Former superintendent Tom Dunn wrote a blistering critique of federal and state interventions into education that were lies, all lies.
And the promises and lies continue despite the failure of all the previous promises.
He writes:
As a former school superintendent, one of my most important, difficult, and frustrating responsibilities was trying to stay abreast of state and federal laws governing education. It was during this time that I had my eyes opened to how politics at the state and federal level really works. Suffice it to say that what I learned was disturbing.
First of all, to this day, the sheer number of proposed and/or passed bills makes the task of staying current nearly impossible. I imagine this is a political strategy meant to keep people as confused and overwhelmed as possible. The number of laws that made no sense and were sold to the public with misinformation and lies was staggering.
I felt perpetually conflicted about being forced to implement mandates that were, frankly, bad for kids. The irony is how often the very politicians who denounce bullying use their power to beat adults into submission with their ill-conceived laws. In education, they do this through threats of financial penalty against districts that dare disobey them, by threatening the professional licensure of educators who don’t do as they are told, and/or through character assassination of those who dare question them.
For at least three decades, politicians have claimed their goal has been to close the achievement gap between children who are successful in school and those who are not, and, by their own admission, their laws haven’t worked. They have failed while wasting billions of our tax dollars.
In the early 1990’s, politicians told us that if they could force all schools to follow the same academic standards, the achievement gap would be eliminated. But, the gap still exists.
Similarly, politicians promised us that forcing kids to take state approved tests, with schools, teachers, and principals being “held accountable” for their students’ performance, the achievement gap would be eliminated. But, the gap still exists.
The public was also assured that if laws were enacted “guaranteeing” that every child must achieve a politically determined level of achievement, all children would be successful. But, the gap still exists.
They lied, because none of these factors are primarily responsible for the gap.
One of their most egregious lies has been that the lack of competition in public education has been the culprit. People pushing this narrative actually pretended as if competition didn’t already exist. But, of course, it did through private and home school options, not to mention other opportunities, such as boarding schools. But, that fact interfered with their narrative, so they ignored it.
We were told that just a little more competition would generate new, more successful learning environments in which kids who were failing could flourish. It would also, we were assured, force the public schools to improve.
Early on, this expansion of competition was in the form of charter schools. Politicians told us kids deserved them, because they would no longer be “trapped” in poor public schools. Of course, they failed to mention that many of these charter schools were owned by large campaign contributors who were becoming quite wealthy on the backs of our neediest kids.
These same politicians remained strangely silent when the test data that they worship clearly showed that kids were often leaving higher performing public schools to attend lower performing charter schools. In other words, what they said would happen wasn’t happening.
But, ignoring that fact, politicians continued to expand school choice options to allow parents to use tax dollars to attend private schools. This was done through the Education Choice Scholarship (EdChoice) Program. The Ohio Department of Education web site claims that EdChoice “provides students from underperforming public schools the opportunity to attend participating private schools.”
The problem with this justification is that it isn’t true. The criteria for “underperforming” is written in such a way that even the highest performing public schools can be defined as such. In other words, the law allows parents to use tax dollars to fund their children’s private school education while “escaping” very high performing schools. This exact scenario has occurred in one of the top scoring school districts in the state, the Solon Schools.
At last, in Ohio, a fearless truth-teller, fed up with lies and empty promises.
It’s a shame that he didn’t have the courage to say anything until he retired.
Better late than ever.
How many active superintendents are speaking out now?
The unequivocal Tom Dunn has been exposing political shenanigans in Ohio education policy-making for quite awhile – even before he retired:
https://www.tdn-net.com/opinion/columns/76420/hypocrisy-on-full-display
https://www.tdn-net.com/opinion/columns/73826/its-called-leadership
https://www.tdn-net.com/opinion/columns/70432/not-all-traditions-are-good
https://www.tdn-net.com/opinion/columns/74923/at-least-theyre-consistent
https://www.tdn-net.com/opinion/columns/36043/what-a-horrible-legacy-we-have-left
The overarching tragedy is that the Ohio taxpayers from the middle class are bled dry by the charter industry’s grifters and the state’s ALEC politicians. The election of Republicans like Sen. Portman and Rep. Jim Jordan dooms the nation and state. The shame is that Democratic Sen. Brown has a TFA scab advising him on education policy and, he asked DeVos for $71 mil. for Ohio charter schools.
The catastrophe is Ohio is an oligarchy kept in place by theocracy.
and likely Brown honestly believes he’s doing great things for education in his action: this is what continues to undermine efforts to make real change
The disgrace is that Fordham is involved in state education policy given the organization’s chronology (out-of-state oligarchy as described by Non-Partisan Education Review). The disgrace is that the Ohio Senate Education Committee Chair and Fordham talk about accountability while appearing to have no expectation of accountability for themselves.
Ciedie,
I doubt it. I’ve been unable to find out if Brown gets funding from charter schools.
I agree, Tim. There’s a lot of that going around today. They’re afraid of the majority of commentators on this letter to the editor for some reason: https://www.cleveland.com/letters/2020/01/ohios-school-voucher-program-is-off-the-rails-local-property-tax-dollars-should-not-go-to-private-schools.html
Pro-voucher commenters are from the halls of grifters, the Koch network, the Catholic public policy network and evangelical churches.
Ohio politicians don’t want the to know the at large public’s opinion..
Thank goodness Diane is here to stand up for working educators like me who are too afraid of having our careers and lives destroyed by retaliation to speak publicly without an anonymous username or a union endorsement. Charteristas are vicious. It takes courage for any employee to stand up, but it takes exceptional courage to stand out.
The lies are like a loose thread….a really, really long, loose thread. And, once you start to pull on the thread, the entire endeavor can unravel.
But you could say that about the entire United States of America these days.
You know…it’s one thing to be lied to…..another thing to lie to another person….but when a critical mass of the country starts to live in a world of lies…to deceive themselves, well. bad, bad things can (and often will) happen.
“Egregious lies… competition …”
The benefit of competition was cited by Fordham Institute in the foreword to Dr. Figlio’s Ohio voucher research. I read Figlio’s report and didn’t find any research about competition. Not surprisingly, major Ohio newspapers gave space to Fordham spin (a charitable choice of words).
Well said. Just one niggle: The Obama guidance on suspension and expulsion was not peddled as a method to close achievement gaps. It pointed up stats showing racial, disabled et al traditionally underserved minorities were on the receiving end in gross disproportion to others. It called such measures not only ineffective but discriminatory in practice.
This would be a great story for 60 Minutes! This whole rip off of public tax dollars needs national coverage! Any media folks brave enough? It is only the foundation of our democracy and the future of kiddos at stake…that’s all.
Late night comics are the only broadcast, mainstream media exposing oligarchy- John Oliver for one.
It’s up at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Lies-Lies-Lies-Enough-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Education_Education-Costs_Education-Funding-200105-617.html
Two hour delay this morning. So, here’s a little music to get us kicking. “Lies” by the Knickerbockers circa the mid-1960s.
Stay warm those of you who live up north.