In her latest post, Nancy Bailey draws a contrast between a summit of fake education leaders and the summit that actual teachers reach when they teach their students and fight for their students and their schools.
Bailey describes the pseudo summit taking place in San Diego, where people who have never taught discuss how to reinvent education for fun and profit.
Read her list at the end of her post. It is a who’s who of the Disruption Industry, assembled in one place to celebrate themselves and the damage they have done to schools, students, and teachers across the nation.
Bailey writes:
Today’s National Summit On Education Reform meeting is a nightmare for teachers and parents. It involves those who want to replace democratic public schools with technology, ending schools and teaching as we know it. They will have children sitting in front of screens for instruction in warehouse charters, or at home all day.
Most of these self-acclaimed experts have not struggled to teach in gritty, overcrowded classes. They have not wiped runny noses or dealt with the trauma that some children bring to school. They never had to work towards unproven curriculum standards through Common Core. Nor have they had to face the reforms that, ironically, they and their ilk created.
They blame teachers for what goes wrong in schools due to their own back ass policies, but they’ll step up and take credit for anything that goes right!
You won’t find them on the streets of their cities fighting for the needs of children and a profession that nurtures those children. These individuals are above all that.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush leads the summit. As an American citizen Bush has every right to speak out about schools, but he doesn’t have the right to own them. Bush, whose educational background is in real estate and Latin studies, has leveled accusations against schools without doing due diligence to help students. His 3rd grade retention plan is a failed idea, but no one seems to have the power to end it, so children still are hurt by it.
Bush has been against schools and teachers every step of the way. When he had the chance to improve class sizes in the 90s, he hated the idea so much he was caught saying he had a “devious plan to end it.” Think what it would have meant if he’d studied the issue and been supportive of teachers, even negotiated.
What if he’d said, we can’t afford to lower all classes, so let’s lower class size in K-3rd grade when children are learning to read. But Bush didn’t want that. Look at life in Florida and the country now, a mix of underfunded public schools and unproven charters, and vouchers to questionable schools.
Please open the link and read it to the end.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When Nancy points out in her post that Tennessee is once again in the hands of an administration antagonistic to public education, she speaks the truth. We all recall being placed under Kevin Huffman’s wise leadership a decade ago. Our state now trumpets tiny gains in parts of the NAEP. Any change in the scores on the tests can be explained by the fact of massive migration to Tennessee within the last two decades, but the purveyors of ed reform are quick to cull statistics that make their ideas seem successful. Go figure. They will.
The program is an assemblage of the usual corporate vandals and their obedient think tanks. I see that Rahm Emanuel is on the agenda. The rumor is that if a corporate Democrat wins the election Rahm is looking to head the DOE. I doubt they will be discussing all the recent research indicating that too much screen time is harmful to the brains of young people. They also have a session on strategy. If what they selling is so great, why do they need so much strategy? I also noticed that Democracy Prep is calling itself a public school. This conference has a very long list of vandals seeking to monetize and young people and destroy democratic public education.
“let’s lower class size in K-3rd grade when children are learning to read” — no point to lower class size until discredited teaching methods are abolished. Smaller class size benefit teachers, not students.
BA, you just proved you are not an educator or a researcher. Students are the biggest beneficiaries of reduced class sizes.
hahahahahahahahahahahhahahah. Go to a some social blog where opinions are facts, but here, where actual teachers who know what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE and what is needed, is not the place for your propaganda. Everyone, bar none, know that CLASS SIZE matters , and is often the determining factor for children to. learn. Goodbye, BA..Bad Accounts of reality.
When I was a schoolkid, I had 44 other students in my class. I turned out fine as most of my classmates because of the well-structured curriculum, because of meaningful time spent in class, because of homework that was challenging but not tiresome, because calling students up to the blackboard and bashing them publicly for low achievement was the norm, etc.
If each teacher must create their own study program, or if the official program does not work, then it does not really matter whether you have forty or four kids in a class, they will learn nothing anyway, they will just lose 13 years of their life for nothing. The public school system must be overhauled before claiming its superiority over charters or private schools.
Here is an indictment to the “children learning to read” plea for smaller classes:
“I reached out to the superintendent’s office to ask about [getting rid of cueuing]. A spokesperson said in a statement that there’s not yet enough evidence from the pilot project to make curriculum changes for the entire district. The district remains committed to the curriculum materials it has invested in. Oakland’s situation is no different from many other school districts across the country that have invested millions of dollars in materials that include three-cueing.”
Click to access at-a-loss-for-words.pdf
https://player.fm/series/apm-reports-documentaries-1318967/at-a-loss-for-words-whats-wrong-with-how-schools-teach-reading
BA:”The public school system must be overhauled before claiming its superiority over charters or private schools.”
