been scandals and unacceptable exploitation of opportunities that chartering provides.
2. Abuse of freedom to sometimes make huge profits and pay unseemly salaries.
3. Some over-reliance on traditional standardized measures. You and I have agreed on the importance of multiple measures. Some involved with chartering agree. Others promote their schools primarily on the basis of test scores and/or graduation rates.
4. Unwillingness in some cases to work creatively with students with special needs. Again, I see this in the district sector as well, with creation of district or regional magnet schools with admissions tests that exclude many youngsters with special needs. Public schools, district or chartered, should be open to all.
5. Unwillingness, sometimes, to learn from some district school successes, and previous efforts to improve schools. There are some great district schools and educators. We all need to respect and learn from them. So a big “shout out” to Educators for Excellence-Minnesota. They regularly convene district and charter educators to learn from eachother.
6. Unwillingness by some charters to share information about public funds are spent. Most state laws requre yearly financial audits, made available to the public. But some schools resist providing information about how they are spending public funds.
These are not my only concerns. But any fair assessment of chartering ought to acknowledge strengths and shortcomings.”
– – – – – – – – – –
Moving on, there are great things to learn from some district & some chartered public schools. One way to help more students is to learn from the most effective schools serving students from low income families, and schools doing a wonderful job with students with whom traditional schools have not succeeded.
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Right. Growing up in Kansas, I learned the value of not leaving all major decisions to local boards. If we had done that, we would not have equal opportunity for young women or expanded opportunities for students of color, and on and on.
Chi-Town is absolutely right that I wouldn’t give all decisions to local school boards.
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You are so smart!
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Great response, telling it like it is about this guy’s shameless advertisement.
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Princeton Professor Gilens reported his research. “The opinions of 90% of Americans have no impact on Congressional activity.”
Deducing…. Gates, Kochs and Waltons have great influence, because the U.S. is an oligarchy.
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I write at the progressive news site, OEN (Oped News) http://www.opednews.com/populum/page_stats.php?content=a&timelimit=24&toggle=Hand you would love the conversations and the articles here, as all of us know what you know.
You don’t have to become a member. I did and began to write there, articles:
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.htmlhttp://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
and commentary, but mostly I link to things I read, particularly , but not always about education. I have a series of quicklinks which include links here http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
You can message me there, too, and I will answer with an email
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Susan, You ought to confer with experts in Early Childhood Education and child development before saying, “What is REALLY NECESSARY for children to LEARN in school, is pre-school literacy,” as you stated on the last page which you provided a link for above.
Consistent with the research, many of us disagree with that claim. You can read articles on this matter at Defending the Early Years: http://deyproject.org/
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I am no academic, just a mere teacher with several advanced degrees.
I have taught for 40 years, and 12 of those years, was as a sub in a district with 70,000 kids, as I raised my own sons.
I met many of the same students in Kg, and saw them graduate. I witnessed the friends of my sons, in my classes– in the same schools where I taught.
I also taught full time in elementary an middle school for 20 years.
My ‘experience’ tells me that children whose parents talked to them, whose parents read to them, kids who heard words and observed how sounds become words in books, how spoken language could be written, were children who had early experiences speaking, after years of listening.
I discovered that kids who listened to people talk, and who were encourages to speak and then to actually ‘see’ spoken words as the appeared in books, were the ones who tried to write, and had a huge advantage over children to whom language was missing until they entered school.
Ok, listening, speaking, reading writing sounds a whole lot like a process once labeled ‘whole language’ but in my experience observing early literacy… hearing language, and speaking language had a huge impact on reading and writing.
I am sure the studies will reveal what you say they do.
I know what I know.
I also know that all of the second and third grade students in my classes, learned to read and write. It is a process which I understand and thus, it is easy for me to show children how to listen, to think about words, and to talk and use words. It is not hard to get them all to want to read and write if one knows what kids like to read.
All of my seventh graders learned to handle language, to use accountable talk, so they could move into the upper grades with a command of spoken and thus written language
and so well that most of them they earned the highest scores on the citywide tests they gave in the nineties..
But, I know which children struggled and who had advantages that parenting provided.
Thanks for reading what I write.
