Peter Goodman, who blogs as “Ed in the Apple,” usually writes knowledgeably about education politics in New York City and State.
In this interesting post, he asks the Question of the Day/Hour/Month/Year: Is Ed Reform dying?
Reformers are turning against testing; parents are catching on to the Charter School Hustle.
What next? Can Reformers save a dying brand?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ed reformers “turning against testing” seems conveniently timed to me. They only “turned against testing” when they realized charters and private schools weren’t really “outperforming” public schools (with some exceptions, just as there are public school exceptions).
NOW we get “schools should be judged as a whole”, which is what public schools were saying all along.
Ed reform lobbying for private school vouchers completely coincidentally ramped up just as they changed their minds about testing. Hmmm. I wonder about that. Is it perhaps because private schools DON’T actually outperform public schools despite them claiming for 20 years that private schools are superior?
So we got 20 years of relying on standardized tests to bash public schools and now they declare the schools they prefer- charters and private schools- can’t be evaluated with this measure. I’m skeptical of the timing.
People in the “movement” must realize they’re headed inexorably towards complete privatization. An outsider watching this sees it clear as day. They started with charters and then went to vouchers for low income families and now they’re expanding vouchers to middle and higher income.
They must realize this system they’ve developed won’t work without completely voucherizing school funding.
What everyone who supports public schools said would happen HAS happened. They get closer to completely privatized systems every year, and the funding mechanism WILL change- it has to. When they say the “money follows the child” what that means as a practical matter is a voucher for everyone. They must see that’s where they’re headed. The systems they design won’t work without it.
We’ll have publicly SUBSIDIZED schools, but no PUBLIC schools. They’re turning our education system into our health care system. Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me- our health care system is an expensive, wildly inequitable mess- but that’s where they’re headed.
“They’re turning our education system into our health care system. Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me- our health care system is an expensive, wildly inequitable mess- but that’s where they’re headed.”
Good talking point. Do we really want our education system run like healthcare? I wonder what happens to kids with “pre-existing conditions”?
You are both so spot on. The distortion of both issues relies on big money with a profit-seeking agenda vs. the public good. The difference, in my opinion, is that people can more readily understand the arguments about health care than they can about education. But in both cases, fighting to correct popular lies is a long and difficult process.
It’s over when I don’t have to waste time giving worthless tests and am no longer pressured over scores to engage in meaningless, tedious online test prep. It’s over when I am no longer pressured to inflate grade and attendance data to attract students and keep my school from being shuttered due to a concocted “low enrollment” number. It’s over when I don’t have to go on strike to end fiscal austerity practices, and when I can run for school board without millions of dollars or being the target of a negative ad campaign….
It’s not over. Education is still sick monetization, it’s just that the disease is not as virulent as it was under Arne Duncan.
All the deformers stuff is still with us: common Core, testing, VAM, SGP, charters, vouchers, etc
But tge Deformer’s have gone underground (like a bunch of sewer rats), to reemerge somewhere else as soon as thingx die down a bit and the public goes back to mord important things like watching the Bachelorette.
Bread and circuses.
And in college, it will be over when I do not see passive kids who can be motivated to study only with the threat of regular tests and quizzes, and who are shocked when I am asking them a question, since they are so used to teachers who are forced to rush through the material and all they have time for between tests is testprep. I do not expect this to change in the next 5 years.
The real lasting legacy of the ed reform won’t be charters and vouchers. It’ll be 20 years of neglect of existing public systems. We can’t PAY politicians in Ohio to focus on public schools. They are so enamored of charters and vouchers you can’t pull them away with a crowbar. They spend the majority of every legislative session working on a privatized segment of the system that serves 5% of families- meanwhile, the public schools that the vast majority of people attend are completely ignored unless they’re 1. cutting funding or 2. putting in some gimmicky measurement system that changes every 6 months.
My former school, a sanctuary for recent immigrants NYC, is under dire threat and its teacher’s lives are being made miserable because of test scores.
So-called reform may be on the defensive, but it’s still here, and just as vicious and destructive as ever.
I hope so, but I suspect that everything is local, and in those states that the cabal rules, the reform movement will continue to disenfranchise the poverty stricken, so that the only access to education will be to the scions of the wealthy class.
Ignorance is absolutely necessary for them to undermine our naiton.
Sorry for being sarcastic …
“Don’t forget the new STUPID … GRIT.” Kids will be given the GRITTY test and teachers will be judged by this one.
Those who like GRIT, don’t like the Anti-Testing, Anti-Bully, Anti-Gun, the #MeToo, Medicare for All, a Living Wage, National Parks, Social Security, Public Schools, and anything, which benefits “the PEOPLE and democracy.”
Gritty kids who grow up to be gritty citizens, after-all, just take (fill in the blanks).
I think we have to be careful not to assume that we are winning this war to save public education. Now is not the time to celebrate a victory and relax with a sigh of relief.
We have to double our efforts because that is what the autocratic billionaire corporate reformers of public education are going to do. Many of these power hungry monsters with too much power and wealth are narcissists and psychopaths similar to Trump and that type of person never gives up, never stops lying, never backs off, never stops fighting dirty because they grew up in an environment where you learn or are taught to be ruthless to win — whatever it takes.
And even when the current crop of ageing autocrats and billionaires, mostly h old white men are gone, their children could step into the gap and continue the dirty fight, because they were raised and programmed to do it.
Agree, LL. The hydra will continue to attack until its blood supply is cut off. That can only happen with legislative reforms to campaign funding & 501(c)3&4 laws, & a legislative workaround killing the effects of the Cit-United decision.
Lloyd, you should preface many of your remarks in the future with your first paragraph. False optimism/confidence is as destructive to public debate and decision-making as propaganda.
Pasi Sahlberg still talks about reform: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/for-the-sake-of-kids-embrace-math
“It’s time to give math reform the same treatment as literacy. “
Pasi Sahlberg is an impressive thinker who has experience in the classroom as a teacher. It is always worthwhile to listen to Pasi.