John Merrow has seen the light. Once you begin to doubt the testing regime, nothing ever looks the same again. The usual ed reform conversation begins to sound like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” You watch people discussing the data but it no longer makes sense. It once did, but no longer.
In this post, he says there are four groups of people in the conversation about education today.
The DeVos crowd wants to abandon public education.
The reformers are locked into the mindset of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. They control the debate and their ideas are stale.
The third group is uninformed and not interested.
The fourth group are progressives, who are trying to imagine a different way to educate children, in which they learn with excitement and purpose.
John thinks of himself as a progressive. I do too.
Where do you stand?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Leading, much?
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With you !
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I;ve been aware of DeVos for a long time- she’s a decade’s long Michigan lobbyist.
I think what people miss about her version of ed reform is the key role that FUNDING plays in this ideological vision.
This was the Michigan “skunk works” project.
“The governor, speaking Tuesday night during a virtual town hall meeting, suggested public uproar over private meetings by a group working to develop a low-cost school model for Michigan has overshadowed an important discussion about increasing the use of technology in the classroom.”
LOW COST was the key driver. They were hoping not just that they could put in a voucher system. but that it was a LOW VALUE voucher- 5k was the target they hoped to hit.
They’re not planning on funding “education”. They’re planning on offering a government subsidy for education- the idea is to SHIFT COSTS from the state to families.
The modern ed reform movement uses the same model as US health care “reformers” – it’s a SUBSIDY model, not a “full funding” model. US health care is WILDLY inequitable and US public education will be too, if they win this fight.
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/michigan_gov_rick_snyder_on_sk.html
I sometimes feel sorry for sincere liberal ed reformers. They know not what they do. They’re in bed with people who have a goal of not just privatizing education, but drastically cutting funding for it.
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ARE there any sincere liberal ed “reformers”? The “reform” sector’s practice has been to pass itself off as liberal, progressive, “the new civil rights,” and as part of that strategy, they hire lots of people with Democratic Party credentials and otherwise liberal views. Hire is the operative word here. Follow the money is the operative concept. I really doubt if there are other liberals falling for this, except some with only a very minimal, passing familiarity.
(I can’t think of any other right-wing movements that make a canny, strategic effort to pass themselves off as liberal/progressive — can anyone? I asked my husband, to test my perception, and he can’t either.)
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“I can’t think of any other right-wing movements that make a canny, strategic effort to pass themselves off as liberal/progressive — can anyone?”
The entire Democratic Party?
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Well, good point. I was thinking of specific targeted causes.
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Obamacare
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I think dienne77 rightly noted that even the self-described “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party can be pro-reform. Look at the pro-privatization “progressive” that Bernie Sanders endorsed for Virginia governor — Tom Perriello — who was named the education reformer of the month!
However, it is clear that some of the so called “moderates” in the Democratic Party — like the Virginia Governor Ralph Northam who actually defeated the Independent/Progressive endorsed Bernie Sanders candidate — have seen through the farce of privatization.
We need to find and support those politicians instead of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who get Bernie Sanders endorsement but are actually ed reformers.
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“The fourth group are progressives, who are trying to imagine a different way to educate children, in which they learn with excitement and purpose.”
Well, to continue Merrow’s journey, may I suggest he read a little Freire. One that most probably haven’t read. The title in the Portuguese original was “À Sombra Desta Mangueira” “In the Shade of a Mango Tree”-English “Pedagogy of the Heart”. Freire speaks of what and how a progressive must bring about change in a society where so few have so much and so many have nothing. Yes, the USofA has become, economically speaking, even politically speaking Brazil at the end of last century. What he says is timeless and very much needs to be heard these days here in this country.
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“Note that she had spent one month–about 15% of the school year–practicing ‘test-taking skills,’ no doubt mandated by her system.”
Not really; in the context of 180 days’ school year spread across 9-3/4 calendar months, “a month” is more like 10%. But add in the actual test administration, which means close to 10 spring school days of disrupted schedules and limited access to facilities highjacked as testing spaces. (Pretty much useless for learning anything new). You’ve reached 15%.
