Nikhil Goyal is a precocious college student at Goddard College who wrote a book about education (“One Size Does Not Fit All”) while he was in a public high school on Long Island. He understood at an early age that standardized testing was ruining his education. His second book “Schools on Trial” was recently published by Doubleday.
In this article, he interviews Jane Sanders, wife and advisor to Bernie Sanders. He asks her about her views, and Bernie’s too, on the education issues of the day. It is clear that she is a progressive educator, that she values experiential learning, and she knows that NCLB was a disaster.
A typical comment:
“SANDERS: We don’t really believe in standardized testing. I think our purpose would be, schooling is meant to help people be creative, to have their curiosity stimulated, and have them be actively thinking whatever they’re thinking about—whether it’s the stars, the universe, climate change, anything. Having them be able to feel they can explore anything, learn anything.”””
She he seems to be completely in the dark about the corporates education reform movement. When asked about Gates, Broad, and Walton, she responds that she is sure that the Gateses have pure motives. There motives don’t matter; their actions do.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ah, but their motives are pure: pure (free-market) nonsense .
Motives DO matter but actions matter too. AND
” We don’t really believe in standardized testing. I think our purpose would be, schooling is meant to help people be creative, to have their curiosity stimulated, and have them be actively thinking whatever they’re thinking about—whether it’s the stars, the universe, climate change, anything. Having them be able to feel they can explore anything, learn anything.”””
That sounds like sound educational philosophy to me.
AND
As I have said so many times on this blog. EDUCATORS of all people should not be one issue people. Of course we care about corporate intrusion into education but climate change, money in politics, the agenda Bernie has proposed to me trumps the one issue issue. It is absolutely basic to other important issues including public schools.
As EDUCATORS, not just instructors or teachers our parameters of perspective should be more inclusive.
THAT is MY view. Others will have theirs.
Look I had the same response to the Gates comment. I think Gates is a total fraud . However Diane “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone “. On balance this is the most progressive view of the status of American education and where we should be from any candidate I have ever read.
When Jane Sanders tells her husband to appoint you education secretary you can correct her. We could only hope that Hillary manages to blow up before the nomination . .
I am taking wagers: if its Hillary vs Trump by the time he is done with the most floored candidate this early boomer has ever seen, she will look like the victim in a Freddie Kruger movie. God help America
It seems to me that the Sanders did not commit to Public Education. Young writer can get Sanders’ interview, but Dr. Ravitch did not have the interview.
Dr. Ravitch has 28 millions of viewers. Both Sanders and Clintons do not seem to be bothered to expose with an interview for their concern of Public Education.
How on earth that motive does not matter? Motive and intention drive people to take action. From this point of view, we will never have a fair justice system because all actions can be blamed on set-up or accident in order to get away with the PURE MOTIVE of looting PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND. Back2basic
Motives do matter, and the Gates’ motives are questionable.
Too bad Jane hasn’t read, “KIPP’s Efforts to Keep the Public in the Dark While Seeking Millions in Taxpayer Subsidies”, published today, by the Center for Media and Democracy.
Since David Koch is on the Aspen Institute Board and, Aspen is the center of public school privatization, I guess Jane thinks the Kochs’ motives are to strengthen common goods, like education? Really?
Will just one interviewer, please, ask the question, “How does a man claim, for two decades, that he is giving away his fortune in his lifetime, but never drops one rung on the richest men lists?”
One possible answer, the man’s a liar with evil intent.
In one of the poor countries, where the for-profit,Bridge International Academies (investors, Pearson/Z-berg/Gates) are sold, reportedly, an African made this plea, “Don’t make profits on our poor backs.”
A little deep reading please (LOL) Jane Sander’s merely said she thinks gates has good intent. She did not give a pass to Koch or any of the other Billionaires for education reform who are trying to destroy public education. She did not endorse his vision for American education . In fact her vision was quite the opposite.
It is “common knowledge” that the Gates are benevolent. Jane simply went with that. Like most people, she doesn’t know about the very questionable things Gates has done. Her and Bernie are in the dark on this one. Their saving grace is that they are humble, compassionate, and wise enough to listen and learn in the future.
SHE AIN’T most people. She is his wife and advisor, and many teacher advocates and activist s have tired to inform her. Sadly, when might have brought millions o teachers on board, if they heard Bernie address the TRUTH, about the war on public education.
BOO on all Bernie’s advisors who have turned away from the reality that might have united teachers on his side.
