My website is dianeravitch.com. I write about two interconnected topics: education and democracy. I am a historian of education.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s a follow up report from ProPublica on the More Than Me school child abuse case, where a clueless American opened a girls’ school in Liberia, and raised millions of dollars. It’s more than a little disturbing.
https://www.propublica.org/article/more-than-me-liberia-rape-scandal?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
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Here’s a follow up report from ProPublica on the More Than Me school child abuse case, where a clueless American opened a girls’ school in Liberia, and raised millions of dollars. It’s more than a little disturbing.
https://www.propublica.org/article/more-than-me-liberia-rape-scandal?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
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I posted this article when it first appeared.
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No, I don’t think so. It’s a new article, just posted today.
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Diane, I’d like to know if you could write just a couple sentences for a book blurb on a book that’s anti-charter schools. I can send you a pdf file that explains the book NewSouth Books Here’s the information:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—OCTOBER 2019 For information, contact Suzanne La Rosa / suzanne@newsouthbooks.com
New book Overturning Brown offers authoritative history and critique of modern school choice movement Montgomery, Ala. — School choice, largely touted as a system that would ensure underprivileged youth have an equal opportunity in education, has grown in popularity in the past fifteen years. The rhetoric of school choice, however, resembles that of segregationists who closed public schools and funded private institutions to block African American students from integrating with their white peers in the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement, Steve Suitts examines the parallels between de facto segregationist policies and the modern school choice movement. He exposes the dangers lying behind the smoke and mirrors of the so-called civil rights policies of Betsy DeVos and the education privatization lobbies. Economic and educational disparities have expanded rather than contracted in the years following Brown, and post-Jim Crow discriminatory policies drive inequality and poverty today. In a thoroughgoing analysis, Suitts deftly reveals the risks that America’s underprivileged youth face as public education funds are funneled into charter schools and predominantly white and wealthy private schools. Steve Suitts is the author of Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution and the executive producer of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a thirteen-hour Peabody-winning public radio series on the history of the Southern civil rights movement. He was a staff member of the Selma Project, was the founding director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union, and later was executive director of the Southern Regional Council of the Southern Education Foundation. He lectures at Emory University and is chief strategist for Better Schools Better Jobs.
Overturning Brown will be available in February 2020 from your favorite local or online bookseller or directly from NewSouth Books, 334-834-3556, http://www.newsouthbooks.com. Retail orders, contact Ingram Publisher Services (IS) at 866-400-5351 or by email at ips@ingramcontent.com, or order via ipage.ingrambook.com. Hardcover; ISBN: 978-1-58838-420-1; 150 pages; $25.95; wwwnewsouthbooks.com/brown
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Terrific look at the history of public education and its importance in a democracy:
https://t.co/xU1nUge7UJ?amp=1
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Good one.Thanks
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I’m with Susan (as usual)!
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LOL!
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http://www.dumbingdownamerica.net/
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E.D.hirsch
Click to access hirsch.pdf
You cannot have an educated citizenry and elect a Trump. Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. An ignorant citizenry is the goal.
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Diane, I’m embarrassed to see I’ve misspelled Brenda Casselius’ name throughout my post. It’s an “e”, not an “i”. Can you edit?
Thanks for posting!
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These nasty anti-teacher columns aren’t as common as they once were, but they still exist. This one is from North Carolina (notably an individual opinion rather than an organizational one). Pushed to a wider audience by Real Clear Education (a Reform mouthpiece):
https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2019/04/29/teacher_walkout_ignores_north_carolinas_crisis_of_student_achievement__110324.html
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Real Clear Education was started by Andrew Rotherham, a Reformer who served in the Clinton administration, launched Bellweather Partners, has clients such as TFA.
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That’s good information, Diane. Oddly, most of the Real Clear strands tend to be balanced, with contrary articles on the same topics. Education is exceptional there. The good news is that there are fewer anti-teacher articles there now than there used to be.
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Diane, I am preparing for a short public presentation intended to promote high quality public schools. Can you point me to some recent publications or research that i can cite as relevant arguments to support public education? Thank you.
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See books by David Berliner, Chris Lubienski. See my last book “Reign of Error.”
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try this one
The Demolition of American Education | by Diane Ravitch | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
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J. T. Coopman: Try starting with the articles and comments here that talk about how graduating students from charter schools are denied their diplomas when, in their speeches, they criticize their school. Try that at a public school.
This occurrence points clearly to the great difference between (1) a sophistic-ideological school and (2) authentic education, which, as I understand it, remains the fundamental goal of public education–knowing, but also openness to and questioning of the great unknown, and the recognition of the value of well-thought-out criticism by administrators, especially from those who have experienced its source. CBK
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Rewatched a movie this weekend, “Keeper of the Flame” starring Tracy and Hepburn from 1943. It’s about the “accidental” death of a wealthy, politically powerful man, Robert Forrest, who was married to Hepburn’s character, and a reporter, Tracy, who comes to cover the funeral only to find out that it wasn’t an accident. There’s a great monologue by Hepburn near the end of the film that seems a bit eerie today:
Christine: He grew to despise the people that worshipped him, all of us…He felt that we were all beneath him…I saw the face of fascism in my own home. Hatred, arrogance, cruelty…I saw the enemy…The morning of the accident, I stole his keys, came here and opened this. This is what I found. The key to Robert Forrest’s fascist organization. They didn’t call it fascism. Painted it red, white and blue, and called it Americanism. In here are the funds to see it through. Fantastic amounts subscribed by a few private individuals to whom money didn’t mean anything but wanted political power. Knew they could never get it by democratic means…This was the essence of their plan. Here are some articles ready for release, to stir up all the little hatreds of the whole nation against each other. This was an article to be published in an anti-Semitic paper attacking the Jews. This was to be used in Farmers Gazette to stir them up against city dwellers. Here’s one attacking the Catholics, anti-Negro, anti-labor, anti-trade union, subtle appeal to the Ku Klux Klan. Here’s a list of newspaper editors who either sought to occupy public office, or sought to dictate who should occupy public office, and when they failed, felt that the public was a great, stupid beast. Here’s a list of men who served their country in the last war, and were failures in business, and longed for power of rank and the prestige of a uniform. In there are the names and addresses of the men who were designated to be America’s first storm troopers. But what was really shocking to me was the complete cynicism of the plan. Each of these groups was simply to be used until its usefulness was exhausted. Hates were to be played against hates. If one group threatened to get too powerful it would be killed off by another group. And in the end, all these poor little people who never knew to what purpose they were lending themselves would be in the same chained, cowed and enslaved, with Robert Forrest and his handful of power-thirsty henchmen cracking the whip…Perhaps he loved the people. Perhaps he loved them, but didn’t trust them to think for themselves. Or perhaps he was insatiable and wanted even more power to add to his glory. I don’t know. But he envied the dictators and thought that all governments, of the people and by the people were soon to perish from the Earth…I remember the first day I looked at his face and trembled with fear, at the change that I saw in that face. Hatred, arrogance, cruelty. The face of a man who no longer believed in God, but only in himself…The things he’d think of, the ideas he’d play with, his frank contempt of democracy, his incredible ambition. But he wasn’t mad. He wasn’t mad…
Steven: …I want you to help me tell the world the truth about him…destroy people’s belief in their hero? Why? He wasn’t their hero, he was their enemy, and they must know it. They must know what their enemies over there can do to heroes over here. But it will destroy them. Christine, people are not children. Sometimes they act like children when you get them scared or confused. But down in their hearts they know they’re not afraid. They want the truth and they can take it. You can’t lie to them. I can’t lie to them.
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Movies that promote values like this are few and far between these days. Just use your remote to traverse the cable tv fare any night..,guns, fighting, blood and horror, aggression, competitions ( where there has to be a loser.) and all manner of nasty behaviors. And then there is the news… murder and mayhem.
Years ago , I read “in The Absence of the Sacred, by Jerry Mander. (you will love the book, Greg) He is correct, way back then, stating that as all the values that people learned in family settings, neighborhoods and communities, and from religion have been replaced by the ubiquitous window, the tv screen. Noble ideas and truth have no place as Xmen and warriors fight evil. The values of the power -elite who run all the shows are not the ones that benefit social interactions.
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Ms Schwartz,
I am 66 so I’m sure I have many years on you but more and more I understand the blessing of growing up in the 1959s in a little town in northern Calif compared to the inanity, insanity, and just plain lousy childhoods so many children I see in school and out and about are living. We (or I at least) was bathed in positive value messages.
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I look back at those days as golden, too. and by the way, I went to high school with Bernie Sanders… so, I am 77 years old…graduated in 1959… grew up with Elvis and the Beatles.
My sons, now in their fifties grew up in a different world than the one in which — their children now in their late teens and twenties -inhabit.
Sometimes, I think I am living in an alternative universe, where the rule of law has broken down by rogue lawyers (the tilted of an essay that I am writing for OEN.)
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That’s why I’m a TCM junkie. Especially when they show Japanese movies late Sunday/early Monday. Thankfully it hasn’t gone of the way of CNN yet. Ted’s vision can still be found in very few places.
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I recently finished reading The Caine Mutiny, and as with all literature, I see symbolism relating to our field of education…and, of course, Education Reform. For those familiar with the novel, who is the Captain Queeg of Ed Reform? Who continuously made colossal mistakes yet always used ex post facto rationalizations and lies to allow for acceptance by an uninformed establishment? Who in the Ed Reform crowd best symbolizes the bullying of those who sought and seek to do what’s right? Who would rather be in control while leading the ship to catastrophe than have faith in the decisions of those with better understanding?
The Caine ultimately survived (though it required a mutiny). What will happen with us?
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Easy peasy!
Arne Duncan is Captain Queeg.
Rhee is the bully.
Gates is leading the ship to catastrophe.
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So, who’s Fred MacMurray? 🧐
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I knew this would be the right place for answers!
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Hey there, Christine. Actually, as a long time-sci-fi reader inthe sub-genre’ “if this goes on,” I have a very different take on who is running the show. I live in NYC, where billionaires from across the world buy condos of over 100 million bucks, and do not live there….but the stores on 5th ave, which were never inexpensive, now feature shoes the cost thousands, and dresses that cost more than most people’s cars.
The power-elite (I now usurp Gary Brumback’s term for the oligarchs that run the show) do not want a citizenry that can tell truth form shinola. They need an ignorant population of wage-slaves. Simon Legree runs the nation. No one runs the schools… it is everyman for themselves.
Reform is an Orwellian term, that deformed public education, while selling ‘choice’ and stealing tax-payer’s money to enrich themselves.
I know, I know. I have to believe we can change this… but not while a mobster runs the nation, not while he can do anything he wants, as a petrified Pelosi ignores a constitutional crisis, and tells us to wait until an election.
By then, our 3 branch system of government will cease to exist, and our schools will never explain to our future citizens what happened, because the AEI will write history. Shared Knowledgeis the core and the key of democracy. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
besides;;;There won’t be a nation left when President Bolton is finished provoking Iran.
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Another school shooting. Colorado. One student killed, 8 injured.
Oregon teachers striking. Not for pay, but for more mental health and support staff.
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Ramadan began at moonrise on May 5 in North America. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Hejira (Islamic) calendar. It was in Ramadan, that the Holy Koran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed (PBUH). This is a joyous and sacred time for Muslims. It is a month of prayer, fasting, scripture reading, and celebration.
In keeping with our splendid American tradition of freedom of religion, Let us pray for our Muslim neighbors in our community and our nation, and throughout the world. Our nation has recently experienced some occurrences of religious bigotry, and Muslims have suffered. Mosques have been vandalized, and individual Muslims have been victimized.I see Muslims and think “There but for the grace of God, go I”. Sadly, religious bigotry is no stranger to our nation. We should not tolerate intolerance.
When you see a Muslim, in your neighborhood, or in a store, or on the bus, approach them, and say “Salaam Aleikum” (Peace be unto you”, and also “HappyRamadan”. “Ramadan Mubarak”)
“We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will surely perish as fools” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968
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Diane and All FYI: the below is a link to a “Chronicle of Higher Education” endorsement of a book about the benefits of public-private partnerships. The cancer grows and double-speak is alive and well. CBK
https://store.chronicle.com/products/the-outsourced-university-how-public-private-partnerships-can-benefit-your-campus?cid=CSCHEEM19MAYP3PARTNERSHIPSE1&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTWpaaVlqaGhPRGhrWlRZNSIsInQiOiJwWEg5akdPVkgwaW5EOVwvMHJST2dzUTgrSVZPUGxCWWpSYk9mMEc1OXowTW9UU2VObVlJVlpHYUs4T3FqMGpWMWdGWGNJZXJWUUxZeTNORWxNXC9MSkozUzhwTDNcL2xFRjdWYkthSzRcL3lwNjI2ckhJbXF0N0w1MmFLS2JTSnJlZXYifQ%3D%3D
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Report on failed Louisiana voucher experience: https://www.nola.com/education/2019/05/louisiana-promised-children-a-way-out-of-bad-public-schools-then-steered-thousands-to-d-and-f-grade-private-campuses.html and a columnist who gets it: https://www.nola.com/education/2019/05/louisiana-promised-children-a-way-out-of-bad-public-schools-then-steered-thousands-to-d-and-f-grade-private-campuses.html
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Trevor Noah (complete with dimples) has a few thoughts about DeVos and teachers’ strikes:
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Tennessee rebrands its Achievement District. One more reason schools shouldn’t be run like businesses.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2019/05/09/part-of-the-changes-under-sharon-griffin-11-6k-spent-to-rebrand-the-achievement-school-district/
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We Americans often do not see why we need to defend our universities, yet they are the first place to be attacked under authoritarian governments. Here’s a look at Hungary, if a reminder is needed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/george-soros-viktor-orban-ceu/588070/
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Whoa! Elizabeth Warren is out here promising that a Secretary of Education in her administration would have to be someone who had been a public schools teacher!