I appreciate the time you took to provide feedback.
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If you mean preschool language development, that is fine and please say that instead of literacy. “Preschool literacy” means preschoolers who are reading and writing.
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What shocks me the most is how people on the one hand say that a 25k a year education is good, but don’t think every kid should get it–only those select few who are chosen. Disgusting hypocrisy or a complete obtuseness.
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The funding methods of public schools in this country are deeply unfair. In many states, the wealthiest students have the largest amounts spend on them. That’s wrong. Has the Network taken any steps to convince legislators to change this?
In Minnesota, significant sums are allocated to provide extra $ for public schools for schools serving high % of low income students.
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“In Minnesota, significant sums are allocated to provide extra $ for public schools for schools serving high % of low income students.”
This is great, but don’t hold your breathe that this will last forever. Every election until Citizens United is overturned and the U.S. has meaningful campaign finance reform (if that ever happens) will see a heavily financed challenger from an ALEC or Hedge Fund supported candidate, who if elected, will surely turn out to be another Scott Walker or Cuomo.
Every state, city and school district is at risk and this risk factor might still be around a decade from now.
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Actually, Lloyd, the extra $ for schools serving high % of low income families has expanded over the last decade. But I agree that it requires continued effort.
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It disgusts and infuriates me, too.
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Ridiculous. While budgets have been slashed across America, many districts have been losing funding because that money is being diverted to charter schools, such as this: “Athens City Schools continue losing funds to charter schools” http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-44887-athens-city-schools-continue-losing-funds-to-charter-schools.html
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We’re talking about 2 different things – in many states, suburban districts spent more per pupil than inner city districts. Wouldn’t you say that’s wrong?
Also, the study I cited pointed out colleges and universities serving primarily students from affluent families spent more per pupil than the colleges and universities serving primarily students from low income families. Are you ok with that?
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Heeeere’s Joe:
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-06-07
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Athens is not a wealthy suburb. The median household income there was $17,887 in 2012.
America can’t afford to fund a dual system of education. And now it’s getting even worse, because the actions of those supporting charters have have extended to Democrats promoting vouchers, as with Cuomo, who wants to send public funds to private schools, including religious schools, and home-schoolers. When a limited pot is divided, the wealthy will find ways to obtain additional funds, while the neediest have no other resources, regardless of location.
Diminishing democracy is the aim of plutocrats and eliminating democracy from education is the hallmark of neoliberal corporate “reformers.” You are proud to be counted as one of them. Sickening. I’m done with you.
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I second what Teacher Ed said. Traditional public schools are not funded equitably and funds are siphoned off to charter schools. Then charters send kids back to neighborhood schools (often just before testing time) and keep the funds for themselves.
It’s fruitless to talk to Dilbert trolls who are enamored by charter schools and make their living off promoting them, so I’m outta here, too.
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I make my living working with and learning from district & charter public school educators, students and families. I learn a lot by reading & posting here.
A key difference between SEED and the American Indian boarding schools is that children wee forced to attend those horrible boarding schools. Families select SEED from among a variety of other options.
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“Charter Schools Spend More On Administration, Less On Instruction Than Traditional Public Schools: Study”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/charter-schools-spend-mor_n_1415995.html
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England has also been experiencing massive charter school expansion, which they call “academies” at the elementary level and “free schools” at the high school level and, today, they’ve got a about the same number of charters as we have (ap. 6K). They also have a problem with segregation there, just like we have with charter schools: “Growth of academies and free schools reinforces student segregation” https://theconversation.com/growth-of-academies-and-free-schools-reinforces-student-segregation-19411
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Ignore the all propaganda from spin master Joe Nathan. He is a corporate reformer through and through. He has been championing charter school expansion for many years and his Center for School Change has received funding from the foundations that promote privatizing public education, including Gates, the Waltons, Bradley et al., whch you can see here: http://centerforschoolchange.org/
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We’ve also received funding to help the St. Paul Public Schools, among other things, increase the number of high school students from low income families who are earning college credit; and to help them make more connections with local community groups and newspapers – so that district teachers can tell their stories to a broader audience.
