In no particular order.
These are books I enjoyed and learned from.
Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
Rucker Johnson, Children of the Dream: Why Integration Works
Daniel Koretz, The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better
Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle, Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive
Sent from my iPad
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hi, I had the pleasure of interviewing two of the brilliant authors on your list about their books—Noliwe Rooks and Richard Rothstein. You can listen to them here:
Cutting School: https://jackshalom.net/2018/06/22/cutting-school-privatization-segregation-and-the-end-of-public-education/
The Color Of Law: https://jackshalom.net/2018/06/08/the-color-of-law/
Enjoy!
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Outstanding interviews, Jack! Thank you! And, love your website! Thank you for covering these important issues!
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Well, the Ewing and Rothstein are great. I’ll add the rest to my list.
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I also liked Cutting School…until the final pages. Copied below is the conclusion of the review I am currently writing for myself:
The second, in my view, unforgivable, baffling mistake was her choice of using “the voices of two young people”, Dwight and Nora, who “are the products of the…apartheid education” chronicled in Cuttting School. Each went on to attend Ivy League schools before before joining TFA for short teaching stints after graduation. While I’m confident that Dwight and Nora are wonderful, gifted, and passionate individuals, using them as examples is all the more puzzling because the are TFA alumni. After all, didn’t Rooks document the bad, destructive example TFA sets for education and the teaching profession? Poorly trained to teach, idealistic students—mostly graduates of privileged, exclusive private universities—who mostly join TFA to pad their resumés for graduate schools or professions with little or no long-term, professional commitment to the education profession? And the few who remain in education tend to be apparatchiks of the very same billionaire privatizers she rightfully calls out in her book. They are indoctrinated to administer and run charter schools and chains that nourish the idea of segrenomics. While Dwight and Nora have obviously learned good and important lessons about what matters to schools and students, based on their words, it doesn’t seem like they aspire to be master teachers. Dwight went on to law school—surely the TFA-padded resume helped his application—and now thinks about having “influence one day in politics…and then try to go back to the classroom, teach for a few years, move up the ranks administratively, learn what I need to learn, and then open my own school (emphasis added).” With Nora’s story, it’s unclear is she is now a teacher. But her “goal is not only to develop curriculum that empowers Black girls to achieve academically within whatever school system and environment they’re in, but also come up with radical solutions to change the schools now (emphasis added).” As I read Rooks’ earlier words, it seems clear to me that poorly trained TFA alumni how have “radical solutions” tend to intensify segrenomics, no matter how well-intentioned.
The concluding pages of Cutting School diminish its overall effect and impact for me, especially with the rhetorical crescendo with which it began. It produced a feeling of what it might be like to listen to Ravel’s Bolero in reverse or ending a Michelin three star meal with a plate of Twinkies. I know teachers exist who would have been more appropriate to amplify the arguments of the book’s narrative. Perhaps Rooks’ long personal experience as a faculty member of Ivy League schools had something to with her choices. But if the relatively few Ivy League graduates who go into education with little more than a short term resume-padding goal are going to be the front lines to fight segrenomics, I fear it will be with us forever and only get worse.
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so often the frustration of coming to the conclusion pages of books written about teaching: so much clearly detaild anxiety, so little understanding of veteran views
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Tripped on this. It may be of interest to jargon watchers.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/06/book-review-john-patrick-learys-keywords-the-new-language-of-capitalism.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
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Fascinating, Laura!!!
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Laura Thanks for this link–it’s like a cancer, eating up all of our language, turning the meanings associated with the language of value and appreciation into cliche’d expletives.
And as the Gates article relates (re: higher education takeover), don’t they know when they diminish history, philosophy, and other humanities, they also are diminishing the remote (at least) source of “innovation”? CBK
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A little improvisation based on contemporary business jargon: https://wordpress.com/post/bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/1758
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Oops. Here’s the correct link: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/06/26/centcom-dxs-ts-kpis/
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Diane Along the same lines:
Gates launches lobbying arm – higher education on agenda June 26, 2019 8.50am EDT
SNIP: “One member of the Gates commission, Anthony P. Carnevale, has explained how a focus on program-level outcomes will streamline public university systems as they eliminate less lucrative majors – such as early childhood education, performing arts and theology.”
https://theconversation.com/gates-launches-lobbying-arm-higher-education-on-agenda-119077?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2026%202019%20-%201344812602&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%2026%202019%20-%201344812602+Version+A+CID_6c4e7fc35ab40d61eff459a09ce23991&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Gates%20launches%20lobbying%20arm%20%20higher%20education%20on%20agenda
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The Gates Commission is part of a longstanding campaign to get federal legislation that does a triage on higher education programs based on metrics that show the return on investment for specific majors and credentials.