(Leaves out Diane, sadly 😕.)
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It’s okay, Christine. In 2021, I will be 82, way too old for a cabinet position. I’m eager to hear any candidate come out against charters and all forms of privatization.
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How about Senior Chair to the Secretary, then?
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I’m ready, able, and willing.
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Yaaayyyyy!
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Here’s an email I received from the Warren campaign, expanding on the video above:
Warren for President
Growing up, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
I only started having that dream when my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Lee, told me it was possible and changed my whole world. That’s what a great teacher can do: make a mark that runs deep on a child’s life.
But that meant I’d need a college diploma. Our family didn’t have the money to pay for it. But I didn’t give up on my dream.
There were lots of bumps and wrong turns along the way, but I got my second chance at a public commuter college that cost $50 a semester and opened a million doors for me.
I got my degree and I got to live my dream: I became a teacher for students with special needs.
My story was only possible because America invested in kids. That just isn’t true today. But I’ve got a plan to make sure we build a future with opportunity for all of our kids.
First, we need to make sure the Department of Education actually works for our students and our educators.
I’ll just be blunt: Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education we’ve seen. She and her team are up to their eyeballs in conflicts of interest. Instead of championing our students, they protect for-profit colleges that break the law and cheat them.
So I’m making this pledge to you: In my administration, the Secretary of Education will be a former public school teacher who is committed to public education.
Add your name if you agree that we need to replace Betsy DeVos with someone who actually fights for our kids and the people who teach our kids.
Let’s get a person with real teaching experience. A person who understands how low pay, tattered textbooks, and crumbling classrooms hurt students and educators. A person who understands the crushing burden of student debt on students and young professionals and who is committed to actually doing something about it.
And our teachers are being crushed right now. Too many have to work another job to make ends meet, are weighed down by student debt, and struggle to teach on shoestring budgets and insulting salaries.
When we fail our teachers, we fail our students — and we fail our future.
Now, this problem is bigger than Betsy DeVos — she’s the symptom of a badly broken system. We’re up against powerful forces, and to win, we need big, structural change.
I’ve got a plan for exactly that.
Let’s pass my Ultra-Millionaire Tax and use the money to invest in Universal Child Care and pre-K for all kids.
Let’s use some of that new revenue to raise salaries for all our pre-school teachers to professional level wages — make them a part of the K-12 teaching corp.
Let’s use more of it to cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of people who have it.
Let’s make it easier to join a union. Unions give teachers — and firefighters, sheet-metal workers, steelworkers, working people across this country — more power over the long run. That’s good for teachers, good for students, and good for making sure we put the resources we need directly into our schools.
It’s that straightforward: Get the right leadership, invest in our kids, and invest in our teachers.
Add your name if you’re with me in this fight. My Secretary of Education will be someone who’s got real teaching experience in a public school — someone who will fight for our students and teachers instead of for-profit corporations.
Oh, and one last thing: Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a former public school teacher in the White House?
We get what we fight for.
Thanks for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
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In terms of domestic policy is was amazing how much a president that was a former public school teacher did for the profession when he was in the White House.
And, this former public school teacher in the White House knew to focus on poverty as government programs that he got passed aimed at lowering poverty increased education level of the Nation.
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That’s great. I wish Bernie would be this specific.
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Me too. Then I wish they’d team up.
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This is incredibly interesting and made me feel better about where I live:
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Dianne, this is worth reading:
It’s short too.
Title: “I own the Red Hen restaurant that asked Sarah Sanders to leave. Resistance isn’t futile.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/i-own-the-red-hen-restaurant-that-asked-sarah-sanders-to-leave-resistance-isnt-futile/ar-AABlGz9?ocid=spartandhp
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That was great, Lloyd! Thanks for finding and sharing.
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You are welcome.
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Diane – Can you look up ‘tech billionaire parenting’ by Alice Thompson from the Times of London ? Thank you!
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I’m more convinced each day that what we need is a Sanders-Warren or a Warren-Sanders administration, for the well being of our public school system – and by extension our democracy. A bit worrisome is the headline that the ban would be on all for-profit charters. As we know, none of them are truly non-profit.
“(CNN)In a major education policy speech set to be delivered Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders will call for a ban on all for-profit charter schools, a position that puts him directly at odds with the Trump administration and becoming the first of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to insist on such a move.
The Vermont independent will call for a moratorium on the funding of all public charter schools until a national audit on the schools has been completed. Sanders will also promise to halt the use of public funds to underwrite all new charter schools if he is elected president…
According to the campaign, Sanders will outline a series of reforms he deems necessary to charter school policy. Among them:
Mandating that charter schools comply with the same oversight requirements as public schools
Mandating that at least half of all charter school boards are teachers and parents
Disclosing student attrition rates, non-public funding sources, financial interests and other relevant data
Matching employment practices at charters with neighboring district schools, including standards set by collective bargaining agreements and restrictions on exorbitant CEO pay
Supporting the efforts of charter school teachers to unionize and bringing charter schools to the negotiating table
Sanders will concede that the initial goal of charter schools — to help kids with unique learning needs — was admirable. But he will argue the system has been corrupted by wealthy activists who spent millions to privatize these schools, leaving them unaccountable and draining funds from the public school system.”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/17/politics/bernie-sanders-charter-schools-ban/index.html
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They are my top two choices. Being, as I am, pro-choice.
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GregB Speaking of pro-choice, does the recent spat of anti-abortion STATE legislation
smell of ALEC or ALEC-like organization to you? CBK
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Of course the anti-abortion legislation is ALEC.
Horrible as-it is, it may mean that the rightwing billionaires are shifting focus from charters to saving the unborn and jailing doctors for life.
I wish they cared about the born as much as they care about the unborn.
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Diane My take on the situation is that the support of anti-abortion comes from a higher-level ideology–many on the religious right put support of pro-life/anti-abortion above ALL of Trump’s moral and political faults, which they are quite aware of, holding their noses, so to speak, throughout. My guess is the republican/oligarchs/ALEC have turned to supporting pro-life/anti-abortion not out of anything resembling moral or religious zealotry, but to pander to the political power of the religious right, which turns ONLY on pro-life above everything else, even the maintenance of a democratic government, which many see as anti-religious/secular anyway. There are other issues of course, but I think that’s a big part of the present political picture. FWIW CK
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Smell is too tame a word. I think its like an obvious rotted cadaver stench.
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mine ,too>
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Required viewing on the 65th anniversary of Brown v Board:
https://twitter.com/KristinTotten/status/1129551316295081984?s=20
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A good exposition of Gates’plans to come after higher education:
https://theconversation.com/new-gates-funded-commission-aims-to-put-a-value-on-a-college-education-116930?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton
Oh, and Gates’ soulmate has been found:
https://local.theonion.com/man-who-s-been-in-a-bunch-of-buildings-figures-he-d-be-1834753863
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Here’s Bernie Sanders’ manifesto on public education – a few things need tweaking, but it’s so obvious that hearing from Diane has informed his positions. A great leap forward!
https://berniesanders.com/a-thurgood-marshall-plan-for-public-education/
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I never thought I would read this anywhere…. Bernie Sanders to call for ban on for-profit charter schools https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/17/1858488/-Bernie-Sanders-to-call-for-ban-on-for-profit-charter-schools?detail=emaildkre
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Just posted my summary of “Whit and Wisdom.” Hope you like it. Let me know if I need to change or fix anything and please share. I hope it helps with sales and helps people who have read the book review key concepts. http://bit.ly/2WlEiMk
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I can’t wait to read it… but then I have been following Diane for 2 decades! She stands alone!
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Diane, Lloyd is calling me a “mother-f****r” again. Here is his statement:
Q REMF, ENDQ
This stands for “rear-echelon mother-f****r”.
I am a veteran, and a patriot. I served this nation honorably in peace and in war. I put my life on the line in Iraq/Afghanistan, and during the first gulf war in Saudi Arabia. I worked in nuclear weapons control, during the cold war. I spent two years on a front-line nuclear combat base in Germany.
Why do you permit yourself to be a party in broadcasting this type of slander and obscenity?
I expect better from you.
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Context is everything, Charles.
Charles, REMF is an acronym for a common military term used among combat troops for military troops that never see combat but think they know everything like someone who supports starting a war against Iran like the U.S. did when President G. W. Bush invaded Iraq based on lies about WMD and started a war that destabilized the entire Middle East.
The Urban Dictionary lists a definition for this acronym
REMF is “a term of derision used by front line soldiers to describe those in cushy jobs in the rear. It is short for ‘Rear Echelon Mother Fucker’ and is familiar to most troopers who have been involved in any conflict.”
Even the Oxford English Dictionary lists the definition for the acronym.
“noun
US
military slang, derogatory
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/remf
I did not use the words M****R F****R because those two words by themselves have a different meaning that is really insulting. I would never call you an MF.
I used REMF, a common term most troops are familiar with.
Context is everything and your allegations that I called you an “MF” is wrong an misleading. I will never call you an MF. Like I said before, context is everything.
Would you prefer that I use POGUE instead, another acronym that means the same thing?
POGUE is another pejorative military slang for non-combat, staff, and other rear-echelon or support units. “Pogue” frequently applies to those who do not have to undergo the risk and stresses of combat as the infantry does. (I just learned about this alternative). If you prefer it over REMF, let me know and next time I will refer to use as a POGUE instead of a REMF.
However, REMF is a better know acronym among combat troops. I learned how to use this acronym from a Green Beret medic (20 years younger than me) who fought in the Middle East. This Special Forces soldier doesn’t approve of people that never served in combat when they offer opinions like going to war in Iran when that POGUE has never served in combat while in the military.
Charles, I apologize for upsetting your sensitives and will call you a POGUE from now on when the context of your comments calls for it but I content that REMF is more accurate when it refers to your hawkish comments that support starting a war with another country that does not want a war with the United States.
Fox News beating the war drums: “Trump says war will mean ‘official end of Iran,’ warns ‘never threaten the United States again'”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-war-iran-never-threaten-united-states
USA Today reports, “Trump says war would lead to ‘end’ of Iran”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-war-iran-never-threaten-united-states
Someone in another country threatens the U.S. through the media, and the U.S. blows them up for those threats — absurd and insane!
Since when does a “threat” from a leader in another country becomes a justification for starting a war that will displace millions of people and kills hundreds of thousands and probably destabilize the Middle East even more until we end up with a nuclear war between Pakistan and India that could spread to a nuclear war between Russia and Europe and/or the U.S.
To enter World War II, it took the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. Now, all it takes is a few words that are considered a threat. How much of a threat is Iran? How much of a threat is North Korea?
Evidently, that doesn’t apply to Trump and POGUEs like Charles.
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Lloyd, are you saying this is just your everyday Snafu?
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Sanfu? I don’t know.
If you go back to my original comment from days ago on another thread … if you can find it … the one that motivated Charles to accuse me of calling him an MF without including the entire acronym and the first two words of that acronym in his protest, and he also left out the definition from the dictionary for REMF that was in my comment, you will discover the context of my comment does not come close to matching his allegations that I called him an MF.
I can’t see how anyone could construe my comment the way Charles did unless he was pulling a Hannity or a Limbaugh or an Alex Jones.
There is a big difference between alleging someone is a REMF vs an MF.
But now, Charles has admitted he was never in combat and when he was in uniform in the U.S. military, he served in a support position behind the lines. So my comment is no longer an allegation.
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Grammar, Lloyd, grammar: a MF.
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Yes, grammar can be a royal “MF” in the “A”
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EXCLUSIVE: NEW HAMPSHIRE WON’T SEND DELEGATES TO NEA NATIONAL CONVENTION BECAUSE IT’S IN TEXAS: In this week’s Union Report, Mike Antonucci breaks the news that New Hampshire’s 17,000 National Education Association members will not be represented when the NEA holds its annual convention in Houston from July 3 to 7. The reason, Antonucci reports, are policies in Houston and in Texas that the New Hampshire union sees as discriminatory toward undocumented immigrants and the LGBTQ community. What specific policies they are protesting is not known, but the move is highly unusual, he writes, noting it’s the first time a state affiliate has sat out the NEA convention in his 22 years of covering the gathering where the national union’s policies for the coming school year will be debated and approved. Convention nonattendance as a form of social protest could also get tricky, he says, with next year’s gathering slated for Alabama , which just passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
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You are signed up for all the rightwing blogs.
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Seems Bernie Sanders learned the lesson Diane taught about charters and billionaires:
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Another, not so obvious consequence of shining light on Sacklers:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/painmanagement/painmanagement/80054?xid=NL_breakingnewsalert_2019-05-24&eun=g1082460d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=APSbankruptAlert_052419&utm_term=NL_Daily_Breaking_News
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A member of Michigan’s State Board of Education repudiates the state’s stance that Detroit’s children do not have a guaranteed right to literacy under the 14th amendment. Seems like a candidate for the blog’s Honor Roll:
“Detroit — A state board of education member who is a named defendant in a lawsuit over literacy access in Detroit schools says she does not support the state’s legal position to have the case dismissed and believes the students were ‘robbed’ of their rights.
Pamela L. Pugh, vice president of the Michigan State Board of Education, said Tuesday she has notified the office of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office that she will not be taking or supporting the state’s legal position made Friday in a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking a dismissal of a 2016 lawsuit filed by Detroit schoolchildren.”
