This is an essay I wrote for Education Week. I thank them for their close reading, fact-checking, and careful editing.
The vast majority of the nation’s schoolchildren are out of school because of the deadly coronavirus. Parents are frantically trying to figure out how to keep their children engaged in learning, and many districts are providing online instruction or recommending resources for lessons. After teaching her two children for a week, Shonda Rhimes, the creator and producer of hit TV shows, tweeted, “I think teachers should be paid a billion dollars a year. Or a week.” Another parent forced into homeschooling joked, “Is there any way I can get one of my children transferred to someone else’s class?”
Most parents don’t feel qualified to teach their children at home, especially since museums, libraries, and other public spaces are also closed. They don’t long to be home schoolers; they long for schools to reopen. It turns out that parents and students alike really appreciate their local schools, really respect their teachers, and can’t wait for schools to restart.
Among the sweetest videos on Twitter these days are the teacher parades, such as the one in Lawrence, Kan., where elementary school teachers drive their cars in a slow line around the neighborhood, waving to their children, who stand on their porches and wave back to their teachers. Teachers in other places have launched their own parades, to send a message of love to their students.
I predict that when school resumes—and it probably won’t be until September in most places—teacher-bashing and public-school-bashing will be definitely out of place. The billionaires who have been funding the anti-public-school campaign for the past decade might even have the decency to find other hobbies.
This hiatus in schooling might be a good time for the “reformers” who have made war on the nation’s public schools to reassess why they continue to attack democratically governed public schools and to promote privately managed alternatives. The so-called reformers also might consider why they belittle experienced public school teachers.
As I show in my recent book, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools, the public in general does not support either charters or vouchers. When voters in Massachusetts and Georgia were asked to approve the expansion of charters in 2016, they voted overwhelmingly against the measures. Whenever voters in any state have been asked to approve vouchers for religious schools, they have uniformly opposed these referenda. The most recent referendum was in Arizona in 2018, where vouchers were rejected by a vote of 65 percent to 35 percent in a conservative state.
Poll after poll shows that the public has negative feelings about public schools in general, which is unsurprising after nearly four decades of bad-mouthing by politicians and other public figures. But when asked about their own school—the one their child attends—parents’ views are strongly positive. They like their public schools and they respect their teachers.
In most parts of the nation, public schools are the center of community life. They provide free meals, a nurse (usually), and instruction by certified teachers (unlike some charters and many of the religious schools that accept vouchers). Across America, public schools are woven into the lives of families. The schools have trophy cases with the names of parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even grandparents. They sponsor performances where the community can see its children act, dance, sing, play sports, and show their talents.
The so-called “reform movement” wants to replace public schools with schools that are run by private organizations, corporations, or religious groups. They believe that the private sector does everything better than the public sector. They make dramatic promises about the success of schools run by private entities.
But, as I show in my book, none of their promises has come true. Charters, on average, get about the same test scores as public schools, and some (like those in Nevada and Ohio) are among the lowest-scoring schools in the state. In Louisiana, nearly half the charters in all-charter New Orleans earned failing grades on the state’s 2019 school report card. Typically, the charters that get astonishing test scores are also known for excluding the students with disabilities and English-language learners or pushing them out. Vouchers fare worse than charters; studies in the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio show that students in voucher schools perform worse on tests than their peers in public schools.
Other “reform” strategies have also failed to improve education. Evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students (that is, value-added assessment) has been found ineffective. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched an experiment in several districts and charter chains to test the theory that tougher teacher evaluations would improve student results, and a 2018 evaluation of their project by the RAND Corp. and the American Institutes of Research concluded that it made no difference.
The wave of teachers’ strikes that began in February 2018 in West Virginia exposed the basic truth about American education, which the “reformers” had denied: Our public schools are underfunded, and teachers are underpaid. Some states were spending less in 2018 than they had been spending in 2008.
Across the country, some parents have gone up against state legislators to stop school takeovers by charters and privatization. Some parents have fought against the misuse and overuse of standardized tests. Anyone who claims that such tests help students and will someday close achievement gaps is badly misinformed. Standardized tests are normed on a bell curve, which ensures we’ll always see poor performers on such tests. The bottom half of the curve is dominated by kids who are poor, have disabilities, or are English language learners. The top half is dominated by advantaged kids, whose parents make sure they have medical care and are well-nourished. Every standardized test is highly correlated with family income and education.