But Merrow is delusional here: “In most schools today, students spend lots of time on test prep–time they could spend working together, debating issues, researching and rewriting papers, et cetera.” How on earth does today’s standards/assessment-shaped curriculum encourage any such activity? Lop off the tests & you’ve only taken the first step in unwinding the mess.
So now let’s take a big old discount on the remaining 85% learning time, to be factored against the educational value of curriculum shaped to deliver learning in rote, multiple-choice-assessed skill-bites. Would 50% be too generous? I believe that leaves us with about 40cts educational value on the dollar.
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Raise your hand if you knew DeVos’ ‘school safety plan” would entail absolutely no work or investment from anyone outside a public school:
“But there was little said about some of the more controversial topics the committee is likely to tackle, including whether states and districts should consider arming teachers, as the president and DeVos have suggested, or whether lawmakers should consider gun control measures. There was also no talk of whether the commission should recommend repeal of the Obama-era guidance aimed at combatting discipline disparities, which is something the president asked the commission to consider.”
The plan is to dump the whole problem on public schools, thereby insulating politicians and ensuring they don’t have to do anything. Again.
Americans are deluding themselves if they think that can dodge all responsibility for every problem in the country and just dump it on public schools to “fix”. It isn’t going to work. Schools are such a popular punching bag for politicians because they know pointing to a public school to fix poverty, violence, inadequate health care, WHATEVER, guarantees they won’t have to do any hard work.
Boy, I sure hope public schools can fix gun violence in addition to their 7000 other duties. Apparently this is once again the fault of our failing schools. Now all the powerful political actors can go home and do absolutely nothing.
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The legislators are good at building up their war chest for the next round of elections. They are experts at taking money from lobbyists that will tell them what to support. Public schools have no lobbyists so they are easily ignored. Glad-handing is much easier than serving the needs of their constituents.
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I think John Merrow should group #4(progressives) with group #2 (reformers). They are the same. John Merrow seems to idolize Dintersmith….who is nothing but another ed tech selling huckster (reformer) who claims to be a “progressive”. John Merrow has only seen the break of dawn and he needs to quickly open his eyes to the bright light of reality.
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I think there’s a very clear distinction between the neoliberal rephormers (of which Dintersmith is one) and actual progressives who are trying to restore humanity to education/the world. Almost all tech people are rephormers – they’re all about efficiency and globalism and competition and things antithetical to humanity.
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Like “liberal”, “progressive” has become essentially meaningless because it has been co-opted by people who want to be with the in crowd.
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Kinda like DFER! They aren’t Democrats or democratic in any way, shape or form.
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That’s totally part of the strategy. Back when Edison Schools was the hypefest/magical “reform” miracle du jour, late ’90s-early ’00s, they made a big huge whoopdedo of hiring people who’d worked in the Clinton White House. Later, “reform” operations like Parent Revolution made the same big huge whoopdedo of hiring veterans of the Obama White House. Green Dot, a charter school chain based in L.A. propped up by mountains of hype and BS, has made a big huge whoopdedo of being founded by a labor union veteran and founder of MTV’s Rock the Vote. It goes on and on and on. It’s all hype and BS.
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Yes
Language is a very powerful thing and deformers and other propagandists know how to use it to their advantage.
Of course, they so pervert the meaning of words in the process that new words have to be invented like “Neoliberal” and presumably now “NeoProgressive” and ” NeoDemocrat” to remove some of the consequent ambiguity.
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If the federal school safety commission is barred from discussing weapons, then it’s a phony commission and they should stop wasting our time and money.
I don’t feel like paying for another national tour to promote Betsy DeVos’ ideological views.
She has plenty of money. She should pay for these political campaigns herself. Public schools are plenty busy without hosting campaign events.