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2019/05/28/state-board-member-says-detroit-children-robbed-rights/1258756001/
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Biden to announce first major policy position today in Houston…on public education:
https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-05-28/biden-to-face-teachers-union-after-toxic-relationship-during-the-obama-years
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THis should be interesting.
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I’m hoping he chose Houston in your honor.
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Biden has a plan for public education, see
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-rolls-out-plan-to-hike-teacher-pay-in-low-income-schools/ar-AAC2FtU?ocid=ientp
He also wants to take on the NRA.
Fat Chance.
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Diane I live in Pasadena CA and read your blog regularly. You are doing a great public service. pls see story that just broke about massive fraud by charter operators in San Diego. They’ve already been indicted by the DA. I don’t know how to include the link here but I’m sure you’ll find the story by googling it.
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Donna,
I saw that story immediately and it will appear here tomorrow. I have a queue, and I couldn’t get it in today. About 15 people contacted me to alert me. I am always grateful for tips to big stories from everywhere.
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Randi needs help. Again.
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Randi sells out teachers again and again. It’s really time for Diane to let her go. When I asked her when she was head of the UFT about what she was going ot do about charter schools, she said don’t worry Green Dot (a charter chain) are the good guys.
She has always been a Democratic Party hack–she shills for the most mainstream of them and demands nothing in return from them.
IF only Randi had evolved as Diane has; clearly her support for Biden shows she has not.
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Peter Greene isn’t buying the Biden education plan: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2019/05/29/joe-biden-struggles-to-lift-heavy-education-baggage/#2c48eabe6525
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https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/05/30/boston-teachers-tentative-contract
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Common Core unites many in stating it’s a failure (or is it still too early, Mr. Gates?):
https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/30/federally-funded-study-common-core-sunk-u-s-kids-test-scores/
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Randy Rainbow says: Just impeach him!
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I watch that Randy Rainbow video. I bet that Trump doesn’t even know Randy Rainbow exists. Everyone in his family and staff is doing all they can to make sure he never finds out about Randy Rainbow.
Because if Trump found out, he’d Tweet and rant about Randy Rainbow until Randy’s audience moved into the billions worldwide and Randy turned into a real superstar.
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So true, Lloyd!
Hope you’ve seen Randy on Betsy:
And Stable Genius:
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He will be re-elected
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Watching “The West Wing” season 1, I was disappointed to learn that Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is in favor of school vouchers. Fortunately, Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry has a daughter who is both a public school teacher and a potential love interest for Mr. Seaborn. So far, she is holding her own in sticking up for public ed. Hoping this ends better than the nauseating Ed Reform thread in “House of Cards.”
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Happy to report — from a few episodes later — that Seaborn/Lowe’s support of school vouchers was just opposition research! He’s with us!
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Algebra Teacher, which candidate do you refer to here?
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Sorry for the confusion, Diane. This is from “The West Wing,” which I’m watching on Netflix. Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe) is President Bartlet’s Deputy White House Communications Director. The show is amazing for how topical many of its themes are despite being from 20 years ago. I mentioned because we’ve occasionally discussed on here how the entertainment industry often parrots the Ed Reform dogma (most terribly in the Netflix original series, “House of Cards” season 1). I was disturbed to see someone like Seaborn, way back in the 90’s, already pushing this stuff. But as it turned out, he was just teasing his public school teacher potential girlfriend. The position paper she had read by him favoring school vouchers was not representative of his actual views. I was as pleased as the fictional teacher to learn this.
The gentleman I mentioned below, Ben Lindy, is very much not on our side: https://ballotpedia.org/Ben_Lindy
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Ohio Algebra Teacher,
I hate to give as much as a penny to Reed Hastings but I urge you to watch Wanda Sykes’ “Not Normal.” If you don’t laugh yourself silly, let me know.
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On it, Diane! (Despite sharing your distaste for Mr. Hastings.)
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Early warning on this man, Diane. Poster child for DFER. Under 40. Super ambitious. Huge fundraiser. Yale Law but career Teach for America. Media in his pocket. Running for School Board in Cincinnati after failed attempt to win state representative. Media on board. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/columnists/politics-extra/2019/05/31/2019-election-yale-grad-teach-america-leader-returns-politics/1275459001/?utm_source=cincinnati-Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_briefing&utm_term=list_article_thumb
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Thanks for the link, Ohio Algebra Teacher. I will post about that race when the election time is closer.
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Democrats Must Choose Between Teachers and Charter Schools – Truthdighttps://www.truthdig.com/articles/democrats-must-choose-between-teachers-and-charter-schools/
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Indiana: https://www.wave3.com/2019/06/05/indiana-teachers-frustrated-rushing-renew-licenses-before-new-requirements-take-effect/
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Biden’s history on school integration via busing is not a good lewk:
https://www.thenation.com/article/joe-biden-education-busing-opposition/
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Tons of mixed messages in this article, but I read it as an author doing a better than typical job of cloaking Ed Reform favoritism: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/unchartered-territory-2020-democrats-back-away-charter-schools-n1014706
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A rare against Ed Reform talking points link on Real Clear Education: https://theconversation.com/school-vouchers-expand-despite-evidence-of-negative-effects-117370
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Real CLear was started by reformer Andy Rotherham, who advises and encourages charters and TFA and a galaxy of reform organizations.
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Last Friday I went to see Hiss Golden Messenger, aka MC Taylor, perform. He played a new song that I think all of you will appreciate. Here is what he said to introduce it:
“I was thinking about, what to make a video, how to make a video for this song. And I started thinking about all of the teachers that I’ve had in my life, specifically public school teachers. My wife is a public school teacher. Both of my parents were public school teachers. My sister is a high school counselor. Both of my kids go to public schools. I’m a product of public schools. And we all turned out pretty good. And, I don’t know what it’s like here [Cleveland], but teachers in North Carolina get treated like absolute trash. And it’s rough. So, the teachers in North Carolina, about a month ago, staged a walkout, it wasn’t a strike, but school was cancelled statewide and thousands of teachers gathered in the state capital, Raleigh, and marched with their demands. Which are simple: fund education, basically. It seems so simple.
“So, we sent a film crew out there just to capture the faces of the teachers, just to take their pictures and assemble them into a video. And I think that I’m really close to it because of all the people in my life that have been teachers and have been dealing with legislators telling them that they’re lazy, they’re not worth paying any more than, you know, a babysitter. And the video is so heavy. I can’t wait for you to see it. When I got the first cut back, I just cried and cried like I haven’t before because I saw this thing in these teachers’ faces that I’ve been seeing my whole life, which is like: we love this job, why don’t you pay us to do it?
“So, yeah, you’re going to see this video in a couple of days, but this is a tune called ‘I Need A Teacher.’”
It was released today and I hope you all enjoy and will be inspired by it as I was:
Love me harder
Cry like thunder
Kick the floorboards
Paint it a different color
Another year older
Debt slightly deeper
Paycheck smaller
Goddamn, I need a teacher
Rock me, Daddy, I’m still your kid
The ways to you are oh so very different
Beauty in the broken American moment
Rock me, Daddy, happiness ain’t free
I see where you’re at, I know you can see me
Beauty in the broken American moment
Tell the truth, dear
Don’t be jaded
That’s no way to play it
To say it
To feel it
Lord, make me thankful
Though it ain’t easy
Give it away freely
It’ll come back to you eventually
Rock me, Daddy, I’m still your kid
The ways to you are oh so very different
Beauty in the broken American moment
Rock me, Daddy, happiness ain’t free
I see where you’re at, I know you can see me
Beauty in the broken American moment
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Reading a book called “High Drama” about a phenomenal high school dramatic arts teacher in Pennsylvania. Author is a journalist and former student from the school (though not in drama). The author shreds Ed Reform including Obama, W, Duncan, Coleman, NCLB, RTTT, and the Common Core. He makes many of the arguments we see on here daily. Loved reading it.
And back to the West Wing, I feel like I’m seeing a Teach for America moment. Season 2, Episode 7 has President Bartlet wanting 100,000 new teachers. Free college for anyone willing to teach for 3 years. Democratic administration here…
Toby Ziegler: It’s pie in the sky, to say nothing but patronizing to have privileged Ivy Leaguers play teacher to America’s most vulnerable children.
Sam Seaborn: The people taking advantage of this aren’t going to be overprivileged.
TZ: How do you suppose the Teachers Union’ll feel about this?
SS: They’ll have 100,000 new members.
TZ: All of whom will leave after three years.
SS: Most of whom.
TZ: And the kids will be abandoned as well.
SS: They won’t be abandoned.
TZ: Their teachers will leave.
SS: Once you’re in the 5th grade, what do you care what your 4th grade teacher’s doing?
TZ: (sign) Sam.
SS: Toby, these people are going to be role models for to kids who don’t have much contact with young, successful college graduates, many of whom have grown up in neighborhoods just like theirs.
TZ: Sam…
SS: Toby, we could…
TZ: Sam! Where are we getting the money?!
(silence)
Where are we getting the money?
“The West Wing” started in 1999. Season 2 was probably in 2000.
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At episode end, they decide to establish a pilot program with 100 teachers rather than 100,000. President Bartlet: “It’s a start.”
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Here’s ProPublica’s latest story, following up on Katie Meyler’s girls’ academy More Than Me, in Liberia, where lack of oversight resulted in the rape of at least ten girls.
https://www.propublica.org/article/independent-panel-concludes-more-than-me-charity-missed-opportunities-to-prevent-rape-of-students?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
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In case you haven’t seen this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/
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I posted it yesterday at 9 am EST
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Parents from seven Massachusetts communities, joined by the Council for Fair School Finance, made up of civil rights groups and teachers’ unions, will file a lawsuit against unequal funding of our public schools.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/06/12/parents-file-civil-rights-lawsuit-against-state-over-unequal-school-funding/4pZWbg1UccaEUhUOQ3ibhK/story.html
In 1993, Massachusetts passed the so-called grand bargain which brought us “accountability” in the guise of testing and charter schools, in exchange for a “foundation budget” assuring the state would make up shortfalls in funding from poor cities and towns to ensure an equal education for all. The grand bargain was in itself a response to a lawsuit which began in 1978 over the same issue.
Nearly four years ago, the Foundation Budget Review Commission found the state was not meeting its obligation and that the funding mechanism was fatally flawed, having failed to account for the costs of health care, special education, ELL kids and kids living in poverty. Though the governor last year signaled a willingness to fund the first two, the Walton – aligned reformsters want more “accountability” before funding the second two priorites. The Pioneer Institute has even made the suggestion that if cities and towns receive funding from the state for education, school boards must also proportionately lose elected representation and have state-appointed overseers instead. Professor Maurice Cunningham of UMass Boston derisively categorized this as the “Beamer vs Beater Theory of Democracy”.
Part of the problem faced by poorer cities and towns is that charter funding sucks away monies from the public schools and directs it to charters. For example, 125 Boston public schools receive 22% of state aid, while 78% of state aid goes to 24 charter schools within the city because state Chapter 70 funding goes to charter schools first. BPS gets whatever is left over.
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Diane,
Check out this story about the Frisco (TX) ISD increasing playtime for their elementary schools. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Schools-Expanding-Free-Play-for-Students-This-Fall-511545311.html
Thanks for all you do for public ed!
Josh
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Wayfair, the online furniture company is the target of a boycott due to their provisioning of the child camps run by CBP, HHS and ORR. The “philanthropic” arm of the company is the Shah Family Foundation. In Boston, they fund efforts aimed at privatization of our schools.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/06/25/wayfair-is-supplying-beds-texas-detention-centers-children-its-employees-are-protesting/?utm_term=.0718d92cbaa0
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Ugh, another company I now have to scratch off my list. Wayfair, Chik-Fil-A, trying to figure out how to get rid of Netflix, got rid of Microsoft and moved to Apple–but that ain’t clean either. I’ve only set foot in a Walmart once in my life, and I blame my infant son for that! Thanks for the info on Wayfair. Will never spend a penny with them ever again.
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The list of corporations to avoid is growing. What we need is an “AVOID LIST” on a laminated credit-card sized reminder sheet.
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Here’s a few more:
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Although, I must confess, I don’t care about their evangelism or potential corporate shenanigans, In-n-Out will always be my go-to every time I travel to the West coast. There are limits!
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GregB That’s the only thing wrong with the house I live in in California. It’s entirely too close to an In-n-Out burger place. CBK
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What a great “wrong thing” to have! Been there, done that. I can still hear my beloved, departed mother-in-law’s voice when she visited from Germany when we lived in SoCal, “Greg, kann you drive me to ze In-n-Out for a burrgerr [only a double-double]?” If you haven’t seen it, check out the great scene from the Coen Brothers movie “The Big Lebowski” about In-n-Out. I’ve been to that one in the valley (many times)–which is near an iconic Los Burritos.
Here in NE Ohio we have Swenson’s–which is very good and fun–but it ain’t In-n-Out! (Nothing is.)
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GregB Double-Double with everything and raw onions. (It’s close enough to walk there. Are you turning green with envy?) CBK
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🤢
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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/boston-wayfair-workers-threaten-walkout-144915582.html
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Diane,
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, one of many seeking the Democratic nomination, was on Morning Joe today talking about education. While he mentioned that in 2 nights of debate, there was not a single education-related question posed, he used his time this morning to talk about… you guessed it… school choice, how awesome it is, and how much better Denver schools are because of it! I wonder if he would be open to hearing more of what YOU have to say since he’s trying to be the education candidate?
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MIchael Bennett is a choice zealot. Zealots are not interested in hearing contrary views.