Pro-public-school activists understand that the tests and A-F state report cards for schools based on those tests are used to advance privatization. The activists realize that on the whole the private sector does not provide better education than the public sector. Charter schools have a high rate of closure, either for academic or financial reasons or because of fraudulent activities by their operators. Voucher schools—schools where parents use vouchers for tuition–in most states tend to be low-cost religious schools where academic quality is far inferior to public schools’.
Charters and vouchers divert badly needed funds from public schools. The competition for students and resources has meant that public schools have had to cut their budgets, lay off teachers, increase their class sizes, and eliminate electives. Most state legislatures have not been willing to increase the real dollars spent on education, and there is not enough money to fund two or three sectors. In the zero-sum game, students and teachers in regular public schools, which enroll between 80 and 90 percent of all students, suffer grievous harm.
When someday our schools reopen, we must renew our efforts to fund them so they are able to meet the needs of students and to pay teachers as professionals. We’ve seen once again in this crisis that Americans value their public schools. But a fact that stands out from the past decade is this: A society that is unwilling to pay what it costs so that all children have a good education is sacrificing its future.
Diane Ravitch has been a historian of American education for 45 years and served as an assistant U.S. secretary of education under President George H. W. Bush. She is a graduate of the Houston public schools.
great article, and I will share widely, with this caveat here, we no longer love our public elementary school, which has “rigor” branded on the front door, which bombards my young grandson with worksheets and “personalized learning,” where there is no room for imagination, play, or wonder. And where, guess what, enrollment is falling in a district where population is booming.
I agree with you 100% and I live in the same kind of area (where test scores are the rage). My 2nd child now goes to a private HS that we pay for so that he can get an education that was very similar to ours in public schools back in the 70-early 80’s. The teachers in our public schools have no autonomy and they aren’t willing to buck the system because they are in an area where they are paid “decently”. They follow their bullet lists (common core), promote testing with glee and use buzz words/phrases galore. I know deep down that they are good people, but it’s hard for me to show them respect when they follow along with what they know is wrong for children….so then I become the distant and aloof parent that doesn’t care that her children won’t be “College and Career Ready” because I don’t show up for conferences and volunteer for events. It was just easier to pay for private school where the teachers are happy, our child is happy and we the parents are happy. Public schools are a big mess right now and I hope good changes will come soon….but it will be too late for my 2 children.
I’m a teacher in an inner-city Public school and have to follow rule after rule, but I want to address your comment that “[teachers] follow their bullet lists (common core), promote testing with glee and use buzz words/phrases galore”. This is utter-nonsense. In my years of teaching in TN, I have NEVER met a teacher that approaches standardized testing with glee.
As a teacher, we have to live in weird parallel worlds. We have to follow the core, do the testing, and hit the buzz words because if we don’t, the district scores and then fires us. If we don’t toe the line, our butts are on the street. But we know this is a failing system, but if we give up on the kids, then we’re part of the problem so we (any teacher worth their salt) try everything we can to go around the system.
I do my song and dance and EVERYTHING I can to make the core applicable to my students. Instead of dragging them through the mud of the content, I try to make it relevant to their interests and lives. I even forego some of their “test” grades just so we can get back to teaching content.
Please don’t lump all teachers into the same bucket. There are some fighting the good fight within the system.
All the teachers I know personalize their instruction, even if they have to follow a prescribed curriculum. You have every right to choose a private school for your children, but don’t blame the public schools for your choice.
What you said makes so much sense. I hope it comes true.
Sense is needed after 20 years of nonsense
Dream on. Bashers and reformers are like lice. They live to spread and infect. It will take a political revolution to put them in their place.
I hope a change in leadership will do the trick.
Garrison Keillor’s statement from 2004 has never been more appropriate: “When you wage war on the public schools, you attack the mortar that holds the community together. You’re not a conservative, you’re a vandal.”
He was right then and now.
Diane,
Thank you. Your article is terrific.
I loved reading it. 🦋🌺🌈🐶
Yes, as you wrote, “Sense is needed after 20 years of nonsense.”
Your last sentence sums it all up. It can also be said for health care and medicare and SS. Our society doesn’t care about it’s most vulnerable….children, the aged, sick and infirm. We have a morally corrupt core that only cares about money (and the economy) and it’s rotting from the inside out without any care of it’s exploding collateral damage to the greater society.