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It is always good to have a person declare for one thing or another. Still, whether Merrow is a “progressive” or a polecat, he needs to realize that many of the things he is describing are more top down ideas for teachers. If we want to have real reform, we will have to re-connect with people of great imagination who want to be teachers and give them the only thing we can afford to: intellectual independence. These people will find ways to do better.
To some extent, his suggestion that the business community be more involved with schools is a bit dangerous. People in business rarely seem to understand why their employees behave the way they do. Will they see the connection between a parent that has to work three jobs and the sub-par performance in school of their children? Will business people more deeply involved with a school where students who are involved in projects see the value of these projects? Or will they become hostile to public education as familiarity breeds contempt? Most business people I know are all about people conforming to their views. Is that the attitude we want to build in a society increasingly polarized?
So, I am glad Merrow want to be a progressive and not a purveyor of all the recent failed reform efforts. Now he needs to listen to those who have been fighting this test and punish idiocy all these years. Get some ideas from them.
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A crucial point: “…whether Merrow is a “progressive” or a polecat, he needs to realize that many of the things he is describing are more top down ideas for teachers.” Those who have never taught should give way to those who are educational veterans: too many who call themselves progressive thinkers do their thinking comfortably separated from everyday truth. Merrow may be a big help due to his ability to draw attention to corruption/privatizing, but he also needs to say, So Now Let’s Hear From The Teachers. “Now he needs to listen to those who have been fighting this test and punish idiocy for years.”
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Great thought and line, Roy!
Intellectual Independence
Much follows from putting those two words together in such a succinct fashion.
Will have to incorporate that into my thinking and writing.
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Thanks for the compliment, Duane. The most important thing about that idea is that the tax burden on the community can never pay teachers what they are worth, and most of them do not teach for that reason anyway. What teachers really prize is that they be respected for their thoughts. It astounds me that reformers do not realize that salary is secondary to this concept. Respect for thinking starts with administration at all levels doing what my first public school principal told me. “I try to hire people a whole lot smarter than me, and then I get out of the way as much as possible and let them teach like they want to.” There were people at his school turning down 10,000 dollar raises to work there.
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“respect for thinking”
Another excellent simple idea. Gonna steal that one too!
Is that not what all teachers should be doing with all the students?
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There is another very prominent group that Merrow conveniently left out : the group who have profited from their association with deform by producing cheerleading pieces on deform for the media.
I wonder why he “overlooked” that group.
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Absolutely progressive!
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“As for machine-scored, multiple-choice tests, let’s support only those whose results are available within a week or two! That would eliminate most of these tests — and save school districts millions of dollars.”
Ah, no. That would leave “personalized education” on the table, school-reformers’ latest boondoggle. Merrow needs to get up to speed — or, better yet, put his weight behind returning professional decisions to teaching professionals at the district level.
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But if education were left up to the teaching professionals, where would that leave people like Merrow who know what is best?
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ten smiley faces here
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just like I said ^^^….#2 and #4 need to be grouped together! Merrow loves the ed tech folks.
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One thing that bothers me about testing…well there is more than one but here it is…in California, we give give the test way too early, about the beginning of May, this timing is based on old thinking – pre-computer testing, it was to get the results back before the school year was over…now with computers, results are instant…I think that the test should be given in the last weeks of school,Texas does its testing at the end of the school year. The test now comes at a time in the school year where you are ready to put the icing on the cake…instead you switch to test prep. It steals instructional time out of the school year. The math instruction is not completed nor is the language arts but so what..it is time for the big test. After the big state test, you have five or six weeks of school left… what the hell…who cares ? That becomes the attitude.
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If you get test results instantly, that’s different from NY, where the kids take the test in April and the score are reported in August, September. Neither the kids nor the teachers learn what they for right or wrong. The test rank kids but have no diagnostic value.
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I think that the idea of groups engaged in “conversations” about education is a distraction from the sources of big trouble in public schools.
