The Washington Post has some great reporters who cover education as well as the excellent “Answer Sheet” blog of Valerie Strauss.
But its editorial board has been consistently, flagrantly wrong about education for years. During the disastrous tenure of Michelle Rhee as chancellor of the D.C. public schools, the editorial board defended Rhee vociferously. They cheered as she tried to fire her way to success, they ignored the national reports of cheating, they didn’t read the sharp reporting of their gifted staff.
And now get this: the editorial board says that one of the positive proposals from Trump is privatization of public education.
What? Send federal funding to every religious school and promote the spread of corporate for-profit schooling? Will every religious school and charter school be subject to all the mandates that accompany federal funding?
Apparently the Washington Post editorial board thinks that all public schools in the nation are just like those in DC. And incidentally, the federal evaluations of the D.C. Voucher program have shown no gains in test scores as compared to the public schools.
I am willing to bet that there is not a single public school parent on the Washington Post editorial board.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What the Post actually wrote, “Then there is education. Mr. Trump’s nomination of Michigan school choice advocate Betsy DeVos to be education secretary signals that the incoming administration will be more sympathetic than any in recent memory to giving parents alternatives to traditional public schools, whether publicly funded charter schools or vouchers to help pay private-school tuition. If reform is targeted to poor families currently with no options other than a failing neighborhood school, it would be a boon…”
What the dr. wrote:
“What? Send federal funding to every religious school and promote the spread of corporate for-profit schooling?”
Note the fact that the dr. changes the wording from “publicly funded charter schools or vouchers to help pay private school tuition…” to “Send federal funding to every RELIGIOUS school and promote the spread of corporate for-profit schooling?”
There are many forms of private schools which are NOT religious, and many charter schools which are not for-profit.
A local private school has an enviable graduation rate, and as enviable a college acceptance rate. Many of the home schooled students I know are accepted in major colleges (Rather than the local community colleges – which is not a statement about their value!!!)
Something is going right in those two systems. A major complaint from colleges? High school kids are just not ready for college. Too many remediation classes need to be taught. And this complaint is not anecdotal!
The numbers differ between 20% and 57%. Either way, that number is way too high. But again, it indicates that something is going wrong!
Suggestions on making that right??
Rudy, a distinction without a difference
The editorial endorses Trump’s plan for vouchers and charters
It is a biased statement. So yes, it is more than a difference.
But what suggestions do you have to lower the need for remedial? 74% of those students never make it to the graduation.
Rudy,
Trump education policy is for the nation, not D.C. Do yo think the national graduation rate is 24%?
Charters and religious schools get the same or WORSE results if they have the same children. Certified teachers matter.
?????
Please read again. 76% of students having to take the REMEDIAL classes will not graduate – nationally. USAToday, Washington Post, New York Times and many other sources come up with about the same numbers.
Rudy,
How will the number of graduates increase if more students go to religious schools and charter schools with uncertified teachers?
You keep bringing issues in the discussion that were never there. I asked YOU for suggestions on how to prevent the need that public schools graduate seniors of whom 20 – 57% have to take remedial classes as freshmen in college.
It IS a fact that a number of graduates from private schools (be they religious or not) and many homeschooled kids (for religious reasons or not) do better than a number of public school graduates as freshmen in college. You cannot deny those facts, as hard as you want.
Those kids that I know from both backgrounds have been taught to study, to focus, to stay on task, to do their research, to get their work handed in complete and on time.
There is no such thing as social promotion. If they are not ready for the next grade, guess what? They don’t go there.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A BLANKET STATEMENT ABOUT ALL SCHOOLS< BE THEY PRIVATE OR PUBLIC. There is however, a notable difference.
Rudy,
Here is a news flash. This blog is not a personal discussion between you and me. I have neither time nor interest in debating you on anything that interests you.
I’m looking for answers against charters and vouchers. Your incorrect information does not help in that discussion.
I don’t mind making a fool of myself etc. but I hate having to rely on incorrect information.
I asked for suggestions on how to change the FACT that too many freshmen are in need of remedial classes.
I asked which if the data sources are correct.
Neither question was answered.
Two weeks from Saturday I’m meeting a number of state representatives. I want to be “armed” with CORRECT information.
Rudy, you find almost everything on this blog to be incorrect. Please do not rely on it in the future. Go to other blogs where you can get accurate information, or better yet, read the official government reports.
Rudy Schellekens
Diane really does not need the help of a non educator, but you make it too easy and I am happy to put the DVR on hold so that I can fast forward through Republican cheer leading of Mnuchin.
“Nonsectarian schools account for the next largest share, comprising one-fifth of private school enrollments at the elementary level, about one-eighth at the secondary level” Huff Post
It would be my understanding that a voucher would not be needed at a charter school as that these ‘mostly’ blood sucking leeches are on the public dole. So what is the voucher for. It is for private religious schools because it is hard to see many inner city youth using their voucher for the 30-45,000 dollar tuition’s at our elite private schools. If many did it is my personal experience that the parents at that private school might relocate in a flash.
