Nancy Flanagan, retired teacher of music for 31 years in the public schools of Michigan, is also a respected blogger. Her blog, Teacher in a Strange Land, has long been a source of wisdom and reality. She writes with the authority acquired from her years in the classroom.
In this post, she writes a wonderful review of my new book SLAYING GOLIATH. Better yet, she sets it in the perspective of a decade-long debate in which the billionaires, allied with the power of the federal government, portrayed themselves as the Davids, fighting those all-powerful teachers’ unions and their members, who were the real Goliaths (said Goliath).
Is this a picture of David, slingshot in hand? The Waltons ($150 billion), the Koch brothers ($120 billion—now divided in half since the death of David Koch), billionaires Eli Broad, Betsy DeVos, Philip Anschutz, Michael Bloomberg, John Arnold, Bill Gates, on and on. The 1% is armed not with an axe or a spear but with the power of federal law, imposed by state governments.
Not only is the 1% the Goliath of the story, they are the Status Quo. Don’t believe them when they claim they are fighting the Status Quo. Nonsense. They own it. No social movement was ever created by the rich and powerful. Genuine social movements rebel against the rich and powerful. They emanate from the millions who were left behind and excluded.
Flanagan writes in her review:
Diane Ravitch’s book—Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools—arrived at my house two days ago. Like all of her other volumes, this one is already highlighted, underlined and sticky-noted to a fare-thee-well. (Apologies to school librarians everywhere.)
Ravitch’s books are like that—they’re full of juicy, provocative information and the author tells it like she sees it. When she changes her mind, she tells you that, as well. Like The Death and Life of the Great American School System (2010) and Reign of Error (2013), Goliath is time-sensitive, including the most recent teacher strikes, elections and civic rebellions, and what they accomplished. Ravitch takes the temperature of the current education zeitgeist and finds reason for hope.
What’s happening to public education in America?
Ravitch is perhaps our keenest observer, and when it comes to strong, substantiated opinions, she doesn’t hold back. Absorbing a Ravitch book gives the reader a summation of facts, players and events that put disparate events and opinion into a comprehensive framework, a detailed portrait of right now. Think of Death and Life as a warning, Reign of Error as blistering critique–and Goliath as we’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore…
In short, it’s a really good book. It would be invaluable to anyone who wants a rundown on how education policy has morphed, over the past two and a half decades, from a locally controlled, state-influenced institution subject to incremental, community-driven change–to a thoroughly commercialized venture heavily influenced by would-be ‘innovators’ and a federal power-grab.
Ravitch has done us all a favor by tracing the dark roots and substantial financial support for chipping away at neighborhood schools and public education. As always, follow the money…
Ravitch provides plenty of information and examples of how the real Davids in this fight, the Resistors, are making headway, on dozens of fronts. She is unsparing in her criticism of those who would damage or destroy public education for private profit. This has not gone down well with those who have invested in reforms and trendy disruptions.
There are not many people—Disruptors, if you will—who have empowered school privatization and are now willing to admit that their ROI yields are unimpressive and propped up by shaky data. Especially since those who have been educating kids, doing the work all along—teachers and school leaders—could have told them what will and will not make a difference. Resistors have studied school improvement, up close and personal, for more than a century. It can be done, but it won’t involve destruction. Just more hard work.
Diane Ravitch has re-framed the argument and provided evidence that the great ship of public education may be turning around. That is a great gift. Thank you.
Thank you, Nancy Flanagan. It means a lot to me to know that the real experts, the educators who spent their careers as teachers, find my book valuable. It helps me ignore the slings and arrows of pundits and Goliath’s minions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Controlled by the money behind the agenda driven politicians, the hopes and dreams of children have been squeezed into a tiny box full of word games and math riddles
As the ship changes course, the agenda of children once again rises to the surface.
However, the powerful will not go down easily. In order to stop politically driven education, we must ignite the passion in the souls of children beginning in the classroom.
Now is the time to subvert the system to build a new school model. It’s time for teachers to put on their trench coats, pull their Fedora over one eye and slither into the shadows to team with parents, children and the local community to bring thinking back into the mainstream of education.
Children must learn to rise above the confirmation bias and think for themselves even if it isn’t the answer the textbooks want.
THINK WHILE IT’S STILL LEGAL!
It has been reported, Mr. Lee, that you have been thinking for yourself. Please report to Rm 101 for recification.
oops. Rectification.
“As always, follow the money…”
Indeed.
Last night in Ohio, after midnight, ed reform lobbyists and legislators awarded themselves a brand new state subsidy to help cover private school tuition costs for families making as much as 100K a year. They added a brand new state subsidy that includes their households after telling the public vouchers were for low income children.
The voucher flim flam in Ohio that has played out for the last six months is the single most cynical and deceptive thing they have pulled in this state. It’s a new low.