At the national level, the movers and shakers in public education are:
(a) politicians who supported federal and state legislation designed to damage public education (while giving lip-service to civil rights and helping children escape from failing public schools),
(b) billionaire-funded non-profits and belief tanks organized for “collective impact” in demonizing and defunding public schools, and
c) promoters of market-based thinking who are hell-bent on extracting profits from every nook and cranny of the commons and public life, including public education.
Market-based thinking is not limited to DeVos’ misleading articulation of customer choice in education, misleading because she does not state the reality that education service providers choose their students and want profitable students.
Market-based education is forwarded by corporate America, aided by the US Chamber of Commerce and by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council and by players like the Waltons, and KOCH brothers whose work targets teachers and public schools and higher education.
The good news is that investigative reporters are making public the networks of like-minded people who hope to demolish public education. The bad news is that evidence-based decisions are being discredited.
More than “conversations,” we need narratives that appeal to “hearts and minds,” inspire organized and effective political action, while also being backed by evidence.
Look at this amazing work at https://littlesis.org in exposing the links between DeVos, the Mercers, the Koch brothers https://news.littlesis.org/2018/05/14/a-guide-to-the-corporations-that-are-de-funding-public-education-opposing-striking-teachers/
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“Which side are you on?”
When looking in the mirror
The side that you inhabit
Could really not be clearer
The side of Whitest Rabbit
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This is Merrow’s most insightful comment, in my opinion:
“Suppose we discussed the achievement gap this way: “In math, Asian Americans outperform whites by more than 15 points. We have to something about that to close the Asian-white achievement gap. So let’s eliminate recess, physical education, art, and music for middle- and upper-middle-class white kids and substitute drilling and more drilling until they catch up.”
There is so much hypocrisy in the supporters of education reform led by those who would never allow their children to be treated like the poor children in charters are treated. The charters that want to attract affluent kids criticize their own teachers and principals if they treat affluent kids in the manner that poor kids are treated. And they get away with this subtle racism where certain affluent children are given special exemptions so they do not have to experience the brutal requirements that poor kids must follow to be deemed worthy.
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“Merrow’s most insightful comment” is the essence of my community (Howard County, MD…outside of DC). We have a very large Asian population that drives our education “deform”. The white parents go crazy over this and just pile on private tutoring day after day….they are chasing the dragon! AP is the almighty God in high school. We have art and music in school, but it’s very watered down since all the asian kids take private music lessons outside of school…. the white parents follow suit. So, don’t think for one instance that white wealthy and upper middle class parents will complain about the lack of recess and related arts. The parents here thrive on competition and drilling and killing test prep curriculum in order to close that Asian – White achievement gap. I pity the poor and brown children who have to live in this county and try to compete with this…..and we don’t have Charter schools.
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I understand what you are getting at NYCpsp with your thought! I agree for the most part with what you say. . .
. . .except that I wish everyone would not give a damn at all about the supposed “achievement gap” whatever the hell that is and how it’s supposedly assessed.
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Duane,
Maybe it should be called a resources gap because the money spent on at-risk students in inner city public schools is a fraction of what private school parents believe they need to pay in order for their kid who has had every advantage in life to be able to learn.
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Nurses were “handmaids of doctors” until they demanded and received full professional status with the crucial ability to make decisions. Until teachers are full professionals (i.e. have the ability to make most of the decisions about the schools in which they teach) we’ll never going to see much improvement in education. Intelligent and well-educated people almost always want to be decision-makers. I wish teachers would start schools completely run by them. This is something very rich or influential people could help us with.
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…so so agree with you…this was actually the original idea of a charter school…a smaller school within a district to help students that struggled, and teachers could use their own ideas to help them…this was flipped by the reformer deformer crowd into a money grab, and also they could not give a xxxx about struggling students as they kick them out. (Diane does not like swearing on here)
I also so agree with you on the powers that teachers do and do not have, just one unfair principal can mess you up…does that happen to police, fire, prison guards, doctors, nurses ? No they all answer to a larger body…in education, you answer to your principal…Principals…another topic…well you cannot be a principal now unless you go along with all reform policies which turns you into an overseer and an enforcer…
…only four more days of school so have to get this out ! Thank you for listening out there !