I was surprised by Mrs. Sanders comments because, a couple of weeks ago, a fundraising solicitation from Bernie was coupled with Zephyr Teachout’s solicitation.
Joel,
The difference between the Koch’s and Gates, is Gates has better PR, courtesy of the Democratic Party. Clinton friend, Madelyn Albright, serves with David Koch on the Aspen Institute Board.
The Democratic Party uses antipathy toward the Koch’s to raise money. Neither Republicans nor, Democrats expose Gates, b/c the leaders of both parties want oligarchy.
I agree with you Susan
I think someone actually advised Bernie not to talk with Diane Ravitch.
It seems very strange that his wife could find the time to talk to this college student but neither she nor Bernie could find a few minutes to talk with someone who is actually one of the nation’s foremost experts on public education.
My guess is that someone advised Bernie early on that Diane was too “controversial” or something to that effect.
The advice was very bad indeed.
Amazing how many people find me “too controversial” when I am actually a mild-mannered lady of a certain age.
LOL! I am of that ‘certain ‘age, too. We older ladies need to stick together and get things DONE!
Ohmi god! She is clueless…no wonder SO IS HE!
More alarming is Clinton and Obama’s endorsement of “Democrats for Ed Reform”, a scheme cooked up by Whitney Tilson and John Walton among other 1%er DINOs to turn public education into the next profit frontier for Wall Street.
Aggggh! No wonder he is clueless. And FYI, I wrote to her, and tried to explain the war on public education. Guess it was to no avail.
“He understood at an early age that standardized testing was ruining his education.”
Diane, if you read “Schools on Trial” (recommended), you will see that Nikhil believes a lot more than “testing” is ruining his education. He thinks the entire traditional mode of schooling, which existed before standardized testing, ruins his education. It’s safe to say he would not have been happy in school at any time in the 20th century.
…unless it were a “free” or progressive school.
Here’s my review of schools on trial: https://ed-detective.org/schools-on-trial/
It’s worth noting that Jane Sanders was Provost and Interim President of Goddard College. Goddard in its modern incarnation was founded and run for decades (through my freshman year there in ’68-’69) by Tim Pitkin, a native Vermonter and disciple of John Dewey and William Kilpatrick.
As for “When asked about Gates, Broad, and Walton, she responds that she is sure that the Gateses have pure motives. There [sic] motives don’t matter; their actions do,” wasn’t it this same blog that seemed to argue in the case of Sean Combs involvement with a school dedicated to social justice that it was motives, not actions, that mattered?
Seems to me that eight years ago, the Democrats chose Barack H. Obama, a seeming progressive with an education advisor named Linda Darling Hammond. There was much rejoicing in the education community when said “progressive” won the nomination and the general election. And then he picked the non-educator and corporate stooge, Arne Duncan, as Secretary of Education. And given a chance to undo that disaster in 2012 and again recently, he kept Duncan, then replaced him when Duncan finally stepped down with another corporate stooge.
So Bernie Sanders and his wife don’t get every question spot-on? When Hillary “Neoliberal” Clinton or Donald “What Am I, Exactly?” Trump are sworn in and pick another corporate stooge or worse to run DOE, you’ll wish you thought this primary season through a little better.
I’m just waiting for people to blame Bernie if Clinton does not beat Trump.
The latter is inevitable.
People like Paul “Obama dissed me and I want a job in the Clinton administration (waahh)” Krugman have already set the stage for the tarring and feathering of Sanders.
SDP: folks have been blaming a Clinton loss in November on Sanders and his supporters at least as far back as last summer, when some Hillary supporters were aghast at the notion that any of us wouldn’t roll over for the queen apparent. Constant reminders of how GWB’s ‘win’ over Gore was “Nader’s fault” were being posted online. So even before Sanders began winning delegates, there was a propaganda machine cranking out (mostly) threats and scares meant to frighten, bully, and guilt-trip Sanders supporters to pledge to vote for “any” Democrat in November ’16.
May work on some people. Won’t work on me.
Duncan’s role was no surprise to anyone who read “Obama: Promise to Power” by Dave Mendell, 2007. (http://www.ontheissues.org/Promise_to_Power.htm). As an added note, Senator Obama was at the Park Avenue founding meeting of “Democrats for Ed Reform”. Obama’s “Rise to The Top” scheme was no more than NCLB under another name. Actions matter.
