Jan Resseger explains the power of conventional wisdom, which persists even when its effects are harmful and its premises disproven.
She sees Race to the Top as the quintessential bad idea locked in place in almost every state.
How to restore good sense and expunge bad policies?
She shows how her own state of Ohio has been severely damaged by Duncan’s policies.
The Difficulty of Cleaning Arne Duncan’s Awful Policies Out of the Laws of 50 States
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“There is something deeply objectionable about nearly every part of Race to the Top. First, the very idea of having states scramble to compete for federal funds means that children are given additional support based on how good their state legislatures are at pleasing the president, rather than how much those children need support. Michigan got no Race to the Top money, and Detroit’s schools didn’t see a penny of this $4.3 billion, because it didn’t win the ‘race.’ This ‘fight to the death’ approach (come to think of it, a better name for the program) was novel, since ‘historically, most federal education funds have been distributed through categorical grant programs that allocate money to districts on the basis of need-based formulas.’…
It came directly from gimmicky and faddish business theories that were popular at the time.
I think teachers were at a disadvantage because that’s not their area and they weren’t familiar with the thinking or language, but Duncan’s speeches and interviews are thick with it. “Outputs not inputs” (that’s the justification for not basing funding on need) “ROI”, “plus/and” – you didn’t see it because it isn’t educational theory. It’s business theory.
Ed reform is larded with this stuff. You recognize it immediately if you are familiar with it in another context. It’s sunk in there deep. They won’t be able to turn it around – they can hold as many “listening sessions” as they want and it won’t change, because it’s the basis of the whole “movement”.
You’re not exaggerating when you claim they want to turn schools into private sector entities. That is EXACTLY where it all comes from.
I heard Duncan touting “value add” on the radio once. He was talking about 3rd graders. They adopt this CEO language because that’s what they admire. Not the public sector. The private sector. I don’t know why they don’t all just go work in the private sector. Is someone forcing them to take government jobs?
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If Betsy DeVos wants to be in business, why doesn’t she go there? She has billions of dollars. Maybe she could come up with a profitable and worthwhile idea and hire some people, instead of turning public schools into her business.
She could be a real CEO in the sector she loves and admires and we could hire someone who actually values public schools and intends to support and/or improve them. It’s a “win/win”, as ed reformers might say.
Maybe public schools aren’t in the wrong sector. Maybe ed reformers are.
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“Public schools aren’t in the wrong sector. Ed reformers are.”
Exactly, Chiara!
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This post is a great overview of all the bad, harmful education policies of the past twenty years. Unfortunately, test, punish, data collection, market based education and privatization have caused a lot more harm than good. These failed conventional beliefs need to be challenged state by state. Even though Bush, Obama and Duncan are gone, their failed policies continue to haunt us as many states have implemented trigger laws that allow state takeovers or other forms of privatization including charters and vouchers. In some states the charter lobby continues to dictate policies making it difficult to change the course of public policy.
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I will add: Don’t forget Reagan and GW, Sr., too.
With each potus, the “so-called” reforms got worse and worse and worse.
That book, A Nation at Risk, was the first DISS: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/29/604986823/what-a-nation-at-risk-got-wrong-and-right-about-u-s-schools
This attack on our public schools was INTENTIONAL and why? Answer: For political gain and profits plus to destroy public schools and privatize them.
Again …. Why? Answers: 1. Jim Crow is well and alive and there’s money to be made. 2. And keep the teachers busy doing stupid stuff to distract from what is really happening.
The problem is POVERTY. No one wants to address this one. It’s not sexy plus far too many people in this country think that the poor DESERVE to be poor. Oh … America, oh America, land of the not so free these DAZE.
I also found out how doctors are rated. It’s as stupid as how teachers are rated. There are physicians who manipulate their ratings by deciding WHO they will ACCEPT as patients and WHO they will do a procedure on. Some doctors will not accept people in the most need of medical attention because their ratings will go down.
Numbers and just numbers unless those numbers are contextualized.
We need National Health and Dental care in this country.
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The lingering question is why Obama chose to follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush when he didnt have to.
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The answer to your question Diane is that it payed and is paying handsomely for him now. As a neoliberal politician he wasn’t going to bite the hand that not only fed him then (campaign contributions) but he also wasn’t going to feed the hand that feeds him now (book deals, speaking fees, wonder new gift home, etc. . . )
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I think I lost complete faith in Duncan when he awarded all that money to Ohio charters in the midst of huge budget cuts to Ohio public schools and just as there was near-daily local reporting on the problems with lax regulation of Ohio charters. There was so much local media outcry they had to put off distributing some of the funds- no one thought it made ANY sense.
I knew then they had no idea what was actually going on in my state and were operating completely on belief- ideology. There was just no possible “data based” justification for it, other than giving the sector he preferred a leg up when the public schools were getting hit daily and were reeling under 15% unemployment and a vehemently anti-public school state government.
Never let a crisis go to waste. Isn’t that the slogan?
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Arne Duncan was put in place by Barack Obama, at whose feet the damage to schools must be dumped. Obama’s election as first black Pres. gave him charisma and authority to bring Chicago corporate ally Duncan to DC to privatize and wreck public education. Power and money of fed govt was a great resource to do damage nationally. B/c Obama was a Democrat, the two teacher union leaders stood behind Obama/Duncan and let the catastrophe unfold to keep their seats at the Dem table. Only now at the end of a terrible decade of damage are teachers finally stirring against the carnage, and mass opposition emerged with the arrival of a GOP creature in the White House. Until the two renegade union leaders of AFT/NEA are replaced by militant activists not beholded to the corporate Dem Party, and until the brave, overworked, underpaid, and serially abused teachers in public schools go out en masse all over, stay out longer and demand far more, public education will not recover.
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I think also the tanking economy played a role in labor’s reluctance to fight so called reform. At that point teachers were just trying to hang on to existing jobs rather than fight the big fight. Nobody truly foresaw the “wrecking ball” that deform would bring with all the billionaires and corporations lined up against public schools, except Diane Ravitch!
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Exactly, Ira, exactly!
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BINGO!!!!
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I’ve posted this before, but it sums up the points you make — and need to keep making lest people forget (or in some cases never learned to begin with)
“The Maestro”
Chetty picked his VAMdolin
At Nobel-chasing speed
Duncan played the basket rim
And Rhee, she played the rheed
Coleman played his Core-o-net
Moskowitz, the lyre
Billy Gates played tête-à-tête
With Duncan and with higher
Sanders beat his cattle drum
Devalue Added Model
Pseudo-science weighted sum
Mathturbated twaddle
John King played the slide VAMbone
But Maestro was Obama
Who hired the band and set the tone
For Betsy’s grizzly drama
(William Sanders, an economist, applied his
“cattle growth model” to students to create
teacher VAM.)
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Funny, isn’t it, how the dummies like Duncan always go for the sports metaphors. It will take a long, long time to undo the damage that he did.
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Well he struck out big time in helping public education.
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I am reminded, Duane, of the official seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which pictured an American Indian and a cartoonlike “thought banner” that read, “Come over and help us.” Aie yie yie. A genocide later. . . .
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Very funny, Duane, btw! LMAO!
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