Some of the Gates $ helped the Cincinnati district eliminate the high school graduation gap between white and African American students. This was an important project done with great support and assistance from district teachers and the local teachers union.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/11150746.html
My question remains – what evidence is there that Governor Cuomo views charters as a panacea?
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“what evidence is there that Governor Cuomo views charters as a panacea?”
Funny! Even funnier, Joe has absolutely no clue how silly this makes him look.
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When someone asks “what evidence is there that Governor Cuomo views charters as a panacea,” I am momentarily wordless. Lets turn it around and ask, “What evidence is there that Governor Cuomo disdains, dislikes (hates) public schools?” His idea of reform? Charters and vouchers for nonpublic schools; tax caps for public schools.
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You are the one who made the assertion about Governor Cuomo re “panacea.” It’s your website so you can of course say what you like. But it’s not clear whether there is evidence to support what you said about the Governor’s views of charters.
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I get the feed from this blog, and I usually skip Nathan’s opinions, which he is entitled to express, although it is rather foolish considering the audience here knows a thing or two. He is really sincere, it appears and believes what he says, and there are enough ‘grains’ of truth in some of is comments, to provide a view from a different perspective, but when you know the earths round, and someone tries to sincerely persuade you that is is flat, it becomes tiresome.
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Here’s the quote from Diane Ravitch to which I was responding:
“This financial disaster is happening in Albany. Surely Governor Cuomo knows about it. Yet he continues to promote charter schools as a panacea for children in schools with low test scores. ”
I’ve simply asked for evidence that Gov Cuomo thinks or promotes charters are a panacea for children in schools with low test scores.
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Exactly, Diane. Joe comes up with a lot of arguments replete with cognitive dissonance, often in his failed attempts to make himself look like he’s fighting the good fight on BOTH sides of the fence. This is one of many jaw dropping, head shaking moments that result, so I don’t usually read what he writes anymore.
Maybe trying to fill your shoes with Deb has gone to his head. You’re a very hard act to follow, but I’d much rather see Rick Hess in that role now.
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The question:
Is Joe Nathan a real person or a name used by a team of people paid to sit in front of computer monitors and keep up a flow of propaganda comments defending the corporate school reform movement to destroy the democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools and replace them with often fraudulent, opaque, mostly worse corporate, for profit—no matter how you look at it—Charters?
This isn’t new.
The Communist Party in China pays tens of thousands of people who do this 24/7. They monitor social networking in China on the watch for discussing of issues that might threaten peace and stability in China, and when they see a public discussion going viral that might derail the tranquility and power structure there, these CCP members who are paid to monitor and intervene, start leaving comments on these social networking threads to divert the topic away from where it might have gone. But it doesn’t always work and when it doesn’t, the CCP usually caves in to the demands of the public.
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Lloyd, I’ve never met Joe but I think there’s enough of a paper trail going back decades to confirm that he’s a real live person who is a corporate “reformer.”
There are, however, a lot of the kinds of people you describe on Twitter, both individuals and organizations. In fact, there is a new one that started May 29th which calls themselves America’s Teachers @americateachers who claim, “We’re teachers who are pro-reform, pro-union, pro-solutions. Paid for by America’s Teachers PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”
They won’t reveal their funding source until they say they have to later in July, but on their website, they say they are supporters of Hillary: http://americasteachers.org/2015/05/29/our-first-post-what-were-all-about/
With dark money allowed and many ways of laundering money so people can’t detect the source, we may never know for sure who their true funders are, but I suspect that Hillary and her people are behind it. And the way they are trying to play both sides of the fence, they sound a lot like Joe, who supports the Democrats and their education policies, so maybe he’s involved in that.
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Of course! You got it.
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Elder WIse – The Gates $ did not require a separate administrator for each small school.
The Cincy Federation of Teachers was a very strong ally, in part because they were involved from the beginning. Substantial $ were spent on staff development, done by people that the faculty at each small school helped select.
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Real live person, Lloyd. Here’s a link to the weekly newspaper column I write that appears in a number of Mn newspapers.
http://hometownsource.com/tag/joe-nathan/?category=columns-opinion
Fortunately there are many wonderful district public school educators who are open to offering options in district schools. They also are open to the idea that it helps students when educators, both district & charter share insights and strategies with each other.