Obama, Rahm Emanuel. Arnie Duncan are all of the entrenched and monied Chicago wing of the Democratic Party. In that scenario, Linda Darling Hammond was just a ruse to win over the progressive vote.
@brussell2024: you’re no doubt correct. And frankly, LDH, in retrospect over the past nearly 8 years, wasn’t quite who many thought her to be. A lot of my NYC education connections who were thrilled by her role in the Obama campaign have soured on her. I really didn’t know enough about her in 2008 to know what to think, but I certainly have come to question what her participation actually meant, regardless of strategizing by Team Obama.
Oh, the votes Bernie could have won by exposing the plot to turn public schools into schemes for the richest 0.1% to make more money.
And the enemies and confusion he would have won.
Not to say it would be wrong to do so, but I believe it’s important to consider what the consequences would have been. The effort to privatize public education is not easy to uncover and understand. And “exposing” it would have added more big names to the list of people who want to bring Sanders down.
This is one explanation of why he did not make this political move.
Alongside this explanation is the likely fact that Bernie himself does not quite understand the depth of the K12 privatization movement.
I don’t think Sanders worries overmuch about making enemies, but he does so pointedly – which is to say that when he alienates people, it’s because he knows they are on what he believes strongly to be the wrong side of one or more important issues and he’s prepared to entail their enmity on principle..
Thus, I’d be surprised (and disappointed) if he went off half-cocked on education deform unless he had had the opportunity to look into it deeply enough to comment intelligently. To the extent that he understands things the way strong supporters of public education do, he’s said things unlikely to bring comfort to the enemies of public education or the lovers of high-stakes testing. Past that, he hasn’t gotten too deeply involved. But then, he’s not on the Senate education committee, is he?
Somewhere, there’s a blog where people who focus intently on 9/11 are grousing that Sanders hasn’t commented the way they would like on the attacks on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.
Elsewhere, there are blogs where Sanders is decried for not calling for the complete isolation of Israel from the rest of “civilized” global society.
There is probably a blog or two where Sanders is criticized for not calling for an investigation of the Communist origins of the Common Core.
If someone won’t support Sanders because he hasn’t made burning the Common Core and all related materials in a large bonfire, there’s always Ted Cruz: he seems likely to favor such activities.
I’ll take Sanders, warts and all, even the imaginary ones.
Sanders is on the Senate education committee (HELP)
Big committee, lots of topics. Which subcommittees is Bernie Sanders on:
1) Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security
2 ) Member, Subcommittee on Children and Families
Doesn’t sound like education is his bailiwick. And without being on the relevant subcommittee, he’s not likely to hear what’s going on where the rubber meets the road. Lots of proposals never get out of committee, and we know that both parties have been backing regressive education policies for decades now.
Vermont itself seems a tad more enlightened than the average state on education, among other issues, but I don’t know that Sanders can take credit for any of that if so.
What seems to me hard to miss is how closely allied HRC is to Wall Street, banking, and big money.
In the end, it comes down to whom you think you can trust absent one candidate who hits the mark on every issue you care about. Or we can go with the lesser of two evils idea. Either way, Sanders comes up the winner in my mind and I’ll support him through November and thereafter the political revolution he’s promoting unless I see good reasons to do otherwise. Recent news makes crystal clear that Hillary Clinton isn’t interested in progressives’ input, be it directly via Bernie Sanders or from extrapolating from the last year or so of polling and campaigning. She’s going to ignore us and will shortly stop pretending to be a “liberal” sans the “neo-” prefix: http://bit.ly/1NNuXn6
I agree, Michael.
And add to your list a bunch of socialists who condemn Sanders for not advocating for a militant socialist uprising tomorrow.
I know enough about Bernie and Hillary to know which would fight for public education, and which would step on us as she drops us breadcrumbs.
Hillary is lucky though: she will not have to suffer the fate of her own personal decisions, because it won’t be up to her. If she does become president, and she probably will, millions of activists (mostly Sanders supporters) will be there to force her hand. If she does “get things done,” and without too much collateral damage, it will be because we pushed her beyond her crappy own ideas (or lack thereof.)
Thanks, Ed, but I’m skeptical that we can force her to be more than a show liberal on issues that don’t threaten her neoliberal agenda. See the article I linked to in my previous reply to Diane.
You betcha… I have been writing to his campaign, to him, and to anyone and everyone who could speak to him about this, but to no avail… he lost the teacher vote for sure… what a shame.