We are now spending education funding that would have gone to low and middle income public schools on private school students whose parents make 100K a year.
They did this in the dead of night, deliberately. Awarded themselves about 3500 new dollars a year, straight to their households.
When you send your state taxes down to Columbus be aware you’re funding private school tuition for people who make twice the median income in the state, at the expense of students in working class and poor public schools.
Here’s the story about what happened last night:
https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/local-education/senate-approves-bill-with-key-changes-private-school-vouchers/pgxBhtVGLib1EGOAXOaL4H/
They waited until after midnight to add the new subsidy for 100K households. Their own households.
It’s almost amusing this cynical, back room money grab was planned to take place during “School Choice Week”
Every public school student in the state lost last night, and upper middle income private school students won. It’s a reverse Robin Hood bill- they took from the low and middle and redistributed it to the top. It’s the exact opposite of what they sold the public.
If you have the misfortune to have a public school kid in this state the cuts won’t show up for two years, but be clear on who made them- the ed reform lobby and slightly more than half of the lawmakers you pay. You paid for this.
“Who is Goliath?”
A Fellow of the Gates-funded Pahara Institute, Kevin Baxter, left his job as Superintendent of Los Angeles Catholic schools this summer to become Chief Innovation Officer for the Virginia based National Catholic Educational Association. His replacement in L.A., Paul Escala, formerly led Grimmway charter schools, which added a $25 mil. new campus during his tenure. Grimmway utilizes blended learning. Escala “attracted $4 mil. in philanthropic investment” to the school. Before that Escala was chief of staff to the Calf. Secretary of Education.
Escala was chief of staff to LAUSD school board member, Mike Lansing (Catholic), who was described by media as, “widely considered to be the candidate supported by the charter industry.” Escala was also chief of staff for Richard Riordan when he was Calf.’s Secretary of Education. Formerly Riordan was Los Angeles mayor. His bio also includes, author of, “Saving Catholic Education” and founder of the LA Catholic Education Foundation.
I do not have time to fill my reading material with post-it notes. I do, however, know how to go through a book quickly to find its gist, and Slaying Goliath hits you with one basic theme. It is a positive theme echoed I Sandburg’s “The People, Yes”
The people know the salt of the sea
and the strength of the winds
lashing the cultural corners of the earth.
The people take the earth
as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope.
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
In Slaying Goliath, Diane answers Sandburg’s rhetorical question. It is the teachers. While athletes hold out for bigger salaries and billionaires figure out ways to scrub pennies from the millions for their own ego-feeding coffers, teachers mass together for a better world. Goliath whines about those corrupt teacher’s unions, but masses of teachers suddenly surface in places where unions are outlawed and suddenly, they confusticate the matter. Goliath stumbles.
Long after we are all dust, a new goliath will arise. If we all work and hope and speak, there will be teachers to lead the people against the new goliath, whomever that force may be.
Meanwhile, perhaps soon teachers will burst from the underworld of pomegranate seeds that has been forced on them by myopic and corrupt leaders in society. Spring might just be near. Read this book and you will feel the end of the winter of our discontent.
“the great ship of public education may be turning around. ”
There is a fine line (and only three letters difference) between turning around and running aground..
But as the captain of the Exxon-Valdez came to realize (albeit too late), the practical difference could not be greater.
Unfortunately, i don’t think it is yet clear that the ship has avoided The Great Deformer Reef.
The tech tyrants enlistment of the Catholic church may be a bellwether.
The Exxon-DeVos
The Exxon-DeVos
Is running aground
And “total” is loss
And oils abound
The damage is done
And cleanup expensive
For policy’s dumb
And very extensive
sadly but well said
Having followed the DPE (Destroy Public Education) movement from its early stages, I still found the exhaustive list of those seeking to lay waste to our public schools overwhelming in “Slaying Goliath.” Despite the wealth of the disruptors, this is a conflict we can ill afford to lose. Our public schools are an example of democracy in action, and we must defend our public institution so that our schools may serve future generations free from corporate and billionaire influences.
Interesting story about “backstage” at the DeVos Department of Education.
100% political. It took 21 public employees weeks to put on one of the DeVos/Trump campaign events- all publicly paid:
https://www.bustle.com/p/ivanka-trump-needed-21-staffers-to-arrange-a-hidden-figures-screening-150-emails-3209908
If you’re wondering why they never get anything done that actually benefits any public school student, anywhere, this solves that mystery. Marketing the Trump family members is a full time job. The private and charter school students they roped into this were just props.
You do NOT have to convince me.