I believe some privatizers will continue as long as there is money to be made. If the federal government stops incentivizing charter expansion, this would reduce the appeal of getting “free money.” Some charter advocates are simply grifters as are some of the politicians that take the money and look the other way. Public opinion is definitely on the side of public schools, but the issue is rarely put to a vote. When privatizing politicians realized that most of the public was not on their side, they have been working to undermine the authority of local school boards. I am sure this crisis will slow down interest in charters, but who knows what tricks the corrupt charter lobby backed by billionaires and hedge funds with their vast resources and friends in high places have up their sleeves?
When put to a vote, vouchers and charters lose.
Florida vouchers lost in a public vote, yet the state now has vouchers available to almost everyone. The privatizers invented a work around scheme called “scholarships.” We should never under estimate the creative destructive talents of hedge funds.
“Of hedge funds” and their promotion by state Catholic Conferences.
key line: “as long as there is money to be made.” The money streams are likely drying up.
Well, that post headline isn’t likely to please University of Arkansas Prof. Patrick Wolf- “Catholic schools are instruments of God’s grace.” The quote is from an article in Arkansas Catholic, 9-26-2017, “A Catholic You Want to Know…University of Arkansas Professor Advocate for Catholic Education…active in pro-life issues…”
Faculty employment at a public university that receives funding from Walton heirs is one way to go. But, professorial theocratic opportunities at Notre Dame, St.Louis University (Sinquefield funding), Catholic University of America (Koch funding), Georgetown, etc. shouldn’t be discounted.
UnKochMyCampus.org could expand focus from the Federalist Society’s (Leonard Leo) control of the public George Mason University law school but, then UnKoch doesn’t have billionaire coffers to tap to expose democracy’s destruction.
Bear in mind that the same Patrick Wolf was chosen as the “independent evaluator” of voucher programs in Milwaukee and DC.
In general terms, when Catholic ideologues are driven by white, male privilege and they bear false witness, their acts are an affront against God.
Linda – Number 1 example is the Opus Dei ideologue leading the Department of Injustice, Bill Barr.
Yes, Christine.
And, Americans should know a former legislative aid to Jesse Helms heads the Knights of Columbus. They should know about Catholic Vote which published an article praising Putin’s friend, Hungary’s Orban. And, they should listen to Bishop Timothy Nolan’s disingenuous answer to a question about what Pope Francis meant in his call for integrity of the faithful. (Face the Nation, 4-12-2020).
When you drill down you will find it’s not just about public vs private but what are the most effective strategies for engaging kids in learning experiences that will have the greatest impact and the best outcomes. We need some assurance that beyond scores and grades that kids are empowered to make healthy and intelligent decisions that will benefit them and the communities where they live now and in the future.
“The billionaires who have been funding the anti-public-school campaign for the past decade might even have the decency to find other hobbies.”
It is no small irony that Education Week has published your extended praise of public schools and robust criticism of billionaires who treat education as a hobby. Education Week is now funded by thirteen “billionaire foundations” some of these supporting specific topics.
I am sure that some readers and regular contributors to Education Week (e.g., Rick Hess) will be outraged by your praise for public schools. I wonder of any of the thirteen “billionaire foundations” will be so offended that they demand space for a reply. It is possible. One of these, the Walton Family Foundation is sure to be off-put!
Although Education Week says it retains “sole editorial control over the content” in the coverage of topics supported by the their thirteen foundations, there is no assurance that other topics, not supported by one of Education Week’s billionaire foundations, will have any coverage. For example, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation supports editorial content about “after-school learning.” Education Week rarely reports on arts education unless support is provided by the Wallace Foundation.
By the way, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports education coverage of education in USA TODAY. A recent report (February 28, 2020) was about US rankings on international tests (31st out 79 countries) followed by a host of specific curriculum modifications being promoted online, in California schools, by Jo Boaler and her team at Stanford University. Although I could not find any credits, I imagine that team is receiving some support from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Congratulations on this publication. It is a wonder that Education Week accepted your contribution.
I hope Bill Gates becomes immersed in finding a cure for COVID-19 that he has no time to destroy other people’s schools. Sadly, he still has a lot of “mini-mes” over at the foundation at work to do his destructive bidding.