This is the wrong blog to make a distorted sentence like that. Most of us are either active teachers, retired teachers or parents. We understand exactly what is happening due to the ignorance of politicians and the blather of ‘reform’ experts. Charters too often are owned by people who want to make money off of children. Private schools are largely religious schools that are funded by taxpayer money in the form of vouchers or scholarships. I DO NOT want my tax money to fund some religious school that says humans rode dinosaurs and that the earth is 6,000 years old! Religion is not a substitute for science.
Neither charters nor private schools are doing better than public schools and often do much worse. Cherry-picking students or kicking them out when they are not smart enough to bring glory to the school is not how to function. Public schools accept ALL children and it is lack of funding, large class sizes and over testing that is causing all sorts of problems. Teachers are the experts and they are being told how and what to teach. This has to stop.
No class should have 44 students. Teachers want to be able to relate individually to each student and to give assignments that stimulate their love of learning. Teachers need time to plan and meet with their peers.
If public schools are going to get better then listen to the experts. Don’t demean public schools. Teachers are doing their best in a situation in which they don’t have control. They are striking and protesting because they understand exactly what is wrong.
The research already has shown that private schools do not do better than public schools, and class size does matter.https://dianeravitch.net/2016/06/29/why-class-size-matters-a-research-brief/
“I DO NOT want my tax money to fund some religious school that says humans rode dinosaurs and that the earth is 6,000 years old! Religion is not a substitute for science.” — I agree with you. Then how come middle school students “learn” about a young boy in Aksum who was raised as a Christian, and the boy grew to like the Holy Book stories, but only when he was taken by his father to pilgrimage he became a true Christian. They “learn” about ten commandments and mount Sinai as if they were a real thing. They “learn” about Exodus as if it were real history. For some reason, Greek stories are made up stories, myths you know, Greek gods never existed, these are just tales. But the Christian gospels are not tales, but actual history.
Check this book out: The World History by McDougal Littell, California Edition, 2006. It is still in use in my local public school.
“Teachers are the experts and they are being told how and what to teach.” — Were they born experts? Or they have been taught? They should be taught methods and practices that work, not ones that have been discredited long ago and do not work.
“to give assignments that stimulate their love of learning” — starting from middle school most students do not have love of learning. For them, studying is a chore, a job that they need to do to “earn” good score. Therefore, they need to be instructed in the most efficient way so they were able to calculate 15% off $20 purchase mentally in case the damn cash register stops working.
“Teachers are doing their best in a situation in which they don’t have control.” — Chicago teacher union opposed developing a citywide curriculum and instead suggested that each teacher knows better how to create their own. This means less effective work and — you guessed it — more teachers are needed to do the same work. Job security is the main objective of the unions.
“If public schools are going to get better then listen to the experts.” — I agree wholeheartedly. Listen to the experts, not those who call themselves experts simply because they have a “professional credential”.
BA,
This may be your last comment.
Are you an expert?
What is your expertise?
I’m tired of your using my blog to troll teachers and public schools.
Goodbye.
BA has trouble writing a grammatical sentence.
He says above “Smaller class size benefit teachers, not students.”
Of course, anyone who knows basic English grammar knows that it’s either “smaller classeS benefit” OR “smaller class size benefitS” but not “smaller class size benefit”
And this fellow (I’m pretty sure BA is a fellow) is lecturing teachers?
Ha ha ha.
For what it’s worth. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/STARSummer99.pdf
and
https://www.classsizematters.org/
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Posted at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Summit-for-Corporate-R-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Corporate-Lobbyists_Corporate-Manipulation_Corporate_criminality_Disruption-191120-256.html
with this comment which has links at the above address
If you are wondering why truth is under assault in America, you have to follow the dismantling of our INSTITUTION of Public education.
https://dianeravitch.net/2018/12/10/valerie-jablow-d-c-wholly-owned-by-the-billionaire-boys-club/
The ‘marketization’ of education allows the billionaires to sell sh*t for shingle. Vouchers are another ‘sell.’ it is pure Orwellian, as the power elite sell ‘choice’ but defund public education. I have so many examples, buthere is Harrisburg Pa, from the blog of former asst Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch .
“The Republican Speaker of the state House is expected to propose a school voucher bill Monday that will treat Harrisburg Schools as nothing more than carrion fit for plunder by school privatization vultures.
Sure the district is in state receivership after decades of neglect and bad decisions by the elected school board.
But instead of helping the school and its students get back on their feet, Turzai proposes siphoning away as much as $8.5 million in state funding set aside for the school’s aide. Alternatively, that money would go to help offset some of the cost of sending Harrisburg students to private or parochial schools if they so desire.