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During my forty-two years as a teacher, I pushed for teacher empowerment but discovered that many teachers were not interested. In my last years of teaching, I finally got a superintendent to include some teachers in district decision-making. However, at the first meeting the paid union person (a lawyer) showed up and intimidated everyone so participants (principals and teachers, including me) were mainly silent. Finally I realized that if teachers become full professionals (as opposed to labor) there will be no need for unions as they are now. Teachers unions did much for the profession but now I’d like to see them evolve into professional associations, as they were first envisioned. My wish is to see teachers in charge of schools with a union that would gradually become a professional association. Teachers at each school would vote for a lead teacher who would serve at the pleasure of the faculty and would attend mainly to administrative tasks.
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I don’t beleive in forgiveness without attonement. John Merrow took one million dollars from Gates and produced a distorted television series on post-Katrina schools. My wife who dedicated her life to teaching special education in the neediest of these New Orleans schools was fired after Katrina and never rehired because the corporate reformers did not want union teachers. She now lives on retirement of less than $1,000 a month, with multiple infirmities.
When Merrow interviewed me for his series, I asked him why he had not covered the failures of TFA and the exclusionist policies of the charter schools. I had given him and his producers a roadmap on how to find these stories. He told me it was because he could not find foundations willing to support such a topic. That statement speaks volumes.
Then he issued his documentary series entitled “Rebirth.”
There was no rebirth in New Orleans; only a looting of the public schools and the death of 5,000 teachers’ careers. Now Merrow wants redemption after leading the cheerleading squad for deform. He appoints himself the expert on school reform, then makes a safe and noble category for himself. He has never done anything to attone for the damage he did here while on Gate’s payroll.
If he wants forgiveness, he needs acts of attonement.
I don’t ask anyone else to share my standards of redemption. Maybe I am too harsh on putative apostates. But I feel real pain for the students driven out of the schools only to increase test scores for a privatized school system. They are the futureless generation killing each other on the streets of New Orleans.
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Yes, and he’s never apologized for, let alone atoned for, allowing Michelle Rhee to fire a principal on air.
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I like John Merrow as a person and I enjoy his writing, but I must agree with you that he was very complicit in the harm done to education. That said, almost everyone was willing to take the money. Where was Randi Weingarten when Rhee hit Washington, D.C? Where were the university professors who must have known the basics (such as standardized tests are not designed to evaluate teachers)? I first realized they were on the take when our most eminent universities began to publish totally opposing educational “research” based on the organizations or people who were paying them. This is a very complex mess we’re in. Labels like “reformers” or “progressives” won’t do anything. Only when the majority of our citizens demand change will we get it.
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I agree he should apologize for that.
However, I also believe that someone atones by their actions and not simply words. Merrow’s actions over the last years have been to fight against reformers and use his credibility as someone who was formerly pro-reform to try to help public education now.
I’d rather have someone actively fighting FOR public schools than someone who says “I’m sorry” and then disappears because it is much easier to remain quiet and complicit when you see the lies of the ed reformers.
If Bernie Sanders starts calling out the lies of the education reformers, I won’t care if he apologizes for his giving credibility to “public charters”. Same with Elizabeth Warren. I just want them to start fighting against the lies of the education reformers as much as John Merrow is trying to do. Even if they never apologize for giving progressive credibility to the charter movement for all those years.
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The firing of the New Orleans public school teachers was akin to the firing of the air traffic controllers…
In New Orleans were the police, fire, prison guards fired ?
Oh yeah – 70 percent of teachers are women.
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Merrow has a fundamental misapprehension about what it means to be a journalist.
He made it all too clear when he once stated that It was great fun following Michelle Rhee, including her firing of a principal on air.
The job of journalist is NOT supposed to be about cheerleading for this or that person or policy.