We do not want Gates to be the one to find a vaccine/cure for COVID-19. He’ll patent it and profit off it and distribution will be completely messed up. Gates’ record in healthcare is as ugly as his record in education. The only thing that should be expected of him should be to surrender his ill-gotten billions, no strings attached, for the good of the country.
RT….please don’t wish that on our country. Just ask the scientists in Africa and other 3rd world countries about Bill Gates and his meddling in their cures for disease. Bill Gates should just pay his taxes and shut his big pie-hole of a mouth….that’s ALL I want from him.
Be careful what you wish for.
It could be otherwise, but IF a vaccine released by Gates is anything like his software, it will largely untested and full of bugs — but of the real and not virtual kind.
Jo Boaler of the Stanford think tank- a bit of unfavorable, independent media attention has focused in those environs.
Must be a trend! The Boston Globe has turned its education coverage over to the privatizers known as The Barr Foundation.
This has led to stupid editorializing like this calling for continuing the testing madness known as MCAS amid the pandemic. Fortunately, MCAS has been slain for this year. Fingers crossed for next.
https://t.co/mz8CkCoLZn?amp=1
Off topic, but speaking of coronavirus, Trump is outflanking the Democrats on healthcare in connection with the pandemic: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/coronavirus-patients-uninsured-coverage-biden His plan is much closer to Medicare for All that is wildly popular right now. The Democrats are insisting on falling back on the ACA, even though this will still leave people (most of whom are unemployed – that’s why they’re looking for insurance) – with premiums, co-pays and deductibles that they can’t afford. Meanwhile, Trump is planning to simply reimburse hospitals for all coronavirus treatment they provide to uninsured patients.
For the record, this is NOT an endorsement of Trump. As the article details, Trump’s plan is just opportunistic and full of holes. What this is is an urgent wake up call to Democrats/liberals. Trump is going to consistently run to Biden’s “left” (fake, of course, but whatever) and Biden is going to be left defending insurance companies, Wall Street, etc. If you don’t want to see Trump re-elected, we must do everything we can to harangue the Democrats into supporting actual Medicare for All, paycheck protections, rent and mortgage moratoriums, debt forgiveness, etc. Trump will continue to create bogus and wildly inadequate versions of these programs in line with his “populist” persona. In the absence of any real Democratic opposition and actual support for people over corporations, these programs will be convincing and Trump will win.
We on the Left have been screaming these things for years now, but the Democrats/liberals/centrists have no reason to listen to us. Please, folks, make it clear to your state and federal Democrats that these are not fringe “far left” loony ideas, but absolute necessities not only for the survival of our country, but for the survival of the Democratic Party (the latter being all the Democratic Party actually cares about).
Never mind the fact that hospitals are now privately owned by corporations/businesses. It would be logical that Trump “support” a reimbursement to hospitals so that they can continue to stay open and make money for the rich folks while the poor people suffer. Unfortunately, not many people realize that healthcare is a fully privatized industry.
One in 6 hospitals are Catholic, the result of consolidations. Given the US Conference of Catholic Bishops stance on pharmaceutical birth control and women’s reproductive care, given the close ties between a religious school like Catholic University of America and the Koch network, given the state Catholic Conferences’ positions on the right of religions to discriminate, indeed, the hospitals of the theocracy are a concern. It might be easier to envision that concern if, instead, the hospitals were Muslim, evangelical, or the hospitals of Scientology.
Our privatization of health care is why we pay in some cases twice as much for worse service in many cases. I read where some experts are predicting that the rates for health care policies may go up 40 to 60 percent due to the pandemic. Government sponsored universal healthcare may be the only viable option.
“Charts: Catholic Hospitals Don’t Do Much for the Poor”, 12-18-2013, Mother Jones
No one believes a word Trump says. He isn’t “outflanking the Democrats” because nothing he says makes any sense. Voters know people are not getting free COVID testing and medical treatment for the virus.
The people who are uninsured are unlikely to be voting for Trump and don’t care if Trump gives billions to the for-profit hospitals so their CEOs can continue to make huge salaries. Those who have insurance find themselves with huge bills.
I am sure that the same people who are sure Mexico is paying for that wall Trump has built also believe Trump when he tells them he is going to take care of all the hospitalization costs for the virus. They are the only people who believe that Trump giving billions to for profit hospitals is “running to the left” of Biden!! No one else except rabid haters of the Democrats (whether they are Trump supporters or claim to be Bernie supporters) believes that or would even repeat such propaganda. Paying hospitals is not “running to the left” so why imply it is?