Growing up in central Queens NY in a mixed Irish,Italian ,Jewish neighborhood,almost all my Christian friends went to St Nicks the closest catholic school. . Years later I visited some friends to find that they all switched parishes for themselves and schools for their children, to a school further away.
I asked and was answered with rolling eyes. I doubt, I have to explain why.
Rudy, get some facts. Here is source on entry and completion of community college, which remedial courses are taken and how “ready for college” can be defined.
http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Community-College-FAQs.html
Isn’t Amazon’s, Mr. Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, all about privatization? — of schools, prisons, and so on?
Yes.
Thank you, Diane. Charter schools don’t do as well as public schools. People have their heads up their (fill in the blanks).
Is this something new? no. Yes editorial boards serve at the behest of their publisher owners . Perhaps for a short period of time the oligarchy lost control. But we have seen that corrected “bigly”.
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” Chomsky
Make no mistake that their opinions on many issues are not on the basis of investigative journalism and fact based research. More troubling is that the reporting of print and especially broad cast journalism is suffering from much of the same malaise.
How did the media, the financial media miss the Housing crises. It is not as if the warning signs weren’t there . Long before Dr. Doom went to Davos, Stephen Roach chief economist of Morgan Stanley in 2004 warned a group of fund managers of “Economic Armageddon ”
Pretty much detailing the macro economic argument for the financial collapse. It registered barely a blip in the news . Certainly no mention by editorial boards . In fact what we got was cheer leading , cheer leading for an ever growing real estate bubble and for the financial institutions that created toxic time bombs to profit off of that bubble . Basically press releases for both of those industries rather that reporting.
The same dynamics apply in education the losers will not be wealthy. Not the children of the editorial board members . The editorial Boards will not be judged on the performance of their opinions.
Jeff Bezos, the own of the Washington Post, claims that he would not interfer with its internal politics. Maybe the editorials are external.
There’s a woman on the editorial board that has been there a long time, and has always leaned away from public schools.
Jo-Ann Armao is the education editorial writer for the Washington Post; has been since 2006. She was madly in love with Rhee and her brutal tactics. For reasons unknown, she doesn’t like public schools. She thinks that the underperforming DC public schools are representative of all the US.
I hate to be a broken record… but I think the Democrat party could have a big problem if DeVos is not nominated given their support for the “reform” agenda.
https://waynegersen.com/2017/01/18/the-democrats-devos-dilemma/
I don’t know about others, but I immediately tune out when I come across the willful, condescending and needlessly partisan misspelling of the Democratic Party. Doing so immediately exposes an agenda.
My bad! I’m a frustrated progressive Independent who supported Bernie Sanders and leans left of the Democrats so I guess I do qualify as having an agenda. I will make sure to use “Democratic Party” in future comments, though…
I’ll tune back in.
Don’t forget, hardly anyone in the DC cognoscenti sends their kids to DC Public Schools.
This is old, but I think it sets the stage…..
https://www.thenation.com/article/jeff-bezoss-other-endeavor-charter-schools-neoliberal-education-reforms/
Whatever Bezos’ influence (and he is a huge funder of charters), the Washington Post editorial board was awful on education before Bezos bought the paper. See their cheerleading for Rhee. The more teachers she fired, the more they loved her.
The former post owner also seems to be deep into education reform.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13047435/shadow-chancellor-katherine-bradleys-influence-dc-education-reform
Diane, the WashPost editorial board has not only been awful on education (with their love affair with Rhee) before Bezos bought it, they have been awful on a whole number of things since at least the early 2000’s.
They bought into the so-called “reasons” for the Iraq War, for instance.
The WashPost is not the same WashPost that they were back when they published the Pentagon Papers. And we should be eternally grateful to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who did the reporting, and Ben Bradlee, who ran the stories despite the fact that few other news outlets were reporting on this. And CEO Kay Graham, who supported them, despite the threat from Nixon’s AG, John Mitchell, who warned Bernstein: “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.”
She and Bradlee did it anyway. And she must be rolling over in her grave at what the WashPost has become.
I will always be grateful to Ben Bradlee. He gave me my first job, as a copy boy at the Washington Post in the summer of 1959.
Perhaps it’s owner, Jeff Bezos, provides a clue?
From an article in “The Nation”
“There’s one area where Bezos has been hyper-active, but it is largely unknown to the general public: education reform. A look at the Bezos Family Foundation, which was founded by Jackie and Mike Bezos but is financed primarily by Jeff Bezos, reveals a fairly aggressive effort in recent years to press forward with a neoliberal education agenda:”
For details open the link.
https://www.thenation.com/article/jeff-bezoss-other-endeavor-charter-schools-neoliberal-education-reforms/
Sorry, frustrated mom, I can’t read this article because I’ve used up my “free” articles from the Nation for the month. I’m not paying them to read any more. 😦
The Washington Post editorial board, as several commenters have noted, has long backed the corporate reform movement. They seem to be incapable of admitting that Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson were not successful, and in fact harmed DCPS students.
This sound like bowing to Bezos.