Merrow quite clearly does not understand this.
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And Merrows processed enjoyment at watching someone get fired was just weird, especially for someone who claims s to be a journalist, which he is most certainly NOT.
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Merrows it was great fun following her … Comment occurs at about 3:45 into the video
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No, I am not a progressive. Are progressives pushing flipped classroom? Personalized learning? Group work? Investigations? Technology? Computer-based learning? No, count me out.
Here is an article highlighting how Google, Apple, Microsoft are commercializing education, while shaping kids’ attitude towards Big Brother, advertising, branding and trust: https://theoutline.com/post/4436/google-classroom-education-free-software-children-school-tech
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Again, there is a distinction between progressives and rephormers. Just because the rephormers claim to be progressive doesn’t mean that they are. Progressivism is about humanity. One cannot claim the mantle of progressivism if one is trying to reduce education to test scores or computer “learning” or if one is trying to punish and shame students and/or teachers for the crime of being poor or teaching poor students.
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BA,
May I suggest that you read Paolo Freire’s book “Pedagogy of the Heart” to get an understanding of what real progressive thought and education is about. Now one has to understand the historical framework in which he is working, which I’m sure you can, Brasil in the last part of the 20th century-he gives you a good guide through it all. But what he has to say, how he says it is all very relevant today in the beginning decades of the 21st century in the USA.
I’m rereading it, and am amazed at how much of it I had highlighted the first time through. And would highlight more. Oh, were the folks of the USA be inclined to follow his thoughts and turn them into progressive actions that need to happen right now to get us on track to a more egalitarian society.
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Thanks, Duane. This is a rather small book, and seems indeed worth reading.
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Definitely a progressive. It’s time to end the testing mania!
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StudentDebtCrisis.org has a petition out against Betsy DeVos. Hope it gains lots of signatures.
…………………………………………………………
StudentDebtCrisis.org noreply@list.moveon.org
6:20 PM (2 hours ago)
No one is above the law. It is time to investigate Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
We demand the Inspector General investigate Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. A pattern of unethical, immoral, and possibly illegal actions make her unfit to serve the American people. Immediate action must be taken.
Call for an investigation into Betsy DeVos’ actions at the Department of Education.
Here’s what has been uncovered so far:
Civil Rights Violations: Betsy DeVos ordered the Office of Civil Rights to dismiss thousands of cases that were backlogged and rolled back Title IX rules that have a major impact on women and LGBTQ students.
Corruption: Betsy DeVos dismantled the unit that investigates fraud at for-profit colleges just weeks after hiring former for-profit college officials to sit in top positions at the Department of Education.
Illegally Delayed Loan Forgiveness: Betsy DeVos intentionally delayed debt relief for students defrauded by shutdown for-profit schools. The inspector general urged the Department to move on a backlog of debt relief claims, but many people are still waiting for their applications to be reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: Betsy DeVos used the Department to award a multi-million dollar student loan debt collection contract to a private company with financial ties to DeVos. The contract was canceled after growing pressure.
Remember, no one is above the law. Tell the Inspector General to Investigate Betsy DeVos now.
Powerful allies are on our side. Senator Elizabeth Warren just demanded a separate investigation into illegal actions at the Department of Education. A legitimate investigation into the Education Secretary must include a thorough review of internal emails, policy documents, meeting agendas, guest lists, and other related materials.
Student Debt Crisis members have been the first line of defense against Betsy DeVos’ agenda from day one. You lead the movement to block her appointment, you stopped her plan to eliminate student loan forgiveness programs, and you haven’t let up. Now, we must demand the truth.
Carol, lend your voice here. Demand a full investigation into Betsy DeVos.
Take action. Share with friends. Make a difference.
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Action must be taken before the next school year begins. Millions of students, parents, and borrowers are at risk.”
Will you sign the petition, too? Click here to add your name:
https://petitions.moveon.org/p/e_8zq_JB9a
Thanks!
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Regarding John Merrow: Better late than never, I suppose.
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