I find it very odd that “those on the left” excludes the union workers — probably many of the people working double shifts in hospitals saving lives — who like their union provided health insurance and that is why they were not supporting one of the candidates running on a Medicare for All platform. Voters certainly had every opportunity to embrace one of the candidates who was running on that, and instead voted for Biden. Rather than insult the union workers and African-American voters for not voting for the candidate that Trump normalizers demand they do, maybe the Trump normalizers should have done a better job convincing voters to support Medicare for All and not spent so much time railing against some evil “DNC” and claiming it controls the union workers and African-American voters and thereby making those voters believe that Bernie voters hate them.
Bernie Sanders supports Biden who will probably end up offering quite a progressive platform. Although no doubt some people will still keep talking about how this has nothing to do with the African-American and union voters who are invisible to them and is all the fault of the “evil DNC” while they repeat false propaganda about how the wonderful Trump (whose impeachment they vehemently opposed) is “running to the left” of Biden!!!
No one but Trump propagandists believe that Trump is “running to the left” so anyone who keeps repeating that is clearly making their beliefs known. I have no doubt that the propaganda will CLAIM that lie is true, but the job of people who know it is a lie is not to give it credibility but to point out that it is a lie just like the wall that Mexico was paying for.
In short — giving money to hospitals is NOT anything like Medicare for All. It isn’t “running to the left”.
And if you want people to support Medicare for All (which I do), stop insulting them by claiming that the evil DNC forces them to vote against candidates who are campaigning on a Medicare for All platform. That doesn’t convince them and the fact that some self-described progressives insult people instead of convince them is why the progressive movement lost momentum.
Bernie never insults people. AOC is amazing and she never insults people. They also never pretend “the evil DNC” made voters vote for a different candidate.
I have a theory why some people (the ones who should know better) are still Trump supporters.They are trying to justify their vote and can’t admit they were wrong. The worse he does, the more they need to convince themselves that he was the right choice. They can’t allow themselves to take off the blinders and be blindsided by the truth.
I personally have made some wrong choices with my vote in the past. Luckily, at the end of that person’s term, I can vote for someone else. Did I feel guilty? Yes! But I didn’t lie to myself. My advice, turn off Fox and tune in to the real world.
I want to reply but I am having trouble spelling words. Our schools have been the best places for children over many years. Handing over teaching to the rich people would only be a disaster. What we need most are those who care about kids and will work hard to teach them.
P.S. I Taught for many years, was successful, and appreciated.
When someone asks me why teachers are not being respected, I will show this. On a relate note: our principal sent out a message to parents and spelled “would have” as “would of”. The distributing of learning materials was called “pushing out”. Even the PE teacher pushed out something, hopefully, not too smelly.
Cx: related note.
Nice! Diane. And once again, thanks.
I still have my copy of “The Truth About America’s Schools”, the Bracey Reports; 1991 – 1997. For those of us old enough to remember this came out to counteract “A Nation at Risk”, the fiasco that started this mess.
It was a study by a psychologist , at the time not necessarily an educator but he researched the “problem” when so much was being said, much like, or the same as Dr. Ravitch.does now.
BUT
people tend to believe what they want to believe and the forces of misguided, and now misinformation are STRONG. They lead to destruction, Education is the search for truth.. Post truth, and alternate truth ideology has supplanted the very foundation of best thinking.
For me, the ultimate destruction is of the very planet’s life giving essentials, the essence of insanity IF we care about our children.
The present virus is bad enough but when the oceans rise where the coasts are no long tenable for living, drought and all that goes with it, ever larger hurricanes, and all that goes with these kinds of things predominate, our best minds tell us that homo sapiens as a specie will, if not disappear – the sixth extinction, completely be forced to exist, not live, in appalling even untenable conditions.
INSANITY!!!
So great to see this superb piece in Education Week, which runs so much Deformer/Disrupter nonsense. My favorite line:
When schools resume. . . .
“The billionaires who have been funding the anti-public-school campaign for the past decade might even have the decency to find other hobbies.”
Brilliantly done, Diane!
Thank you. That was the editor’s favorite line too!