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“There are many wonderful district public school educators who are open to offering options in district schools. They also are open to the idea that it helps students when educators, both district & charter share insights and strategies with each other.”
I saw this throughout the thirty years I was a teacher in a public school classroom, and there was no need for corporate education reform or the Common Core Crap and high stakes testing for this to happen.
The Charter (alternative) school movement was started by teachers within public school districts. These alternative schools are not all called Charter schools. The district I worked in for thirty years had an alternative high school that cold easily have been also called a Charter school. That alternative high school is still there.
The United States does not need idiots and fools like Bill Gates, Arne Duncan and David Coleman coming to the rescue.
The U.S. does not need a testing giant like Pearson to be making all the decisions and cutting teachers off from the sharing process.
Automating education through high stakes tests linked to a common core will end the sharing insights and strategies among teachers as they are converted into mindless robots following the Pearson Common Core script.
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Lloyd, we agree that the alternative school movement was started by teachers in districts. As Shanker noted, people who tried to create options in districts sometimes were “treated like traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lockstep.”
I attended many alternative school conferences around the country where district teachers affirmed the hostility they received, sometimes from boards, sometimes from district office staff, sometimes from other teachers or principals. That’s part of the reason we have a charter public school movement.
But unquestionably there still are some marvelous alternative schools in districts.
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So you think your limited experience sums up a $600 (give or take a few billion) billion annual public school system with about 4 million teachers and almost 50 million children in about 14,000 school districts teaching out of almost 100,000 schools.
And you think you you an expert on what teachers think?
My experience doesn’t match yours. After thirty years of teaching and knowing many teachers, I have never heard a teacher criticize alternative methods of teaching—except the corporate Charter school hoax and high stakes testing that destroys careers and labels children as failing.
In fact, my experience was the exact opposite of what you allege. Teachers in California were were encouraged to learn other methods of teaching and our district, and probably all the other districts in California, offered and paid for workshops that teachers attended to be exposed to these different methods.
The district where I taught for thirty years had a curriculum center and that center had it’s own classrooms for teachers. Once or twice a year, every teacher in the district would be subbed out to attend a day long workshop to be exposed to what the teachers who ran the curriculum center had learned as they went out to find alternative methods and strategies to teach.
For thirty years in the classroom, we never stopped being exposed to the latest innovations in teaching and often carried what we learned back to the classroom to implement in our lessons.
But now with the robotic lock-step lesson plans linked to high stakes tests linked to the Common Core Crap sold by giant profit making machines like Pearson, the opposite is happening.
I might be out of teaching but I’m not out of touch with it. I have friends who are still to young to retire and I hear back from them. I’ve heard that teachers are not allowed to teach their own lesson plans in place of the lock-step junk unless they submit their own lesson plans for approval from a alleged committee of Common Core Crap experts.
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Yes, we agree that there is way to much direction of teachers in many places.
Sorry you did not attend alternative school conferences held around the US over the last 30 years. Those teachers had a lot to say. Some of them have stayed in district schools. Some of them helped start charters.
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Just because Gates didn’t require that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Many schools turned into separate small schools co-located in the same building have their own administrators. I worked at some of them.
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Elder, you and I agree that the district decided, for a time, to have separate principals for some of the small schools in large buildings. That’s what happened at Withrow. WIthin a few years, the district decided to have one principal supervising the small schools at Withrow.
At Taft, the district and teachers created several small programs within the building. They had just one principal for the small programs.
Overall, the effort produced a lot of progress. Teachers and the district received a lot of well deserved praise.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/09/17nathan.h27.html
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I worked at a couple schools that were turned into small schools where teachers served for awhile as both administrators of the separate schools and classroom teachers. They said they felt dumped on, even with added pay, because they were given so much extra responsibility. The principals said they also had a lot of added work and stress. Virtually all complained about a variety of problems associated with co-locations, including the scheduling and sharing of scarce resources. Most said they would have preferred to have smaller class sizes.