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Nightmare scenario for us if Dems win White House: Bennet becomes Sec. of Ed.
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That would indeed be a nightmare!
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Being serious, I don’t think Bennet would accept Secretary of Education. He has already parlayed his Ed Reform efforts into what has proved to be a safe seat in the Senate and a platform to run for the presidency. (He also showed signs of trying to mask his past views on Ed Reform during the Denver teacher strikes.) My nightmare is that he becomes president. He reminds me A LOT of Arne Duncan.
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Michael Bennett was a Wall St guy before he became Denver superintendent
He nearly bankrupted the district with risky investments
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FYI.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have guessed I am in Italy.
Rome, now Florence. Then a week at a farmhouse in Tuscany. Then a few days in Croatia, where we will visit Pasi Sahlberg and his lovely family.
As you can see, I read comments and post every day.
It is brutally hot here.
Anyone who does not believe in climate change, come to Europe now.
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Enjoy your trip!
My daughter and I were in Paris in May 2017. The heat was unbearable! The earth does not care, she’ll get along without humans just fine, but we are in for a lot of misery.
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I saw your posted pic from the Ponte Vecchio. There’s a great gelato place at the foot of the bridge to help you cool off. Florence in the hot summer: My sense memory can smell the wafting body odors as your body rubs up against others in the crowded streets!
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More Sackler-related fallout: https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/opioids/80777?xid=NL_breakingnewsalert_2019-06-28&eun=g1082460d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PainAlert_062819&utm_term=NL_Daily_Breaking_News_Active
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The San Francisco school board has voted to destroy a WPA era mural at The George Washington High School.
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Here’s the story of a Boston public middle school teacher who fought back against the closure of her school – and won:
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/07/03/mccormack-middle-school-neema-avashia
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Urban Librarians Unite is collecting funds to provide books, games,puzzles and art supplies to children who are unaccompanied minors in US custody:
“About this campaign
Urban Librarians Unite has been working with a residential facility for Unaccompanied Minors and Children Separated from their Families at the Border for the last year. With the help of our generous supporters we have placed hundreds of new age appropriate books in both Spanish and English directly into the hands of kids who have experienced trauma and have very little to call their own.
We would like to be able to offer the kids other kinds of information and support. ULU would like to send them games, puzzles, and art supplies. Often these kids are bounced across the country as they are moved from one agency to another. We would like to get them some bags to carry books, crayons, activity books, and other comforts as they are bussed from place to place and acclimate to a new temporary ‘home’.
These materials will be purchased at a discount through First Book and other deep discount vendors to make every penny count and go directly to these kids in need of support.”
https://www.fundlibraries.org/campaign/36/every-kid-deserves-joy?fbclid=IwAR2QIUubBWoa5GhJRkV_e_N3Q-hQm5GK5AX4ZAZvj6n3bKV_Z8vLLfnc-_0
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Looking for a good movie this weekend and subscribe to Prime? Then give Kästner and Little Tuesday (Kästner und der kleine Dienstag) a spin. Erich Kästner is one of the most beloved German authors of the 20th century whose books still sell quite well. He wrote a classic children’s novel, Emil and the Detectives, that is also a staple in American high school and college German classes (the original cover is still used, probably the most identifiable book in Germany, and the artist’s story plays a part in the film). Prior to that he wrote Fabian, which was a key novel in the Neue Sachlichkeit era, the interwar period of literature that focused on objectivity. He was the only author present at the infamous book burning ceremony on May 10, 1933 and chose “inner exile,” that is, staying in the country to witness its atrocities rather than emigrate. During the war, he survived by writing children’s fairy tales and as a ghost writer for film scripts. This movie is based on a true story and is among the best I’ve seen in the past few years.
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The indefatigable Susan DuFresne posted this video of Bernie Sanders addressing the BAT caucus of the NEA. Enjoy!
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The indefatigable Susan DuFresne posted this video of Bernie Sanders addressing the BAT caucus of the NEA. Enjoy!
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Diane, hope you see this about the STEM Queen.
“Teen’s (she is 16 years old) science organization brings STEM to ‘Murdertown, U.S.A.'”
https://mashable.com/article/jacqueline-means-stem-queen/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Too bad that the billionaires supporting the corporate charter school industry’s invasion and theft of public education can’t put their money into programs like this one started by 16-year-old Jacqueline Means, known locally in Wilmington, Delaware as the STEM Queen.
You will love this one, guaranteed. Amazing how one 16-year-old can do so much while not one billionaire can do anything but tear things apart and make a profit rebuilding them his/her way.
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Anybody out there who can point me to more information about the Alliance for High Quality Education in Ohio beyond their website?
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Good thread on ex- Secretary of Education in Puerto Rico, Julia Keleher, who was arrested in DC this morning:
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Good thread on ex- Secretary of Education in Puerto Rico, Julia Keleher, who was arrested in DC this morning:
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Thanks, Christine.
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Hi Ms Ravitch–
EdSource is reporting that California Governor Gavin Newsome is potentially looking to gut the two pending bills to curb out of control charter growth:
AB1505: restoring local control to public school districts to approve/deny charters including due to fiscal impact to existing public schools
AB1507 would end ability for districts or counties to authorize charters into neighboring counties
https://edsource.org/2019/governors-team-jumps-into-fray-over-contested-charter-school-bill/615053
Newsome is making concessions to the Charter / Privatization to water down these bills. In looking at the Ed Source article, some of the changes make it very easy for charters to make (unsubstantiated) claims of bias to ensure that they get approved at the state level.
Newsome assigned a charter-heavy task force to come up with recommendations from which AB 1505 and 1507 were drafted (if I’m not mistaken), and now he is looking to gut this same legislation.
Voters in California need to contact Newsome’s office, and those of a few key senators, and tell him to stop pandering to the Charter Industry. CCSA has been lobbying hard, paying for protesters to show up in Sacramento with free rides, pizza, t-shirts and who knows what. They have a TON of cash and are backed by direct connections to the Privatization billionaires (check out this chart of how our local charter school – denied by both the district and county – is intertwined with the Privatization pushers and have been destroying and disrupting our community for several years:
[ LINK:. https://coggle.it/diagram/WN_bdOqtdwABB-Hu/t/ross-valley-charter-and-dark-money-networks/f8e5b506af9b2db7e2f2c100eb7ff0e6f430108fc04d0c7e7d74a5e2e2cfb360 ]
Here is contact information for people to call. People are watching what happens in California, the “Wild West” of charter law. CCSA has been using it as a demonstration and testing ground for taking over a state and will apply learnings across the country.
How else are we to combat the tide of money and influence coming from billionaires overriding common sense legislation?
Senate coauthor of AB 1505 is:
Senate Education Committee Members:
Thank you again for all that you do!
Best,
Rob Sandusky
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Commenting on Rob Sandusky’s request to phone members of the CA Senate Education Committee. This morning the Committee narrowly passed both bills, so these watered down versions are still alive, and are wending their way to a full Senate vote, if they first clear a financial committee. Phoning the Governor’s office, listed, is still a good idea. We would love to see California becoming a model of accountability.
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Alfie Cohn wants to know why excellence must be a scarce commodity:
https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/excellence/
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A reminder that disruption is as bad for post-graduate education as it is in every other stage. Another way poor communities pay the price: https://www.medpagetoday.com/hospitalbasedmedicine/graduatemedicaleducation/81023?xid=nl_popmed_2019-07-18&eun=g1082460d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PopMedicine_071819&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_PopMedicine_Active
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Common Core infiltrates Khan Academy. Just saw this message on my son’s account:
“We’ve updated this course!
We’ve recently made improvements to Algebra 1! We’ve improved the scope and the structure to be better aligned to the spirit of the Common Core, and we’ve added content to cover more subjects! You are viewing the newer edition.”
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Here’s a great analogy of the Democratic field of candidates: a university history department. We all need a laugh!
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Students in Miami-Dade wrote letters intended for their peers imprisioned at Homestead detention center. DHS has so far refused to allow the letters to be delivered. This short film shows students – and a school counselor – reading some of the letters. Don’t miss this.
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/07/21/the-homestead-letters-cbs4-short-film-miami-dade-students-migrant-children-homestead/
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Franken cum poenitet: https://www.yahoo.com/news/franken-says-absolutely-regrets-resigning-201920839.html
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Diane, Can you or any of your followers tell me how to research a school? I am interested learning about Ryan Banks Academy in Chicago. The website does not give much information and it doesn’t say it is a charter. https://www.ryanbanksacademy.org/
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From the website: the school opened last September. It says it will spend $30,000 per child, triple the Chicago average. I suggest you go to the school and talk to people there.
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And here’s a story from The Boston Globe (I’ve used up my articles for the month):
LETTERS
Simply blaming teachers won’t solve Providence schools’ woes
“The teacher’s union isn’t the enemy here. We are the voice of the teachers who want what’s best for our kids.” — Maribeth Calabro
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If Providence gets rid of its experienced teachers, who will teach the children?
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Who will teach the children when all the experienced teachers are gone?
Prison inmates getting paid $1.50 a day (monitors by prison guards with shotguns) and the prison inmates will have cattle prods to keep the children’s noses glued to a computer screen that uses apps from Silicone Vally that will teach them.
No human interaction.
Children that do not comply, will be sent to a special private sector, for-profit, boot camp style prison designed to teach them how to be obedient until they think Bill Gates is god.
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Hard to swallow Michael Bennet gaining praise tonight for his comments on education and segregation. He has a perpetual free pass on his time as Denver Superintendent.
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Bennett was a total corporate Reformer as superintendent in Denver. He was a hedge fund manager prior to that. He cost the district millions of dollars betting on some fancy financial maneuver, credit debt swaps or whatever. All about charters and test scores.
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Exactly, Diane. Now, based on maybe two comments in a debate, you find Democrats (and Republicans) on Twitter saying he’d be the perfect Secretary of Education. It’s disgusting. And I’m sure he’ll be running for president again. I’m hopeful that his experience as Denver Superintendent will become more widely known some day. (Or maybe I’m not. Hopefully, there will never be a reason for him to be that well known.)
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He should stick to being in the Senate. He was a terrible superintendent in Denver.
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Trump’s latest nominee to run all 19 of our intelligence agencies is this fellow, who hails from – wait for it – Betsy DeVos’ hometown of Holland MI.
https://t.co/OTFXPO1SRU?ssr=true
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Have you seen this! Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric looms over El Paso massacre – The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-do-you-stop-these-people-trumps-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-looms-over-el-paso-massacre/2019/08/04/62d0435a-b6ce-11e9-a091-6a96e67d9cce_story.html?utm_term=.25722e04d8e5&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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and here is my intro to this important. editorial “We Have a White Nationalist Terrorist Problem”
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/We-Have-a-White-Nationalis-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Anonymity_Future_Government_Ideology-190805-639.html
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/We-Have-a-White-Nationalis-in-Best_Web_OpEds-
“White supremacy, is a violent, interconnected transnational ideology whose adherents are gathering anonymously online to spread their ideas, plot attacks & cheer on acts of terrorism. If any perpetrators of the two mass shootings had adhered to the ideology of radical Islam, the resources & awesome power of the our government would mobilize without delay, & work tirelessly to deny future terrorists access to weaponry, money and FORUMS to spread their ideology. Its financiers would face sanctions. Places of congregation would be surveilled & infiltrated by spies. Those who gave aid or comfort to terrorists would be prosecuted. Programs would be established to de-radicalize former adherents. And if the technology companies refuse to step up, law enforcement has a duty to vigilantly monitor and end the anonymity, via search warrants, of those who openly plot attacks in murky forums.”
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https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/how-wedding-planner-became-uncertified-michigan-teacher-15-hour
OMG look at the chart. One school has 76.6% long term subs!!!
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Hi Ms. Ravtich–
New York Times reported yesterday that California Attorney General Becerra has found segregation created by the “unique” relationship between the Sausalito / Marin City School District and the Willow Creek Academy charter school under it’s oversight, creating a segregated campus for children of Marin City. A settlement has been reached to de-segregate within 5 years starting with the 20-21 school year.
From the sources below:
At a district meeting in 2012, a district trustee, who is not named in court papers, “admitted that the plan to create separate programs for Sausalito and Marin City was motivated by a desire to create separate programs for separate communities,” according to the complaint. “This trustee also expressed it would improve community relations if students in Marin City were not ‘shipped over’ to Sausalito.”
Ida Green of Marin City, president of the district’s board of trustees, said the history for the segregation goes back decades. “For more than 70 years, the stigma associated with the Marin City community has been one of failure,” Green said. ‘Whether it’s been failure relative to housing, education, economic disparity, or acceptance in neighboring communities, it’s been an ongoing battle.
“This is a test for the national charter school community to make sure they stamp out efforts for charters to be vehicles of white flight,” said Mr. Kahlenberg, of the Century Foundation.
Sources:
Local coverage: https://www.marinij.com/2019/08/09/sausalito-marin-city-schools-reach-settlement-with-state-in-segregation-case/
FCMAT report of findings that triggered the investigation in 2016: http://fcmat.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/08/Marin-COE-Sausalito-Marin-City-final-report.pdf.
The report gets into the Willow Creek Discussion starting on page 52
Thank you again for all you are doing to bring the attacks against our public neighborhood schools by the privatization machine to everyone’s attention!