Good stuff indeed. Thanks.
I wouldn’t bet my life (or even my niece’s hamster’s life) on it 😀
Outstanding essay but I was slightly taken back by this passage:
“This hiatus in schooling might be a good time for the “reformers” who have made war on the nation’s public schools to reassess why they continue to attack democratically governed public schools and to promote privately managed alternatives”.
It reminded me of the scene from the movie Wayne’s World when Wayne told Garth: “and monkeys might fly out of my butt”. Being a resident of Indiana, an education lay-person and staunch opponent to the privatization movement (thanks to our late friend Phyllis Bush) there four deeply entrenched columns supporting the ongoing march of privatization in my fair state and I’m guessing others:
The billionaire education hobbyists and their foundations, think tanks, pet charter management organizations, and their well-paid lobbyists,
Receptive GOP general assembly legislature senators and representatives who need access to those lobbyists $’s,
Religious institutions, and especially the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Synods, with DEEP ties to legislators, and who have found a way to fund their schools (and other non-educational religious initiatives) in the face of declining membership and donations, and
A significant segment of the public who are anti-government as a general principal and where no institution raises their ire like “government schools”.
Group #1 will not walk away from their financial, emotional and ego investment in ed reform until Group #2 stops doing their bidding in the legislature and Depts of Education. I see nothing causing Group #3 or their students’ parents to change their minds any time soon. Group #4 will likely change but generationally. These are the same people that will vote for reelection of the current occupant even if they saw him shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue in NYC, and now in the middle of a pandemic.
So it comes back to Group #2. And the only way the reformy types in state legislatures are going to stop doing reformy stuff is for them to feel threatened politically.
To that end please offer any support you can politically, emotionally or financially to our amazing niece, and pro-public education Mom and advocate, Aimee Rivera Cole (coleforindrep.com) who is running against Todd Huston for the office of Indiana State Representative District 37. As you may be aware Todd is the incumbent State Rep and anointed incoming House Speaker for 2021. He’s also the former chief of staff to Indiana Superintendent of Public Education Tony Bennett, as well as a current Sr. VP of sales for The College Board and a staunch reformy advocate, especially if if such reforms involve goosing demand for his company’s testing products and services.
So, will the billionaires back off teacher-bashing and pushing their pet reformy agenda?? Maybe a few but not en masse. They have too many people working for them now whose careers depend on Reformy, Inc. But can GOP state legislators be made to feel threatened? As Governor Palin use to say “You betcha!”. In Indiana, no single event would make that discomfort feel more like a bloody stubbed toe this November than for Todd Huston to be tossed out on his reformy brown nose.
PW
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Support your local traditional, democratic, transparent, K-12 public schools and reject greed-based, autocratic, opaque and secretive, private sector charter schools and vouchers.
The good charters, and there are some, create cover for the bad charters — and this is why all charters are bad? What if I rephrase it like this: the good public schools create cover for the bad public schools. Or, the good wealthy celebrities (LeBron) create cover for the bad ones (Harvey Weinstein).
The idea that anything that can be used wrongly should be prohibited is such a Soviet idea. And because everything can be used wrongly the Soviet Union fell apart: all and every initiative from the bottom was quashed, while the top authority figures became senile by the 1970s and did not have bold and interesting ideas of their own (also there was no meat and toilet paper in the stores). Stagnation and disillusion followed, and the country fell apart.
Isn’t the American idea is the system of checks and balances, that laws should prevent the unscrupulous to use the system for their private benefit? If the laws are not clear or detailed enough, then they must be amended. Instead you suggest to get rid of charters because some charters are bad. Get rid of national curriculum because the Common Core is bad. Get rid of tests because teachers use them as de-facto curricula, and so on and so forth. How about getting rid of firearms, because some people use it for attacks on schools? How about getting rid of cars, because they pollute the environment and can be used to attack pedestrians? Get rid of alcohol, because it impairs one’s ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems. Oh, wait, this country already did that, and it did not work the way it was supposed to.
You are ridiculous. You make no sense.
I certainly agree with you that teachers do not receive the respect, as professionals, that they deserve. Their salaries should be raised just as the educational rigor of their university programs should be. Teachers should be facilitated to become content experts in their field of study.
As per the previous comment, name calling, as in, “you are ridiculous” does not address the kernels of truth embedded in his inflammatory, sardonic language.