S. Bill 800, The College Transparency Act, co-sponsored by Elizabeth Warren has Gates’ fingerprints all over it. It purports to make ROI transparent and it is rationalized by pointing to the the student debt crisis.
It does nothing to address student debt other than discouraging students from thinking ROI only, not about any other valus of a program they enter. The economic value of a program will be calculated by extended data gathering beyond existing measures, including personally identifiable information (PII) in the databanks of the IRS, military, US Census, and more. Gates hopes that Carnevale and other members of his has commission on postsecondary education will populate the advisory committee for called for in S. 800.
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Laura H. Chapman In today’s mail:
From: Bob Hughes, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation K12education@communications.gatesfoundation.org
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2019 9:34 AM
To: cb-king1@live.com
Subject: Getting better at supporting students with disabilities
Dear friends, One in five students in the United States has learning or attention challenges. That includes students with specific identified learning disabilities, diagnosed ADHD, or related disorders that impact learning.
A new report from the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) reminds us of the challenges these students face in school and beyond:
1 in 3 are held back at least once
Suspension rates are twice that of their typical peers
Drop out rates are three times that of their peers
College enrollment is half the rate of typical peers, and of those, only 4 in 10 complete college
Additionally, we see a compounding effect when disability intersects with race and class.
Fortunately, we’re learning more about how to address these challenges. Here are some of the report’s findings, including:
8 key instructional practices
3 critical mindsets that have a positive influence on students with disabilities
Role-specific actions for school leaders, teachers, teacher preparation leaders, families, caregivers, and policymakers
We need to learn more about these students and their needs. In the next few months, we will be funding networks of charter schools that serve Black, Latinx, and low-income students to help build their capacity to improve outcomes for their students with disabilities. We are excited about this emerging work and are grateful to our partners who continue to help us shape it.
Regards,
Bob Hughes
@BobHughesK12
P.S. You are invited to our first-ever Networks for School Improvement event on July 16th! For information on how to register, please see below.
Networks for School Improvement: Year One: July 16
This daylong event near Washington, D.C. will bring together school support organizations, educators, and other partners to reflect on their experience with continuous improvement and networked schools. To register or for more information, please contact Crystal Salley at Crystal.Salley@gatesfoundation.org
How Diversity in the Teacher Workforce Can Change Outcomes for Students
“I think the race-blind, colorblind, language-blind, culture-blind educational system of the past is failing us. It’s obsolete.” Cassandra Herring, founder of Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, is right — it is failing us. That’s why Herring and her organization work to strengthen teachers’ ability to teach diverse classrooms. See how their work is helping close the gap in achievement between white, Latinx, and Black students.
Are Vegetarians More Likely to Drink Water than Juice?
One teacher uses questions like these in his Intro to Data Science class which helps students who traditionally struggle with math to see the subject through new eyes. For some high school and college students, remedial math classes can become impediments, rather than second chances. This has led some schools to reconsider how they teach math to help students succeed.
What We’re Learning
The Every Student Succeeds Act, known as ESSA, contains a less-known provision that sets reporting requirements for school spending. Data on per-pupil budgets and per-pupil expenditures will be available for every school in every community. This is a significant change from the past, when data was largely only reported by average district expenditures. A big takeaway from the data on expenditures by school, rather than by district, is that those who do the analysis of reported data control the conversation.
What We’re Reading
• What is College Worth? A Question Worth Asking… And Measuring
• The GreatSchools College Success Awards
Connect with us on Twitter @GatesUS for real-time updates.
Seeing momentum in your work?
Email submissions to k12education@gatesfoundation.org.
© 1999-2017 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
500 5th Ave. N Seattle, WA 98109
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FYI.
Bob Hughes of Gates is a lawyer, never a teacher.
He ran New Visions for Public Schools in NYC, opened many small schools, showered with millions by Gates.
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Diane Another example of well-funded but narrow minds building a system around their own narrowness. Maybe the Gates should read the U.S. Constitution, you know, where they talk about “we the people” and of-for-by the people? I have this cartoon in my head where the Gates are standing there side by side, both holding smoking pistols, and where they keep jumping up and down while shooting themselves in the feet. CBK
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Diane, I encourage you and your readers to read Adequate Yearly Progress: A Novel by Roxanna Elden. You probably won’t learn anything new, but I’ve found no better fictional book to spread the nearsightedness (idiocy?) of Ed Reform. I guarantee you’ll be laughing. Outstanding satire from someone who obviously is/was a teacher and totally gets it. Even includes a satisfying ending.
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Has anyone written a book about what really happened in New Orleans with the public schools there?