I emphatically agree with reviewer and teacher Nancy Flanagan that one of the best chapters in Ravitch’s outstanding book is the one entitled “Rewards and Punishments Are Not Good Motivators.” Education Reform, Deform, Disruption–whatever you want to call it–is predicated on the idea that external punishments and rewards, in the form of test scores and data walls and VAM evaluations and school grades and third-grade retention and the like are motivating. But there is now SUBSTANTIAL research that external punishments and rewards are actually DISINCENTIVES for cognitive tasks. The oligarchs behind disruption, who wish to coerce and control via extrinsic reward systems, don’t grok this. They don’t understand that such systems violate a fundamental human need for autonomy, self-ownership, and self-direction. The existence of the external punishment or reward says, in effect, systemically, “This tasks is so onerous, so not worth doing, that we must use an external punishment or reward to get you to do it.” People aren’t stupid. Kids aren’t stupid. They know this. Extrinsic punishment and reward systems like those at the rotten core of Deform (Complete these Common Core skills test prep exercises and receive a new costume for your Study Buddy avatar! Receive this A rating and avoid having your school closed and privatized.) The PRIME DIRECTIVE for educators is to create the conditions in which students develop an intrinsic, live-long love of learning. Deform violates that PRIME DIRECTIVE, and it runs contrary to human nature. Ravitch, a profound scholar, understands this. The Deformers don’t. That’s because they are working in an area, education, where she is an expert and they are not.
This chapter presents ideas based in real, contemporary science that may be new to people. In writing it, Ravtich did the everyone an enormous service. If people read this chapter and really take its message to heart, a lot of positive change could take place. Deform without extrinsic punishments and rewards ceases to exist. Goliath dies.
Of course, veteran teachers, as Nancy Flanagan points out, don’t have to be taught this. They already understand it. But far too many administrators, district officials, state and federal officials, legislators, “think tank” minions, edupundits, and members of the Billionaire Boys’ and Girls’ Deform Coven don’t.
Ditto for me. Rewards and punishments are for the birds. I extend that further. Any system you run in class that is based on rewards and punishments ultimately confronts the limitations of such a system. Students learn best when they want to learn, not when they are required to do so to avoid negative consequences.
In fact, whether something is in and of itself worth learning is part of the hidden curriculum of ANY lesson.
Seriously” When Harvard researched THE PRINCIPLES of LEARNING, ( the things that are present in ALL classrooms where students are successful) ‘Rewards’ for PERFORMANCE was the second principle.(clear expectations was the first.)
In my class, which Pew studied to see if the principles apply (becasue my students were at the top of all city achievement tests) they said that the reward for PERFORMANCE.. were intrinsic… but it was always there.
It had to do with my reaction to the students who did the hard work and succeeded in meeting the clearly stetted objectives; but it is complicated. I never gave tests. I used portfolio, and I celebrated excellent achievement in many ways in that classroom.
But let’s get serious… did you ever try to get a child to do hard work with no reward down the road, no pat on the back, no acknowledgement?
TRUE! Grades on a test are NOT a reward for mastering a skill that takes time and practice, but to say that rewards are not crucial, simply because. punishments are counter-productive is simplifying the reality.
In a culture in which rewards and punishments are expected, where learning is not viewed as valuable for its own sake, children will learn to expect the reward or the punishment UNLESS, that is, they are so excited about what they are doing that they forget about that.
Children come into our preschools intrinsically motivated to learn. Then we squash that like a bug by immersing them in a reward and punishment culture. And as a result of that culture, by the time they are teenagers, most of think of learning as work, a chore, a drag.
People who are not themselves intrinsically motivated to learn–who had that beaten out of them long, long ago–don’t get this. They cling to their reward and punishment models.
BTW, if you are using a reward and punishment system, what’s most effective is intermittent positive reinforcement. Skinner and the Behaviorists, who thought that all learning took place as a result of reward and punishment, demonstrated this beyond any doubt long, long ago. But, ofc, Skinner at al. were wrong about learning, as they were wrong about language acquisition. They were folks with a hammer who thought that everything was a nail (Maslow’s phrase from a critique by him of Behaviorism).
Bob, preschoolers aren’t immersed in a reward/ punishment culture, not precisely. Try that & you’ll just have a bunch of 2-4 y.o.’s crying and screaming, & parents finding a different preschool. Teachers are pretty savvy about helping tykes learn how to curb antisocial behavior, work together, share etc. They DO get joy of learning squashed like a bug by the age-inappropriate academics trickling down from NCLB policy. Too long sitting on circle, insufficient unstructured playtime indoors & out, too many teacher-directed activities– intrinsically punishing. Shaping environment and curriculum so that kids can choose, pursue, explore activities that interest them– intrinsically rewarding.
I am proud of the conversation this prompted. My only point was that any system based on reward and punishment has limitations. I was talking about extrinsic rewards like grades and candy, and punishments like detention and failure to receive credit.
The ultimate arbiter of whether any education is a good one is whether the student continues to have an interest in the subject long after school. Hopefully we can all agree on that one.