However in lieu of any safeguards to make sure these children fleeing from the public system receive the same quality of services required by state law, Turzai’s bill goes out of its way to protect the vultures!
Under House Bill 1800, private or parochial schools won’t be held as accountable for how they spend the money they plunder from Harrisburg nor will it force them to enroll all comers like authentic public schools are required to do.
Specifically, non-public schools would be allowed to take public tax dollars but refuse any students they wished based on gender, race, religion, even special educational needs.
It’s bad policy and bad politics.
Essentially Turzai is proposing we swoop in and tear the district to pieces for its own good.
The bill would force state taxpayers to pay for half the cost of the voucher program essentially making us shell out our hard earned money for two parallel education systems.
Vouchers divert public money to private operators, and the results are always dismal. These are types of unfair laws people face when gerrymandered districts result in crooked representatives that cannot lose their seats.
two systems: more and more the visible result
They announced they’re moving to “career training” for low and middle income students.
To see what that will look like one can go to the US Department of Education “apprenticeship” dashboard.
I encourage people to try it. Plug in your zip code and see what comes up- it’s a bunch of ripoff for-profit training centers and low wage jobs that aren’t “apprenticeships”
You too can pay 29k a year to train to be a welder! You too can take a low wage job in food service and we’ll call that an “apprenticeship”, although it’s not.
https://www.apprenticeship.gov/
More cheap, flimsy junk they threw together for the lower classes. There should be a warning for young people when ed reformers offer advice- “steer clear”.
There are good apprenticeships for young people. You won’t find any offered by ed reformers. Another gimmicky fad they’ll abandon when the next shiny object appears.
“for-profit training centers” — so much explained in those four words
The part that amazes me about ed reformers is half of these people either sell product TO public schools or get paid consultancy fees BY public schools.
Yet they happily attend public school bashing events.
Why are we paying them? Can’t we find contractors and consultants who actually value our kids and schools? We’re creating whole careers for people who work as hard as they can to eradicate our schools and we’re all paying for it.
They are also bashing community colleges that offer vocational training at a reasonable cost. The privatizers want to undermine the public sector to build the crooked private sector. BTW welders are in high demand in some states, but nobody should pay 29K for the training.
Catherine Pugh, Baltimore’s former mayor who said traditional schools should be more like charter schools has been indicted on tax evasion charges.
I don’t recall if Diane reported about MaryEllen Elia’s new job- she’s working at a “school improvement consulting firm with deep roots in the N.Y. ed. dept.”. The firm was founded by a guy who “promoted tech ed curriculum”
She’ll be right at home peddling snake oil. Jeb was her mentor.
I think you misspelled her name Mary Ellen Aliar
Like all good deformers, she has spent a good part of her later life turning dishonesty into dollars.
Her latest venture is just the logical extension.
A summit of vandals. Perfect.
This conference is just another salon for members of the court of the New Feudal Order in the United States. Such salons were a big deal in pre-revolutionary France, too.
“a scummit of scoundrels” or ” a vomit of vandals” might be better
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops state that they have been strong advocates for parental school choice. John F. Kennedy would have opposed them and the influence of the state Catholic Action Networks, Catholic Advocacy Networks, and the state Catholic Conferences. He would have opposed Bellwether for advising that ed reformers reach out to churches to achieve their goals. Kennedy said, “I believe in an America where no public official…accepts instructions on public policy from the National Council of Churches (nor any denomination )….where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly nor indirectly upon the public acts of (government) officials.”
Shame on those in the religious communities and the oligarch funders of privatization who created a situation that dishonors John F. Kennedy, a situation where others have to protect separation of church and state from the truly dishonorable.
The DEFORMS are crashing. Let them crash and die.
Politicians just make stuff up and order others around for their own benefits. It’s plain SICK.
I refuse to throw away my one vote. I will NOT vote for any deformer. And I will NEVER for a big republican or a little republican disguised as a Dem.
Diane Ravitch’s blog is a reminder how politicians,and business effect school policies without regarding the expertise and experiences of real teachers that are in the field of education. Teachers themselves on the other hand should have a greater say in policy changes, and deciding best practices, and ideas for individual schools and districts. They alone understand the population they encounter on a daily basis in our schools. Diane’s blog is a reminder about Standardized test companies govern schools, controlling teachers and administrating without having education experience themselves. She echoes that reality of things that need to change USA education and the importance of putting power back into the hands of the teacher to decide what is best for their classroom and individual schools.
Career Teacher, I so agree with your comment, re: Diane: “She echoes that reality of things that need to change USA education and the importance of putting power back into the hands of the teacher to decide what is best for their classroom and individual schools.”
Thank you, Diane Ravitch.