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Unsurprising and despicable:
https://time.com/5654964/undocumented-children-public-schools/
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Here’s a post detailing which billionaires are funding which democratic candidates. Though Cory Booker is trying to move away from charters and his other failed education initiatives, Billy Gates has contributed to his campaign.
https://gritpost.com/buttigieg-harris-biden-sanders-billionaire-donors/
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An excerpt Robin Lithgow’s book “Good Behavior and Audacity”. Robin was the head of LAUSD’s Arts Education program during the time of Eli Broad’s Deasy. https://robinlithgow.com/2019/06/01/the-irony-of-standardized-testing-in-the-arts/
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Diane, the blog is blocking my comment(s) on the Cincinnati Board of Education race. Attempting this comment as a test…
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New York City public schools are planning to end their gifted/talented programs in a desegregation move. See
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The Lowell, MA police department has weighed in against a Lowell middle school teacher who was one of 36 people arrested during a protest against the “Straight Pride Parade” in Boston on August 31.
The arrests have been widely decried as a “police riot” as there is a lot of video evidence that police pepper-sprayed protestors and used their bicycles to push them, but no video evidence of provocation. Subsequently, the DA refused to press charges against the protestors, but the presiding judge ignored her directives. This blew up into a controversy over the DA’s right to discretion, partially because the judge himself had been a beneficiary of prosecutorial discretion when he shot someone in the back (!).
Here’s the Boston Globe on that:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/04/judge-cites-defense-lawyer-for-contempt-court-during-straight-pride-protester-arraignment/keDbKCh31o9a79lqQ8Bv1N/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter
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I wasn’t able to watch because of getting my son ready for bed, but charter schools were apparently discussed during the Democratic debate tonight. I’m gathering that Yang came out strongly in favor. Warren came out in favor of “public schools.” Many of the rest dodged the question, and Booker was able to avoid any comment. Can others weigh in?
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I’m watching now on replay. Yang did say to deemphasize standardized tests and that he is in favor of “good schools.” Mayor Pete says we need a Secretary of Education who has been a teacher. Both believe teachers should be paid more. Questioner links everything to teacher unions. Senator Warren emphasizes that she was a public school teacher and will hire a public school teacher as EdSec. More money for pie-K. Strengthen unions. Senator Harris speaks of closing teacher pay gap. Wants to invest in more minority teachers. Senator Sanders notes that teachers are leaving education due to low salaries. Wants minimum salary of $60K for teachers. Universal pre-K and debt free colleges. Cancel all student debt through tax on Wall Street.
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Biden wants to triple money to Title I schools. Notes that deceased wife was a teacher. A lot of incoherence after that. Castro speaks of growing up in a segregated neighborhood. Castro wants to raise money for teachers and community schools along with policies to integrate communities. He says that it is a myth that charter schools are better than public schools. Wants for transparency on charter schools.
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Did Castro explain why his hometown San Antonio is overrun with charter schools?
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Booker notes his own life in low-income minority communities. Makes big point of his running Newark Schools and “we closed poor performing charter schools and expanded high performing charter schools.” Made claim that Newark is #1 in something like number of “Beat the Odds” schools.
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Remember when politicians praise “public schools” they include private charters as public schools.
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He did not, Diane. In fact, the moment he said it’s a myth that charter schools do better than public schools, he got summarily cut off by a moderator. Castro did plow through with another sentence of two, but there wasn’t much else. I think it’d be good to look at the transcript. There was more I liked in the general exchange than in any debate I can remember (an extremely low floor). Yang’s point about overuse of standardized testing seemed to be off script for what I’d expect from him.
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Let’s get real…the power elite which controls the media has no intention of allowing any discussion about learning… because it is the real conversation is NOT about “education”..it is about how people learn to do things, and how our citizens LEARN ABOUT TRUTH AND HISTORY.
You cannot have an educated citizenry and elect a Trump.
It is Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. An ignorant citizenry is the goal, not just the profit made by the businesses that take over our schools http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
Yes, the. power elite (i.e. big Pharma) make zillions from privatizing health care; with the grand theft of public taxes they will enrich THEMSELVES by selling/pushing the idea /lie of school ‘choice’.
BUT– The public will NEVER know how they removed the professionals from the schools because they need to dumb down the people, and feed them endless misinformation and disinformation. They sell lies… and they are good at it!
That so the reason that there will NEVER be a genuine CONVERSATION ABOUT WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE and WHAT MUST BE IN PLACE
Democracy depends on shared knowledge… it is the CRUX of this silence on the demolition of public education that Diane has written about for decades. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
You cannot have an educated citizenry and elect a Trump. Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. An ignorant citizenry is the goal.
schools. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
Look how will work via “unchecked disinformation and media manipulation” to demonize Biden…”Think Castro was ‘mean’ to Biden? Get ready for an absolute bloodbath.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/13/be-very-afraid-were-missing-something-big-about-bidens-age/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Propagamda is the tool to their power, and the 21st century has given them the internet– place of anarchy–where lies propagate!
I was one of the first teachers to falls the assault on the professionals began… so they could end the VOICES THAT BRING KNOWLEDGE to our citizens.
None of the candidates will ever bring back the iNSTITUTION of Public Education… not if they want to be elected!
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You’re right, Diane. And when they say a “public school teacher” will be the next Secretary of Education, you never know just what counts. I assume Michelle Rhee, herself, fits into that category. We need an actual name!
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Yes, Rhee taught in a privately managed public school in Baltimore, managed by EAI, Education Alternatives Inc.
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I fixed the errors in my comment earlier… which I repeat here : Let’s get real…the power elite which controls the media has no intention of allowing any discussion about learning… because the real conversation is NOT about “education”..it is about how people learn to do things, and how our citizens LEARN ABOUT TRUTH AND HISTORY.
You cannot have an educated citizenry and elect a Trump.
It is Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE. An ignorant citizenry is the goal, not just the profit made by the businesses that take over our schools http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
Democracy depends on shared knowledge… it is the CRUX of this silence on the demolition of public education that Diane has written about for decades. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/05/trump-devos-demolition-of-american-education/
Look how this will work via “unchecked disinformation and media manipulation” to demonize Biden…”Think Castro was ‘mean’ to Biden? Get ready for an absolute bloodbath.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/13/be-very-afraid-were-missing-something-big-about-bidens-age/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Yes, the. power elite (i.e. big Pharma) make zillions from privatizing health care; with the grand theft of public taxes they will enrich THEMSELVES by selling/pushing the idea /lie of school ‘choice’.
BUT– The public will NEVER know how they removed the professionals from the schools because they need to dumb down the people, and feed them endless misinformation and disinformation. They sell lies… and they are good at it!
That’s the reason that there will NEVER be a genuine CONVERSATION ABOUT WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE and WHAT MUST BE IN PLACE
Propagamda is the tool to their power, and the 21st century has given them the internet– place of anarchy–where lies propagate!
I was one of the first teachers to fall as the assault on the professionals began… so they could end the VOICES THAT BRING KNOWLEDGE to our citizens.
None of the candidates will ever bring back the iNSTITUTION of Public Education… not if they want to be elected!
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I’m a bit concerned to see Stacy Abrams out shilling for StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network, headed up by Connie Ballmer, wife of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s former # 2, and staffed by folks from Knowledge Works.
https://www.strivetogether.org/library/creating-possibilities-with-outsider-leadership-lessons-from-stacey-abrams/
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That is sad. My guess is that Stacey Abrams has no idea about the unsavory connections of the money behind this group.
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dianeravitch I thought the same thing–sad–when I read Christine’s post about Stacy Abrams’ support of something named: “Cradle to Career.” Maybe someone will help to clue her in at some point–she’s been hijacked by the same forces she is trying to get beyond.
Counter “Cradle to Career” with the note from “democracy” on another thread today and the conflict between oligarchy/plutocracy and democracy comes crystal clear. CBK
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The NYT has a photo essay on the shuttering of schools in Puerto Rico. I studied for my masters on the island between 1975-78, then taught in metropolitan San Juan during the 1979-80 school year. Teachers and students had precious little then, but they have much less now.
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Already posted here!
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Beat me to it – no surprise!
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There is a new WW2 diary that has been published by a Jewish girl in occupied Poland:
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765165687/renia-spiegels-diary-survived-the-holocaust-people-are-finally-reading-it
This is a second “Anne Frank”. I hope that this diary gets introduced to American public schools. Young people need to have an understanding of the Holocaust.
Shalom,
( It was one day after Rosh Hashanah. One Jewish man asked his friend “How is your new year going”. The friend replied “Shofar Sho good!”
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Seems the glory days of the charter industry are fading. Nina Turner, a surrogate for Bernie Sanders, who used to be a charterista, also was an author on the Senator’s Thurgood Marshall Plan for education.
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Nina saw the light. Did Warrens senior education advisor, who came from TFA?
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New charter school CEO earns more per student than CPS leader
A nonprofit, ReGeneration Schools, opened its first campus in Cincinnati this year. Its CEO earns nearly 20 times more per student than CPS…
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Well, Wrench in the Gears has a pretty dystopian post up. Worth the read:
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I was going to post that but it was too depressing.
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Yes, it is. All this going on with the money people while regualr teachers get up everyday and head off to schools to do what they can without enough resources.
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You (Ms. Ravitch) are mentioned in an article I wrote. I am no longer subscribed but, after several years, thought I would check back in to let you know that I’m still here and still paying close attention. Without further ado, here is my article (assuming there is no word or character limit on your mailbox):
EDUCATION STRAPPED IN A STRAIT JACKET:
TRANSFORMATION OF SCHOOLS AND TRANSFORMATION IN EDUCATIONAL METHODOLOGY CANNOT POSSIBLY HAPPEN AT SCALE WITHOUT A MAJOR PARADIGM SHIFT
Too often, the question must be asked these days whether or not our schools provide a safe and sane environment for development, education, and enculturation. It is not at all exceptional to inquire as to whether or not a majority of our schools are places where youth at all levels are inspired to learn and which result in adequately or properly “educated” graduates. No one can actually define or agree on what “educated” even means, however. Debates rage on relative to methodology and philosophy. The rate at which students fail to graduate from school or to become literate are issues deserving immediate attention, as well.
The elusive answers to these controversial questions vary widely and wildly, depending on whom one asks. Still, for the most part, nearly everyone acknowledges that our schools, both public and private fall far short of the ideal.
Indeed, we know that schools have regularly been besieged by conflict and chronic problems. Harsh criticisms bordering on absolute condemnation abound. Negative statistical indices, bad reputations, and major failures constantly plague schools. Employers, college professors, and professionals in various fields are some of the most vocal critics of the schools, often devoting entire chapters and books to spell out their acerbic observations. They frequently find themselves dealing with graduates and drop-outs alike who lack the skills and competencies expected of mature, educated students, and typical of capable, well-adjusted employees and citizens.
Students generally have not performed anywhere near as well as we know they should. Given time spent in classes, resources devoted to their progress as academic scholars, and the degree of hype, high sounding hyperbole, and grand promises from schools relative to the actual record and capabilities they offer, the discrepancy is phenomenal. (See, “Greer, C. (1972). The Great School Legend: a revisionist interpretation of American public education. New York, NY: Basic Books.)
Should anyone be unaware that innumerable studies and objective research projects still produce stinging condemnations and revealing analyses uniformly indicating an unacceptable level of failure, or that our schools have been harshly criticized by scholars and legions of highly successful professionals and community leaders from all walks of life, one needs only to use common Google search terms which involve evaluations, criticisms, and studies of school performance and history. Warning: the results are endless and extremely depressing. No one takes any satisfaction from disparaging schools.
Yes, Virginia, it is THAT Bad
The crucial roles of both motion and emotion in schools have been relegated to brief periods squeezed in between long sessions of sitting passively and motionless at desks. Movement, activity, social interaction, excitement, and physicality are as much a part of learning and knowledge acquisition as are concentrated cerebral activity. Yet, our schools have been riddled with Ritalin and other drugs for the purpose of anesthetizing kids! The necessary and natural stimulation and movement have been all but eliminated. Normal activity is mis-labelled as “hyperactivity”, ADHD, ADD, etc. This is a travesty bordering on criminal child abuse and neglect. It is difficult to say whether the pathological bifurcation in our conceptions of ourselves with regard to our mind/bodies is more the cause or the effect of the atrocious schooling we have visited upon our young people for decades.
Initially, the uncomfortable facts repeatedly shock everyone near and far. Despite all claims to the contrary schools generally have not begun to live up to expectations over time. But, no sooner do they come under intense scrutiny, than does the minimizing and vindication begin in earnest. We have a ‘schizophrenic’ “love/hate relationship with our schools.
Apologists for the schools quickly revert to high praise and bold acclamations immediately after grievances are broadcast. Excuses are dutifully listed, post haste. Inane “happy talk” returns with a vengeance. Claims that tangible help has already arrived in one form or another spring forth from the same people who complained the loudest! Suddenly, everyone is a Polly Anna full of glorious praise, empty promises, and (false) hope for better schools!
Alas, school reform has been a continuing theme for generations for very good reasons. Blue Ribbon commissions, such as the Cole Report declaring the US, “A NATION AT RISK” in 1986 and any number of others at all levels and places have sounded alarms repeatedly. Yet, deleterious outcomes continue unabated. WHY IS THIS?
If You Aren’t Angry Yet You Haven’t Been Paying Attention (or, are You Brainwashed Too?)
Without a doubt, expectations of formal schooling as a means of social engineering and as a way (or, as THE WAY) to save the culture, the society, and the nation from wrack and ruin have been greatly overblown.
Granted, the importance of education to citizens, to families, and to the future of our nation can hardly be overstated. We agree; education is absolutely the way to go for individual success and for social salvation, without question. However, using schooling as a vehicle to get to education for either the individual child or for the entire population is more than a little problematic. Conflating school and education is a common but consequential mistake. Occasional miracles and stunning success stories belie the disappointing reality.