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I’ve named two of the Cincinnati Public Schools we worked with, where faculty surveys showed the vast majority of faculty preferred the smaller school arrangements. They also were pleased about the opportunity to have some local agencies working with youth & families having an office in the building. We worked with the leadership teams at these schools, which included elected representatives of the teachers, and with the Cincy Federation of Teacher.
I’m not sure which schools you worked in. Sorry you felt it did not work out well. But I recognize some would prefer that things stay the same except that class sizes would be reduced.
Students clearly gained.
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Underhanded dig at teachers, who would like to have autonomy in their classrooms and know they can provide more differentiated instruction, with increased 1:1 interactions, in smaller classes. Adios not-my-amigo.
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Recognition that teachers have different points of view, like everyone else.
A variety of CPS teachers were delighted that someone allowed them to create new district options – schools within schools – that they were given time and money to plan professional development with people they helped select, and that they had time and opportunity to visit some outstanding inner city public schools around the country, to determine what they liked and what did and did not make sense.
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Definitely ignore Joe’s unrelenting spin. He failed to mention that the Gates money he got funded his involvement in the small schools failure, where he pushed for breaking up public schools into several schools in the same building / co-locations, which include having to pay for multiple administrators and the sharing of resources. Reformers will try virtually anything except fund smaller class sizes.
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Just got this from the president of the high school alumni at my Brooklyn High school. It speaks volumes about the OPPORTUNITY that public schools provided, and belongs, in this conversation about private schools. Here is the last paragraph, from the piece below:
“Current James Madison students look at the wall of neighborhood kids who achieved so much and are inspired.One student quietly studied the names on the wall, then asked “Were they rich?” Kossoff told me. He replied “No—they were smart and they worked hard.” She thought about it for a moment, then said “That’s what I’m going to do.”
Yeah… but they had a school with great teachers and no interference from top-down mandates who told them how to meet learning objectives….something every teacher knew, thanks to the state’s real curriculum agenda.
Here’s the piece.
“What Is It About Brooklyn’s James Madison High School?”
“What do Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders, singer-songwriter Carol King, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Judge Judith (“Judge Judy”) Sheindlin have in common?
They are all graduates of Brooklyn’s James Madison High School. Somehow, this public school nestled on Bedford Avenue between Avenue P and Quentin Road has produced three U.S. Senators, four Nobel prize winners and an eye-opening list of other graduates who have made major contributions to society.
“The school has just selected the honorees for its 2016 Wall of Distinction, former Madison alumni association president Richard Kossoff told me. They include food critic Arthur Schwartz, renowned physicist and mathematician Barry Simon, screenwriter Roger Schulman, who co-wrote “Shrek”, and David (“Sonny”) Werblin, who owned the NY Jets when they won the Super Bowl.
“People always ask me, was there something in the water?” says Kossoff. “I tell them the real key was middle and working class parents, many who didn’t go as far as they could due to hard times, who stressed education so that their kids could do better than they did.”
Past honorees include former Minnesota Senator Norman Coleman, radio personality Bruce (“Cousin Brucie”) Morrow and health journalist Jane Brody.
Through the years, Madison High has tried to live up to its namesake’s belief that “Education is the true foundation of civil liberty.” Honorees who show up for the induction ceremony always talk about two things: a particular teacher who strongly impacted their lives, and the unique experience of growing up in Brooklyn.
When NY Senator and Madison graduate Chuck Schumer attended the award ceremonies, he said “We received two degrees at Madison: an academic degree, and one in street smarts, which served us well over our lifetimes.”
Kossoff founded the Wall of Distinction in 2001, to assure these school grads who had a positive influence on society are never forgotten. Current James Madison students look at the wall of neighborhood kids who achieved so much and are inspired.
One student quietly studied the names on the wall, then asked “Were they rich?” Kossoff told me. He replied “No—they were smart and they worked hard.” She thought about it for a moment, then said “That’s what I’m going to do.”
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Californians: Sign Petition to REPEAL Charter School Act of 1992 in CA Ballot Initiative
STOP PRIVATIZING PUBLIC SCHOOLS
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/repeal-charter-school-act-of-1992-in-ca-ballot
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I signed, but I want to say that I HATE it when a petition asks for money. If I donated every time someone with a petition asked, I’d be bankrupt, homeless and starving.
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