The poor, below grade level skills in math, reading, writing, and science of too many students graduating from public schools must be addressed.
There are systemic failings in the public school model that do not facilitate learning for all children; choice is inherent in the pursuit of learning equity. Check out school choice options in Sweden and Denmark where funding follows the child rather than the failing school.
Kathryn , this is my blog. When people leave dumb comments, I am free to describe them accurately as ridiculous.
Kathryn, have you ever worked at a failing school? The teachers in those schools work twice as hard as those in the so-called exemplary schools. Did you examine the demographics of those failing schools? Did you look to see how many kids who live in poverty attend, or the percentage with special needs, or the number of children who speak little to no English because they are refugees from other nations with little to no formal education?
Many children come to school filled with their own personal nightmares – homelessness, violence, hunger, death of a loved one, abandonment, and other tragedies which weigh heavy on their young hearts. They might have physical issues ranging from the effects of drug abuse to those of poisonous lead pant.
Then there are children who begin school with serous language deficiencies so that by preschool they are already two years behind, Do you know how difficult it is to make up those two years? Almost impossible!
And who is labeling a school as failing? What standard are they using? Who are they being compared to? Those teachers are pulling out all the stops but there will always be some schools on the bottom. Several years ago, the scores did improve. Do you want to know what happened? They changed the scoring method (after the test when the evaluators saw the increase) and raised the passing score so that these children still failed (even though the year before they would have passed).
How lucky you are that your children come from a loving home with parents who are able to provide for them on so many levels. I’m sure you afford them all sorts of enrichment, help them with their homework, talk to them, provide them with books and other activities which give them a superior quality of life. They will do well. They would do well even if they attended one of those failing schools.
The question is: “How do we help the disadvantaged kids who attend those “failing schools” to have those same opportunities”? “Better” teachers or even simply a “better” curriculum is not the answer (although a curriculum which was on the appropriate grade and interest level would be a plus).
Just think about it!
Most so-called “failing schools” are schools that have low test scores because they serve the neediest students. I hope your explanation helps Kathryn understand that.
ColorFermat is channeling the Koch’s Stalin blather.
Kathryn-
Rhetorically, tell us about the free market’s response to the pandemic in these early stages. I’ll get you started- the libertarians’ president Trump, takes office and shuts down the government’s pandemics unit. Gates self- appoints to direct his own public health initiatives, using tax avoided dollars for funding. Mr. Visionary and the major multinational companies in Wuhan evidently didn’t notice the deaths which even a small travel agency in Yellow Springs, Ohio, noticed in December when it stopped its tours to Wuhan. Where were the businessmen of the Congress-created CDC Foundation, who were the “strategic planning partners” for the agency?
Thank God, profit as motivation has been minimized in the care of those stricken with Covid 19. Although, I strongly wish that if you, Kathryn, get stricken that, choice of hospital (queue up for a spot in a for-profit, hospital, no, emergency military hospital for you) plays out.
Out bid another patient for your ambulance of choice. Let choice play out in your treatment (testing by Theranos- funded by Walton heirs and DeVos). And, let your case be severe in a system where nurses and doctors select less-in-need patients in order to maximize profit. And, should you die, I hope the disposal of your body rests on customer competitive bidding at the funeral home of your choice.
I agree with many of your points here. I would hope that in a post-Covid environment that voters will be fed up with the oligarchs and their repeated attacks on public institutions. For instance, how can Los Angeles go back to smog-filled skies after what we have seen during this car-free time, even with its own entrenched fossil fuel lobby?
Ultimately, what I think will be the bigger problem for charters is declining birth rates. There are only so many kids. In Brooklyn Achievement First closed a school, because of the neighborhood’s “changing demographics”. Of course, this begs the question of how they were able to get a school in that neighborhood without consideration of the demographics, but if nothing else, it demonstrates how corrupt the charter process is in NY.
KIPP, which was scheduled to open a new middle school in District 3 in Manhattan this fall, announced that it would not open this year as anticipated. The SUNY charter commission granted KIPP a new middle school in District 3 just as New York City reached its charter school cap. District 3 did not need or want a new middle school. It’s KIPP who needed and wanted a new middle school. I would recommend reading the article in Chalkbeat about this to see charter chicanery at work. The Principal claims that they had hundreds of families that were interested, but does not give a specific number. Given that he did not provide a specific number leads me to believe that there weren’t many families interested in the school, probably only the families from their K-5 school. Also, the cohort applying to middle school this year was born in 2009, when New York City experienced a decline in births following the 2008 recession. As it is, existing D3 middle schools are not at capacity.