For a closer look at the real causes or the root causes of our educational dilemma, we should examine why we are stuck so helplessly in this vicious cycle. A brief look at the most common myths which hold sway and which persist, often affecting our thoughts and actions from below the level of conscious awareness will shed light on the problem.
Myths Which Will Not Die
Myth # 1.)
If one has attended enough classes or has been in school long enough, that person has been educated.
TRUTH:
Education happens irrespective of time spent in school and too often, in spite of it. Attending schools actually inhibits and incessantly interferes with the average student’s educational progress. Sitting in classrooms as we have ordinarily known them and as they remain currently clearly presents common obstacles. Creeping authoritarian influence cannot be stopped; bureaucracy is integral, and the duress of excessive stress defeats the stated purposes of school.
Myth # 2.)
Academic material, cognitive components, and knowledge can be broken down into discrete rudimentary “units”, or “basics”. These elemental parts can be delivered in strategic or pre-planned sequences, which when followed methodically by instructors or in an educational format (as curricula) will be learned and understood by students, leading to comprehension and utilitarian results for those students.
TRUTH:
Each child from birth has an idiosyncratic way of perceiving, interpreting, understanding, processing, and experiencing his or her milieu. Each child has pre-existing knowledge. Learning sequences vary dramatically between people and are profoundly affected by focus, emotion or feeling, mood, and awareness. Each child has unique conceptualizations and a variety of questions, thoughts, beliefs, or contemplations, all which need to be pursued individually, with minimal interference or interruption. The idea that there are cognitive wholes or sets, which can be analyzed or broken down and predigested by supposed experts to be delivered to students en masse is backward and ludicrous.
Myth # 3.)
Knowledge is acquired primarily through study, formal instruction, and by learning the things that others have recorded for conveyance or teaching. Various media, i.e., language, books, lessons, programs, films, etc. are developed and utilized as a result of the prior work, study, experience, exploration, reading, and learning of previous scholars.
TRUTH:
Knowledge is what a living and breathing human being “knows” and has accumulated in synapses, nerve circuits, memory banks, or chemical substances in the brain (and body). Knowledge must be created and re-created by each human being on an on-going basis. Knowledge does not exist outside the human brain.
Information, data, language symbols, or anything else that is stored and transmitted second-hand via external media, such as in books, is NOT knowledge. It cannot be reproduced intact or utilized unmodified by merely reading or studying what others have recorded through some media. This has profound implications for educational policy.
Myth # 4.)
It is possible to become educated through coercion.
TRUTH:
Education and coercion are antithetical.
Force or duress negatively affect human beings of any age. Coercion inescapably distorts the inherent significance, relevance, and meaning of data, information, language, etc.
Education, regardless of how else one defines it is integrated as one’s internal cognition, which contributes to an accurate and valid perception of one’s environment or of the ‘universe’. If it is not beneficial in navigating the world one currently inhabits or if it is not a positive influence, then it MUST always be indoctrination or something other than education, as that word is derived from the Greek or Latin origins.
“The elements of instruction…should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion; for a freeman should be a freeman too in the acquisition of knowledge. …Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore, do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural bent of the child.”
From Plato’s Republic
Myth # 5.)
Groups of people can become educated in classrooms together simultaneously under the tutelage of a talented teacher who uses optimal techniques and fosters the right learning atmosphere or “climate” for learning within a group.
TRUTH:
Individuals learn. Groups are typically formed for the express purposes of indoctrination. Groups may operate with some efficiency for brief periods and learning may occur on some level. However, that clumsy practice is fraught with major problems. History is replete with dismal failures.
While a person with certain skills and knowledge is often able to offer a certain set of ideas, ideals, or instructions, which may be conveyed to more than one individual under optimal conditions with a reasonable degree of comprehension and absorption, that pedantic process is typically beset with innumerable difficulties and impediments.
To the extent that intimacy is absent or compromised, with some number of the recipients affected by crowding, distraction, inattention, disinterest, rebellion, etc., teaching or information transmission and retention will be, at best, incomplete or inadequate.
Myth # 6.)
“Educators”, curriculum designers, material development specialists, etc., utilize human behavioral science, educational scholarship and art, psychology, sociology or other sciences to prepare and deliver a loftier educational experience. When followed properly and under conditions which encourage discipline and rigor, this will ensure adequate educational opportunities for students.
TRUTH:
“Shotgun” curricula are great mental exercises and ego-boosters for the developers and “educrats”. They are a phenomenal waste of time and energy for many of their victims, however. Astute students know this intuitively.
Students are acutely aware that the path chosen for them is too frequently repetitive or unstimulating and too easily strayed from or obscured. There are a million better things to focus on or daydream about than academic trivia.
What is of great interest to one student at one juncture is of no interest to another, or to the same student at a later moment. What makes sense for a time gets blurred, lost in a particular strain of thought, forgotten, or simply vanishes in a flash. Certain “material” must be reinforced for testing. Such material is usually the least significant or relevant for fully half the students. What utter nonsense! A competent teacher who knows students well invents fresh curriculum daily, taking cues from them. Common core is rotten to the core.
Myth # 7.)
The government at the state or federal level has a valid interest in education for their entire population as a whole for the sake of the advancement and national security of the country. Therefore, laws requiring attendance in formal schools or in some approved substitute for some designated time and administered under state auspices is justified.
TRUTH:
There’s that fatal error again! Education is much more than school, and school as we know it habitually stands in the way of education. A mandate which encompasses all citizens within a given age-range initiates an ever-expanding bureaucracy with government operated or administered schools, each of which entails ossified restrictions, guidelines, prohibitions, demands, definitions, parameters, and secondary objectives, all fortified by capital “L” Law. This is paternalism at its worst. This defeats the purpose.
Compulsory schooling has NEVER been about education. Originally, it was about Bible reading, a well-trained workforce, military discipline, consumers for the Industrial Revolution, and social and political engineering by Machiavellian multi-millionaires.
Myth # 8.)
Children would be so much more successful and have much better experiences in school and the teacher’s job would be so much easier, IF ONLY parents were more involved.
TRUTH:
Parents rarely feel welcome at school for more than brief periods during special events. Presumably, teaching professionals are trained and qualified experts with a specific job to do. Outsiders are usually made to feel that they disrupt the routine or the scheduled “curricular” activities by their mere presence.
The majority of parents who hated school often cannot bear to see what’s happening to their child. If parents are involved, they may be suspected of helping too much. If not, they are “uninvolved” and detached. If discipline issues arise, too often parents are perceived as siding with the child against the establishment when they identify arbitrariness or act as an advocate for their child. Or, parents may instead reveal an abusive pattern in enforcing school demands, which profoundly undermines parent-child relationships and raises legitimate questions about examples set or about their suitability.
Myth # 9.)
Lack of adequate funding is a major factor in why school personnel are prevented from delivering on the promises schools make.
TRUTH:
This old canard is a convenient pretext. Naturally, increased budgets relieve pressure and allow for a less confining or demoralizing experience for students. Unequal distribution of resources and competition for resources are constant themes for debate and distraction.
However, students still recognize fabricated exercises and inconsequential pursuits as a waste of their precious time and talents. Children still quickly get fidgety and lose interest in an improvised itinerary.
Money cannot enable anyone to do the impossible or prevent staff who have inordinate power and authority from acting arbitrarily and capriciously.
Unfairness or apparent favoritism, grades based on behavior, or punishment for deviating from the rigid and pre-determined protocols and demands still lead to major deficiencies and problems. Bullies still find opportunities to bully, often as compensation for feeling pushed around by authorities. Rules still feel oppressive, and usually are. Testing and evaluation remain as occasions to manipulate or rationalize and are responsible for the formation of false pride or unwarranted anxieties.
Myth # 10.)
Big “government” forces the local schools to waste time and resources. Federal control over local school districts bullies them into diversions or distractions away from their “core mission”.
TRUTH:
This is pure unadulterated nonsense. Added levels of authority or bureaucracy may be bothersome for certain teachers or administrators. But, the oversight of federal officials provides extra protection for both students and teachers. It generally brings higher standards based on better data and scientific resources.
Power and authority, regardless of whose hands they are in have little to offer. Authority IS the problem, since education can’t be forced and all young people react negatively to the loss of autonomy, dignity, and respect. “Mass education” is a massive fraud.
Myth # 11.)
Strong disciplinary protocols in conjunction with other traditional methods produce better results and teach students to take more responsibility for their individual behavior in school and later in adulthood.
TRUTH:
If only this facile mythology were true, life would be so simple. Encouragement is always preferable to discouragement and control. Intrinsic reward is superior to extrinsic reward. Punishment and deprivation destroy motivation. Children require positivity and thrive on acceptance, affection, and moral support, while the opposites do real harm.
Self-discipline develops in a climate of respect and reinforcement. Self-control needs regular practice via real decision-making and meaningful choices, particularly the daily choice of attending or not attending.
Myth # 12.)
Outsiders who analyze and critique what good teachers do and how students react interfere in the daily routine and in the serious business of the school, causing teachers to be obstructed in performing essential functions. Professional psychologists, sociologists, or other researchers do more harm than good, creating unrealistic expectations.
TRUTH:
Researchers have shown the way to at least improve school conditions and methodologies substantially. The fact that their knowledge has been misapplied, while being deemed to be too difficult to implement in traditional schools, is hardly their fault.
The convenient ideas that experienced professional teachers must be left alone to practice their unique art or to use trial and error until they get it right are splendid sentiments. Teachers ordinarily have a strong desire to communicate and to ameliorate social conditions. Many love and adore their students. But, weak logic about turning back the clock to a more innocent time when teachers were respected more is mostly bunk, with apologies to Diane Ravitch. Teachers are all too human.
Authority cannot be relinquished in large measure even when those who have it are willing to give it up. Progressive strategies and philosophies present an impossible challenge in schools because they invariably conflict directly and decisively with the hierarchical and authoritarian architecture of forced schooling. The laws institutionalize power and codify it in a way that reflexively and involuntarily perpetuates the status quo.
Scapegoats Galore – Who Should One Blame for These Regrettable Circumstances?
This is the $64,000 question. The answer will surprise most readers. No one can be blamed!
Why Blame Teachers?
Many extraordinary teachers have made huge personal sacrifices and dedicated their lives to the job. Teachers are often correctly hailed as heroes. Few outstanding teachers have ever received proper recognition and gratitude for their tireless devotion and professional services. Blaming teachers is unfair and dead wrong.
To say that teachers have their hands full is a great understatement. Teachers typically have schedules and strict rules to follow; too many students clamoring for attention; a stale curriculum that must be adhered to religiously, and papers to grade, along with all manner of bureaucratic duties and reports.
Regrettably however, inherently hierarchical institutions attract and create a safe haven for power-hungry or sadistic teacher candidates. The potential for exploitation is baked into this top-heavy cake.
It is also worth pointing out that teachers’ unions are not bad guys, despite the continual attempts to assign responsibility to them unfairly for interminable problems and failures. While it is indeed the case that there will be instances when teachers are protected from dismissal due to union membership, the purposes of unions are NOT to set standards for professionalism or competence. Standards are the function of the people who screen and select prospective teachers.
Unions represent members. They try to guarantee fair and equal treatment when challenges arise. Sometimes unions are overzealous in their loyalty to teachers who do not merit the privilege of being in the presence of kids. Unfortunately, individuals occasionally take advantage, or egregious errors in judgment are made. However, unions protect jobs. They cannot and do not represent the interests of students, parents, or the school.
Are Parents at Fault?
A strong case can be made that parents should take primary responsibility for the education of their progeny. Who would argue with that?
In fact, parents are routinely criticized for slacking off when it comes to following up on the myriad expectations schools and teachers have for students. Parents are expected to monitor assignments, homework, and classroom conduct. They are presumed to be most responsible for the teaching of manners and respect for authority, for social skills, for moral guidance, and for correcting deficits in academic performance and attitude.
In their defense however, parents who might be willing and able to assume full responsibility for their citizens-in-training are led to believe that they have been completely supplanted by school personnel for more than just the excessive amount of time spent in school.
Isn’t it perfectly logical to believe that the rights and authority of parents have been usurped for six hours a day, 180 days a year precisely because schools possess a superior capacity and special expertise to provide essential edification, education, and indoctrination into the culture? Parents are required to send their children, ostensibly to be made into good and capable citizens by schooling processes and procedures.
If parents are to be held responsible, they must not be denied their natural roles as parents and guardians.
Some parents will fall down on the job. Some are overwhelmed, and some are absent through no fault of their own. Some are addicted to a substance, emotionally disturbed, mentally handicapped, or mired in abject poverty. Isn’t that why laws specify that ALL children must attend school, even at the objection of a parent, unless suitable arrangements are made and approved by the designated authorities?
Therefore, it is irrational and illogical to absolve schools and blame parents instead when students leave those hallowed halls ill-equipped for adulthood. John Taylor Gatto, twice a NY State Teacher of the Year and a strong critic of schools, claims that students easily learn what schooling has to offer in a tiny fraction of the time they are required to be in attendance. (Gatto, J. T. (1992). Dumbing Us Down: the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers).
Are External Social and Other Influences at Fault?
A wide variety of issues usually come up when school failures are discussed. The prohibition against school-led prayer is favorite bugaboo among evangelicals or other church-goers (this is why many parents homeschool). Social deterioration, harmful media influences, working mothers, and a few other scapegoat issues generally take up some of the oxygen in debates. Video games, smart phones, and other distractions created by new technology are often suggested as a contributing factor in the problems of youth and poor school performance. Federal control or interference of “big government” in local schools is a continual irritant to most locals and, as mentioned Diane Ravitch famously rails against the progressive meddling of psychologists, sociologists, and other nosy social activists who tend to distract teachers from their presumed “core mission” and from “traditional” practices.