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A great chapter about NOLA in Andrea Gabor’s “After the Education Wars.”
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Attractive summer reading list in no order. I can’t imagine a more important read than Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. But, to be fair and I read only one other book on the list.
Maybe one of these listed books I have not read will follow up on Rothstein’s The Color of Law and suggest Government policies that can be taken to desegregate America’s apartheid housing and its public school enrollments segregated by economic class and race.
Or, maybe such a book has yet to be written.
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Great list, 100%, but Winners Take All, Democracy in Chains, One Percent Solution, and The Testing Charade are better than great; must reads.
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Diane Here is The Chronicle of Higher Education pushing yet another “issue brief” to add to the books that The Chronicle is also flag-waving about (these come in every week or so), and all with similar omissions and directional “fingerprints” on it. It’s really a CONCERTED effort that is becoming creepy. I have to wonder what they mean by “student success”? CBK
From: The Chronicle of Higher Education chronicle@chronicleaccounts.com
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2019 7:37 AM
Subject: Chronicle Issue Brief: An Analysis of Outcomes-Based Funding
PURCHASE THE ISSUE BRIEF:
The Rise of Performance-Based Funding (my emphases)
How to Adapt in the New Age of Accountability
As performance-based funding models continue to evolve, academic leaders are becoming more sophisticated in how they push for changes that better reflect their missions and more accurately measure student success. In Tennessee, for example, faculty and administrators worked with the Higher Education Commission to establish a formula-review committee that assesses proposed goals, policies, and expected outcomes.
Get your copy of the Chronicle issue brief, “The Rise of Performance-Based Funding,” for insight into the current national landscape of this funding model. You’ll get success stories, expert advice, and data to help you understand and navigate the intricacies of outcomes-based funding, which was created as an incentive for institutions to improve student success.
Performance-Based Funding – cover image
Purchase the issue brief and learn:
The types of institutional benchmarks used to demonstrate student success
The motivations of lawmakers and others seeking greater accountability
How to assess the effectiveness of different funding models
How to avoid unintended consequences as you adapt
Ways to work with your state and create fairer metrics
Purchase Now
The Chronicle | 1255 Twenty-Third St., N.W. | Washington, D.C. 20037
Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe or update your email preferences here
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The outcomes-based policies are being pushed by major philanthropies and the business community. The policies are designed to kill studies in the arts and humanities and social services, including teacher education. The policies are designed to erode academic freedom and reduce basic research while turning all post secondary education into “career and technical training” for jobs…jobs within the state or region (as if business was owed such training). This vision of the “proper” function of postsecondary education was articulared in the late 1990s by various blue-ribbon panels. Look on the internet for for Marc Tucker’s letter to Hillary Clinton.
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Laura H. Chapman Training for jobs, rather than a broad-based education, has been the accepted ideology in adult education and literacy (aaac-nla) ever since adult education merged with “workforce training” back in the 90’s. Adult education programs are chronically short of funds; they are always looking for new State and Congressional funding streams and keep getting sent back for “more research.” And yet job training seems to be the fundamental hook into their very existence.
As example, here is a snip from a recent note from D. Rosen to colleagues through their AAAC-NLA googlegroup (NLA=National Literacy Association):
Hello Colleagues,
“It is difficult to sort out from all the email messages and reading suggestions we receive what deserves our attention. Tom Cytron-Hysom’s June 10th article — https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2019/06/minnesota-needs-major-changes-in-adult-ed-and-workforce-systems/ may be an article you should read. Could an article like this be important to achieving the funding for adult basic skills needed in your state?”
“Here are some excerpts from Tom’s article:”
‘”For several years, the Minnesota workforce development sector has focused on training people for higher-skill jobs that exist in limited numbers (only 20 percent of openings require a college degree). Employers have difficulties filling both lower- and higher-skill-level jobs, because of a worker shortage.’
‘Given continuing decreases in immigration and refugee arrivals, and overall low immigration to Minnesota from other states, the only way we can begin to fill the many open jobs is by recruiting and educating those now living in Minnesota but who are not now in the workforce. Many such individuals are victims of the K12 opportunity/achievement gap, and have significant personal barriers and educational deficits that have to be addressed in order to become employable.’
‘Yet Adult Basic Education, which helps about 60,000 Minnesotans gain basic skills, obtain secondary credentials, and master basic job skills each year, has not received an inflationary funding boost since at least 2000 — during which time the inflation rate has surpassed 38 percent. This has led to financially strapped programs that have problems responding to basic needs, but which are expected to build sophisticated and resource intensive career ladders.’
‘Does your state, like Minnesota, need major changes in its adult ed and workforce systems to meet adult learners’ and employers’ needs? . . . . ‘” CBK
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