Ranking of the problem of the SCOTUS decision in Espinosa v. Montana?
Governor Cuomo mentioned that he went to a Catholic School. Perhaps that is why he has such negative opinions about the public school system.
I think Cuomo just hates teachers in general, undoubtedly because they would not pamper him like the spolied brat he was (and still is) and would not allow him to run wild like he wanted to.
His hands are probably still sore from all those whacks with a ruler.
I am a charter school teacher in TN. We are held to the same standards at the public schools. All of our teachers are required to have appropriate endorsements. There is virtually no difference other than the fact the teachers have more autonomy about the curriculum of choice. The charter schools in my district are all overseen by the public school district for accountability purposes. What I like about my school is that there is a real sense of comradeship and autonomy. Teachers ask for something and the school gets it. I have taught for about 7 years now, and I wouldn’t go back to a district public school because their administrators make snap decisions and expect teachers to be 100% without proper walk through, demonstration or any feedback from teachers. By the way, my school was a level 5 last year.
Hollie, because your school exists, public schools in Tennessee have less money. Did the state increase the education budget when it authorized charters? No.
What happened to the all-charter Achievement School District? Answer: a total failure.
“The vast majority of the nation’s schoolchildren are out of school because of the deadly coronavirus.” It is unforgiveable that any should repeat the lies about this very, very harmful pandemic hoax. A global police State (more so than what existed) is now being ushered in and, as James Corbett rightly puts it, people’s fear (after being ‘enlightened’ by big pharma-funded, largely, tv) is enabling the fascist authorities to free us of remaining civil liberties and to give us some nifty new chains (medical martial law drones, Bill Gates’s mandatory vaccines and special I.D.s for tracking), immunity passports (Passports please!) and, inching closer, a cashless society. China’s terrifying social credit system is being developed and will soon be here (North American and everywhere). In China, if you associate with those (including family members) who have a bad social credit score, that lowers yours. And that has material consequences!
Give your head a shake.
Visit Robert Kennedy Jr.’s “Children’s Health Network” or Del Bigtree’s “The Highwire” for great info on this fake pandemic.
Progressive organizations and individuals in droves are going over to the dark side right now. But there are still some where people can hold their heads high: Off Guardian, Global Research, John Rappoport’s Blog, A Yappy Trade Barrier, Press For Truth, UK Column News, 21st Century Wire
Arrby,
Be sure not to wear a face mask or gloves. Hug strangers. Prove to the world what you believe.
Why do you think Trump has embraced the “hoax”?
As you wish.
Fake? Tell that to someone who has lost a loved one (or two) to the virus. There are just too many who are ill for anyone to deny this is a pandemic. And those who refuse to believe the truth, ignoring simple precautions, might find themselves visiting their maker a little earlier than expected.
I can’t remember a seasonal flu that killed so many healthcare workers.
The Republican governor of Massachusetts said his best friend’s mother died of the virus. He didn’t call it a hoax.
Can I have my opinions? This is not a pandemic. How informed are you? Or are you a troublemaker? If you didn’t call last year’s flu season a pandemic, then why would you call this one? I know why. TV told you to. TV! Big Pharma-funded (largely) TV! Do you think it’s okay for others to violate your physical integrity and prick you against your will? Do you think that it’s okay for the government (a glorified police force) to tell you that you have to agree with it or else? Do you believe that slavery is freedom?
Arrby,
Live your beliefs. Make sure not to wear masks or gloves. Go about your life as usual. Hug everyone you meet. Don’t practice social distancing. Don’t let Trump and the big media stampede you into changing your daily routines. Call all your friends and family over to join you for a big party.
COVID-19: Declare end of 2020 academic year!
While coronavirus attacks humans by reducing the oxygen levels in the blood eventually causing a collapse of vital organs and death, it also shuts down vital economic organs including industries, services such as farms, tourism, hotels, and schools.
The education sector that is entirely dependent on the welfare of the economy which is headed to recession in 2020/2021 FY will direly be affected.
education.co.ug/2020/05/08/2020-academic-year-decleared-null/