None of these things can begin to explain what has been happening for decades, however. If students had a reason to be engaged in school, superficial factors wouldn’t be perceived as consequential. Those who accept such excuses are grasping at straws. All are more symptoms than causes. Their influence overall should not be exaggerated.
We MUST stop looking for external causes altogether and concentrate instead on internal and structural factors.
Are students to blame?
Students are involuntary clients trapped within a dysfunctional paradigm. Schools have a mandate to, first of all do no harm, and secondly, to serve the needs of the child and the community simultaneously. If they aren’t meeting those mandates, students shouldn’t be forcibly taken out of loving homes to endure indoctrination or abuses.
Children Revel in Reading Unless or Until They Are Taught Not to.
Were one to do a survey and get accurate responses relative to how many adults in this country regularly read, visit a library often, or relish spending a leisurely hour with a good book of any description, the likely results would be hugely disappointing to anyone placing a high value on intellectual pursuits.
We may all leave school believing that we have learned copiously. We may suppose we have been exposed to great literature for inspiring further forays into learning and knowledge acquisition. However, the percentage of adults who possess the necessary interest or degree of curiosity and diligence to continue this venerable process is far too low to allow us to pretend that more than a small fraction are inspired to be lifelong learners. Precious few are patrons of the uplifting, philosophical, or intellectually challenging literature which schools purport to elevate for the enrichment of students. For that matter, a majority shun any literature after twelve tedious years.
The proposition here quite simply, thoroughly revealed by thousands of critical observations, reports, and studies (ironically found quite often in books!), is that schools have had the effect in far too many instances of turning kids off to reading, to serious study, or even to the prospect of having books in their personal spaces. Reading is no longer anywhere near the popular a pastime it once was. Personal letters are all but extinct.
The well-grounded hypothesis here is that the arbitrary imposition of adult choices and supposed educational curricular materials on captive children isn’t in anyone’s best interest. This inevitably leads to high numbers of intimidated, discouraged, and fatigued students. Then, by trying to evaluate and measure retention, absorption, or comprehension at regular intervals to prove the schools’ capability simply further impairs learning.
Everyone is busy. If one has a full-time job and various family obligations, one has a ready explanation for not having engaged in much reading.
Still, the truth is that people who love reading and find it relaxing, beneficial, informative, or horizon-expanding always seem to figure out ways to squeeze it in. Understandably, the finger is pointed straight at the schools for this lack of appreciation for the written word, for books, and for informative or casual reading. Beyond any doubt, this state of affairs is caused by uninspiring or frustrating school experience. This is tragic.
If what innumerable studies by thousands of experts and child advocates have validated is ever finally accepted generally, such force-feeding clearly has the effect of suppressing appetite and satisfaction. As this section heading indicates, children don’t find reading to be a “turn-off” unless their experience with textbooks teaches them that it is dreary, unrewarding, and too like unpleasant work. Negative experiences and impressions in classes depress their involvement and interest overall and have an adverse effect on their natural proclivity to love reading and learning via visual stimuli.
How Hard Can This Be?
Children are commonly referred to as sponges because of the way they readily soak up all kinds of information. The facility most commonly exhibit from the moment of birth for learning how to navigate their ever-expanding worlds is truly astonishing. People often say kids are learning machines. Yet, comparing them to machines is insulting, since the most sophisticated computer with its state-of-the-art artificial intelligence cannot begin to hold a candle to an eighteen month-old baby.
According to numerous reports very young children have taught themselves to read unaided using milk cartons, cereal boxes, and television ads. We’ve all heard stories of Abe Lincoln reading by candlelight late at night in a cabin in the woods without having more than a negligible amount of formal schooling. Some kids have great intellectual talent, creativity, and curiosity. Some are true geniuses. Nearly all will amaze adults in various ways if given half a chance. The average parent knows their child is brilliant, inquisitive, creative, delightful, energetic, resourceful, naturally cooperative, and eager to learn. It is a rare teacher who doesn’t say the same about students.
Therefore, one might conclude that education couldn’t be all that tedious or demanding, given these innate proclivities of children generally.
It behooves one to point out nevertheless, that there are significant proportions of children who don’t find academics as presented in a school setting at all interesting, appealing, or manageable. Those children need to be offered non-academic avenues and opportunities.
It is imperative to inquire again as to why we encounter so much disappointment and why so many students fall by the wayside. For example, the rate of literacy in the US was higher during the colonial era than it is today!
What about the chronic inequality of opportunity for whole neighborhoods? What about the constant complaints of suspensions and expulsions, especially among minority students which drive those students away from academic and intellectual pursuits permanently? Why do we see so much teacher burnout?
While we are asking; what about the increasing incidence of suicide, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, unemployment, mental illness, truancy and crime in the 15 – 24 age cohort? What about the increasing need for college prep and remedial courses which highlight the sad fact that few high school graduates are equipped for the high-pressure, high stakes worlds of college and work or marriage and parenthood? How many are rejected by the military. How many are forced to take slave-wage jobs in unskilled fast food or menial labor occupations? Have we mentioned school shootings?
Denial and delusions have gotten us nowhere for generations.
We cannot escape from the dismal litanies of the profound dissatisfaction and limitations which keep showing up in the newspapers, in the literature, and in the various statistical indices which reflect how poorly citizens of all ages are doing on a variety of fronts. In a nation where virtually everyone attends, one would hope for a better school report card.
What Sort of Objective Facts and Information Does the Average Joe Know About Schooling?
Nearly all of us have been led to believe we were educated well. Ironically, even when lacking pride in our own personal achievements, most are proud of the schools generally. We have somehow erased trepidation or very uncomfortable and anxious events at school from our memory banks to maintain some tenuous sense of confidence.
However dismal and depressing our school days were in reality, most cling to some degree of nostalgia for times that in retrospect seem to have been exciting and fruitful. Still, periodic pep rallies, holiday parties, field trips, movies, and other diversionary tactics were for most students, just reminders of the drudgery and boredom during regular classes.
An astonishing disconnect exists between the popular wisdom and the demoralizing conditions children face on a daily basis in these influential institutions. Ironically, if one recalls or believes only what one has repeatedly had drummed into one’s consciousness on a daily basis about school while attending, and if one tends to habitually look primarily at the positive, one probably has acquired or adopted a highly distorted view of the way things actually were for them or for many classmates much of the time.
Most spend twelve long years under duress, only because viable alternatives are absent for them or their parents.
Forget About School Reform – It Isn’t Happening
We have several clues now about why schools don’t change; why blame for failures cannot ever be assigned to individuals or organizations, and what the underlying beliefs and misconceptions are which cause us to continue barreling down the path of self-destruction.
The educational wheel has been re-invented countless times. Good ideas and bad ideas alike are revived and recycled only to fall out of vogue overnight.
Bad practices and philosophies fit in perfectly with the needs of the monolithic institutions. Erroneous beliefs and myths satisfy the pathetic or pathological illusions of extremists and malcontents for whom childhood and spontaneity are an irritation or a threat.
In contrast, good practices and philosophies appeal to the adults who cherish children and childhood. Some do appreciate authentic educational development. Predictably however, the best ideas and practices prove to be too challenging in classrooms where kids are herded in like sheep for sheering, lacking clear and compelling reasons to feel comfortable, relaxed, curious, or even completely safe.
Solely because of the law, movement MUST be strictly limited. Official plans must be executed minute-to-minute, regardless of the individual orientation of any student. The very things which make lifelong learning, exploring, contemplating, and debating useful and exhilarating are anathema to the organized chaos that school under an arbitrary authority demands. Overly segmented and scheduled subject periods and the disjointed stages dictated by the ringing of loud bells destroy continuity and coherence.
Debunking Myths, Freeing Education from the Highly Confining “Strait Jacket”, and Making the Paradigm Shift by Eliminating Unconstitutional Laws
Reform connotes changing a system or organization, while leaving its essential structure intact. Although people commonly refer to our “school systems”, there are no systems. We have laws which dictate that there will be schools and that children will attend. Schools are built, staffed and maintained, with little systematic organization around a meaningful set of realistically identified objectives. The laws ensure that true change will never be sustained.
While everyone talks about “education”, NO ONE can say what that entails.
What educrats do know about is conditioning children to sit quietly, to be obedient, and to listen attentively. Orders must be followed without hesitation or resistance. Conformity is prized. “Work” is the business of school. “School work”, or performing on cue as demanded is the gold standard. Compliance is understood to be absolutely necessary for one to survive and to avoid the potential loss of one’s family (not an exaggeration).
The curriculum is the almighty to which everyone must bow down. Passing tests, exams, or quizzes compresses the scope to one straight and narrow path. You are what your cumulative record says you are when you leave; nothing more. From day one, graduation is your primary, albeit dim, focus – for the sake of family, country, and school. You will only count if you endure to the bitter end. To change any aspect of that reality in any meaningful or permanent way is to create a catastrophic earthquake under the foundation. Everyone feels this intuitively, if they don’t know it as fact.
A paradigm shift is the construction of a wholly new earthquake-proof foundation. The old foundation, which is no foundation at all, must be completely removed. The great fear of all those who have contemplated returning to this organic voluntary paradigm, absent the coercive attendance laws, is that pandemonium would ensue.
Practically everyone who has heard proposals for attendance laws to be entirely removed assumes automatically that roaming bands of youths would instantaneously be running amok. Their fear of chaos and anarchy is debilitating. Those with a vested interest are prepared to defend their positions and their beloved (failing) institutions to the death.
But, you ask; what about those poor children whose parents are negligent or don’t value education? Would they really be running wild?
Well, well. We should be very cautious about paternalism when talking about parents who don’t or won’t send their kids to school if no longer required by law. First, many, many kids don’t make it to school on any regular basis now or are suspended and expelled. Teens drop out in droves.
The truth is, that most parents are anxious to see their progeny in a place where they are respected, valued, and learning as much as possible daily. The truth is, that in the absence of laws imposing possible draconian consequences for non-attendance, existing school administrations would no longer have a monopoly. They would not have the power to punish children for their inability or refusal to carry out inane or nonsensical assignments, or to pressure parents to be the enforcers of their ludicrous expectations and academic experiments.
The reason many don’t go, or parents don’t force them to go now, is because schools so often closely simulate a work or prison environment. Many parents were humiliated and discriminated against in those same schools. The “school-to-prison pipeline is no joke and no overstatement, either.
School will never be synonymous with education. Disabuse yourself of that fantasy right here and now. But, it must not undermine education, either. At the very least, should the laws disappear, the likelihood that anyone would be saying “school is bad for kids”, as John Holt, a highly respected teacher and author did fifty years ago, would be categorically diminished by orders of magnitude literally, overnight.
One huge impediment to removing the attendance laws is a bizarre unspoken meme which pervades school circles and discussions relative to educational theory. That “theory” posits that even if a majority of “the public” did buy into that momentous change favoring the ending of compulsory attendance, the U.S. Supreme Court will never change its stance on the state’s compelling interest in education.
As stated above, we fully concur in the state’s valid interest in education. That’s why compulsory attendance laws must go. They defeat their own purpose on their face. The Supreme Court can become educated, also.
The Great Black Hole into Which Research Disappears
A wide gulf exists between the varied research insights and discoveries relative to all things pertinent to school or educational theory and practice on one hand, and any actual implementation of those often brilliant revelations and innovations on the other. New research is conducted on a massive scale at an astonishing cost. Psychological, biological, neurological, sociological, and other studies, relentlessly call for autonomy and respect for student initiative.
However, impenetrable political and social roadblocks, structural/legal and institutional barriers, powerful traditional and bureaucratic forces, along with vested interests operate which serve to maintain the status quo in perpetuity, regardless of the valiant efforts and determination of the best people. No person or organization has been able to make the slightest headway in effecting significant long-term, large-scale change in a full century of diligent work and sacrifice, nor will they until we afford constitutional rights to children.
SUMMARY:
We’ve been approaching education all wrong. Framing the issues using an understanding of human biology and behavior that is centuries out of date and out of sync with the reality we see all around us is absolutely nuts. The desperate but futile attempts to reform schools reflect the widespread confusion and the profound chasm between beliefs, practices and policies on the one hand, and the needs of children and society on the other.
Democracy itself is teetering on the brink of destruction. Our citizens are amazingly ill-prepared to participate and function as self-determining and autonomous voters and leaders in 2019. Hence, a dangerous racist madman is in the Oval Office tearing up the Constitution, methodically undermining government agencies, attacking the media, and seizing inordinate and unconstitutional powers for himself and his sycophants!
The separation of school and state is no less crucial than the separation of church and state.
Ample evidence shows that what is learned by students under the duress of an authoritarian regime has much more to do with behavioral or social control and a constricted view of the world than with expanding and broadening perspectives and perceptions. Indeed, the difference between education and indoctrination is the practical and maximal removal of all restrictions and limitations on thought.
The only remedy is maximum exposure to cultural material and literature, minus official censoring or selection, and the absence of prescribed answers to prescribed questions, after accounting for age appropriateness as determined by parents or teachers.
Things have changed dramatically since any case has been brought seeking to overturn mandatory schooling. Lawsuits have been extremely rare and limited in scope. Innovative neuroscience and biological discoveries relative to how brains and bodies process information forever render the way schools operate under this immutable paradigm to be anachronistic and misanthropic. The great body of research referenced above may have been ignored and shelved, but it nevertheless irrefutably proves that education is antithetical to coercion in any form.
This intractable resistance to change is not as mysterious or complex as one might suppose. In 1862 Tolstoy outlined the issues in his incisive essays on education with great clarity and eloquence. Sadly, his wise counsel has largely gone unheeded. (Tolstoy, L. (1967). Tolstoy on Education (Translated/Ed. by Wiener). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1862).
A last warning is called for at this final juncture. Privatizers are taking us down a treacherous path. Education can never be contracted out to mercenaries using a business model and a for-profit basis for their services without doing yet more pernicious harm. Charter schools are a trap that will accelerate the descent into mediocrity. The gap between rich and poor will be widened and children who receive the “benefits” will be given an even more distorted outlook on life and education (and on their own entitlement), which can only end in greater misery for more people, regardless of the privileges and economic advantages based on the completion of a school’s obstacle course.
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Very well stated. You provide even more reasons why we need educology: https://educology.iu.edu .
Education is intended and guided learning, not to be confused with schools. What we need is worthwhile education for everyone.
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It’s a wonder we can even tie our shoes. So what would a better education look like?
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“So what would a better education look like?”
No high stakes tests – not a one. The only tests will tests teachers create for their own purposes and not to be shared to anyone outside of each teacher’s classroom.
Decisions making about what to teach and how to teach from the bottom up on a school-by-school basis as teachers do in Finland.
Teacher training equal to countries like Finland and France. That means no more TFA five week wonders that only have to teach two years and then they are out.
Administrators are office managers.
Local elected school boards.
All teachers are allowed to join labor unions
Teachers everywhere are paid a livable wage based on what it takes to live in the area where they teach.
Teachers make all the decisions on what technology to use and how to use it.
No publicly funded private sector charter school and/ or voucher schools – not a one.
Public schools with significant numbers of children living in poverty get more resources and support and all decisions are made at the local level through cooperative-based problem-solving.
That where we start.
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That sounds good.
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WOW! WOW! WOW! Thanks for writing here.
I was about to put this link up when I stopped to read your comment!
I think it moves along with the premise of your essay!
https://theamericanscholar.org/the-virtue-of-an-educated-voter/#.XaHwei2ZPUK
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Is it just me, or with the over-emphasis on standardized tests in the last eight years, are we seeing a rise in parents wanting evaluations for disabilities because they are desperately seeking answers as to why their child isn’t like a factory-made cookie? I feel like parents WANT a disability diagnosis these days (also it helps them get the increasingly available “opportunity scholarship.” Something ain’t right. We need to correct this.
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Betsy DeVos may be going to jail. see
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/10/08/is-betsy-devos-going-to-jail/#57f1bbaa1c0d
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The key word is “may” and that means it might never happen. And if she does to jail for a few weeks or months, guess where she will serve her time. Do you know where Michael Cohn is serving his time? That is probably where she will end up, maybe.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2018/12/14/michael-cohen-heads-to-americas-cushiest-prison/#672df77b7a38
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Seems lots of people are opposed to plans to take over Centarl High School in Little Rock:
Good summary: https://t.co/oK7iwOrMwa?amp=1
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Little Rock teachers union has been decertified by vote of the Arkansas Board of Education. The union represents 70% of Little Rock’s teachers.
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Why are you against public education?
Aditya Chhabra
Aditya Chhabra, I enjoy discussing policy more than politics
Answered Mar 18
With regard to the federal government, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives the national government the permission or right to create a federal education department and involve itself in higher education, student loans, job skills training, and K-12 education, or the collective imprisonment of individuals under the age of 15. The DOE is unconstitutional, ineffective, a waste of taxpayer funds, and absolutely must go.
I don’t understand why there is any economic prerogative for government involvement in education at all. Why should those who either don’t have children or wish to educate their children in other ways pay via property taxes for other people’s children to attend subpar public schools? Who says that it makes any sense for government to own and run or regulate the education of your children? We’re talking about the government here. The entity that steals your money, lies, obfuscates, and cheats you on a daily basis and at all levels.
Public education is only good for achieving the following:
Indoctrinating the nation’s youth with a certain ideological viewpoint
Eliminating the desire to learn in children due to their “one size fits most” teaching method
Outsourcing parenting from parents to agents of the state
Barely teaching basic reading, writing, and math skills
Addicting to children to grades and artificial praise from teachers
Sending kids out into the world without any practical job skills
Creating a culture of young people who are irresponsible, immature, and not self-reliant
The future of your children should not be left in the hands of government.
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YOU made your problem clear when you said: “I don’t understand why.”
It begins with your ignorance of the importance of shared knowledge to a democracy.
It continues with your lack understanding or how an educated , skilled citizenry makes a country successful.
Your final paragraph demonstrates monumental ignorance.
In fact, I have seldom read, at this site, such a testimony to ignorance.
Why do you imagine that your nonsense belongs on this blog?
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I hesitated to post this comment but let it go because I hoped the commenter might learn something about the role of public schools in a democracy, and the role of nonpublic schools in promoting segregation and ignorance, while protecting oligarchy and privilege.
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I am glad that you posted that comment by Aditya!. It is important for those of us who fight for authentic LEARNING to be the mainstay of our INSTITUTION of Public education, to be aware of the ignorance and the propaganda (the disinformation ) being foisted ‘out there’ on social media…where this ‘critic’ belongs!
As the state legislatures take over the local school boards, the confusion regarding the need for public schools is exacerbated by such OPINIONS stated as facts!
Local school boards in the 15,880 separate school systems, allowed parents to participate in providing the schools with the ESSENTIAL LEARNING materials that make it possible for a child to learn. This local control, is the ‘government’ by the people, for the people, and has nothing to do with “indoctrination.”
Moreover, the present culture in our society is creating the much of the problems we see among our children. It ain’t the schools! It IS the unintended consequences of this new era, where information technology (tv and the internet) has replaced the beneficial VALUES that were once offered by family, community, religion and the wisdom of those who know what matters. Kids get all they know about behavior from outside the schools.
If teachers had a say in inculcating values that are valuable, they could immerse children in the literature and stories that show how humans really thrive.
But, with the takeover of the local boards by state legislatures, comes the mandates for curricula that removes all autonomy from the one person who faces that human child for 10 months.
That is the kind of ‘government’ control of education that is ending the profession, so that no longer can an experienced professional, who KNOWS WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE– plan to meet the objectives for genuine learning, for enabling and facilitating CRITICAL THINKINg… something required to succeed in doing ANY job.
With nary an educator on board these state ‘government’ entities are corrupt to the core, and– after de-funding education to create massive failure — the state legislatures gave the schools. over to the private sector; the ‘marketization of education’ enriched the hedge funds and privateers.
GENUINE Teachers and AUTHENTIC schools doNOT indoctrinate our young people as they do in North Korea, China, and in the Madrases of Saudia Arabia. Education and shared knowledge is the BEDROCK ofDEMOCRACY. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
Shared knowledge that MAKES DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE.
An ignorant citizenry is the goal, not just the profit made by the businesses that take over our schools. You cannot have an educated citizenry and elect a Trump.
THAT is why the power-elite who own this country have demolished education, and now spread their propaganda. Orwell is turning over in his grave!
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“Barely teaching the basic reading writing and math skills.” I dare anyone to come into my math classroom and tell me I am barely teaching the basic math skills. I dare anyone to come in to my classroom and prove I am indoctrinating my students. This rhetoric by those who gripe and belittle public education have no clue as to what they are saying. The enemy of education is politics. Politicians get elected and stay elected by saying what the majority of the people want to hear. Where one person can make a change, it takes all of us to make a difference. If you have a poor coach with good players, they will make plays but will have difficulty making it into or through the playoffs. If you have a great coach and players who don’t care, the results may be worse. If you have a great band director with musicians who don’t care, don’t practice and don’t take lessons, music will not be made. If you have a conductor who is not competent, the musicians will not come together. A classroom and a school are the same. Those who staff the school and those who participate are both responsible for making it great. I watched a video presented at my school recently about respect. There was a gentleman, a businessman in the IT world, speaking about respect. He told the story of working in Oman on some project. He noticed how respectful all of the people were throughout the entire project. One Omani gentleman took him aside and explained to him that in Oman, that when a single Omani speaks, the speak for the entire country. That there is a sense of responsibility to each other. This is what is missing in public schools. A sense of responsibility from ALL parties involved.
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Go. Learn. Then you may grasp WHY!
https://theamericanscholar.org/the-virtue-of-an-educated-voter/#.XaHwei2ZPUK
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Aditya, You are spot on and the comments following will show just how many decades of this indoctrination have been going on. And all these people actually think we are a Democracy……….
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Privatizing education accelerated segregation of every kind as well as inequity. We have evidence from the privatization of schools in Sweden and Chile. Privatization of services benefits the haves, not the have nots.
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Diane, I do believe minorities are doing very well in Charter Schools around the country. My belief is education should be handled at a local and state level. I don’t want a Federal Bureaucracy dictating what and how our children should learn.
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Carol Stull, most legislation for public schools and the budgets that fund those schools takes place in the states, not from the federal government.
“Nationally, federal funding accounts for about 8 percent of education funding, while the rest is split nearly evenly between state and local sources.”
If a state wants some of that 8-percent from the federal government, then they are held accountable for how that money is spent according to the legislation the U.S. Congress passed.
https://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-state-education-spending-revenue-data.html
“The responsibility for K-12 education rests with the states under the Constitution. There is also a compelling national interest in the quality of the nation’s public schools. Therefore, the federal government, through the legislative process, provides assistance to the states and schools in an effort to supplement, not supplant, state support. The primary source of federal K-12 support began in 1965 with the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).”
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html
That means most of the decisions for the nation’s public schools are made at the local and state level — not the federal government.
That also means that public education is not a monopoly.
Since President G. W. Bush signed NCLB into law at the federal level more power shifted to the federal level but only when states agreed to take any of the money that came with NCLB’s mandates.
“As part of their support for NCLB, the administration and Congress backed massive increases in funding for elementary and secondary education. Total federal education funding increased from $42.2 billion to $55.7 billion from 2001, the fiscal year before the law’s passage, to fiscal year 2004”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act
If you honestly want public schools to be controlled locally, contact your local elected Congressperson and let them know you don’t want the federal government having any decision power in local and state public schools. Once the states accepted the “bribes” handed out through NCLB, they were mandated to follow the federal legislation for that federal program.
However, with the advent of publicly funded, private sector corporate charter schools (and those curse-filled vouchers) that are allowed to ignore all the state legislation that the real public schools must adhere to, the local and state levels are losing control of public education.
Not counting DC and territories like Puerto Rico, there are fifty states and more than 13,000 local public school districts and there is no central power that controls all those schools. Most of the power is held in the hand of locally elected school boards that also must obey the legislation of their state.
That means, in time, there is a very big risk that education will end up being controlled by a few private-sector corporations just like 90 percent of the media that is controlled by six HUGE conglomerates. That is much closer to a real monopoly than the real public schools will ever be.
Parents that make the “CHOICE” to put their children in private sector corporate charter schools are signing away their parental power and turning their children over to the CEO’s of those schools. It has been well documented that when parents are not happy with how their children are being taught, the charter schools tell them to shut up or move their children back to the public schools where the parent still have a lot of power since local voters vote in local school boards who are also locals for those public school districts.
That is the evidence that proves public schools are a NOT monoplly! Anyone that alleges the public schools are a monopoly is wrong and they are liars even if they are too ignorant to know they are liars.
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You as an educator know full well funding and influence comes in many forms and avenues. Educational Research Grants for
one. Way too convoluted to get into it.
https://ies.ed.gov/aboutus/
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I think Carol Stull is a troll and/or a deliberately ignorant-biased person. In her short reply, she avoided every point I made in my much longer comment with links to reliable facts.
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You need to read here for a while, maybe a year, as the facts and the truth appear. If you still hold those beliefs then you need to got social blog, where those who deal in alternative facts can accept such ‘beliefs’. her we deal with facts.
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Susan, your “facts” are only as good as the sources you’ve gone to for them. As Howard Zinn said, ” By the time I began teaching and writing, I had no illusions about “objectivity,” if that meant avoiding a point of view. I knew that a historian (or journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present and what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.”
For your information, ever since the 17th amendment, we haven’t had the balance of power that was originally intended.
I’ve had my say. Ciao!
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Ciao, Carol. Stop reading far-right websites and inform yourself before you return.
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You feel better about corporations and entrepreneurs and grifters getting public money to run schools than having them overseen by elected local boards?
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No Diane, I do not approve of the Cronyism at all. I would love to get rid of the Department of Education and bring all control back to a State and Local level.
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Carol,
If you are okay with local control, then you oppose charters.
Your views are contradictory.
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I never said I was for Charter Schools. I simply pointed out minority students have done well in them. I am against them.
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Minority students do no better in charter schools than public schools. Propaganda.
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Carol Stull Are you a troll? . . . (this is not very scientific, but your note has the “ring” of a troll.)
At any rate, if not, you obviously haven’t read anything here on this site–maybe you should do so, putting your own ideological framework aside, just for a moment to see if you can find some insights for yourself. You can always come back to “it’s all propaganda!” and your thinking that some greedy oligarch, rather than government institutions, should provide for and support an education for all of “The People” who, BTW, will become citizens, not of a corporation, but of a country and culture. CBK
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Catherine, No, I’m not a troll. I’ve been following this blog for many, many years. I use to comment but stopped because I came to the conclusion I was wasting my time. When I read people piling on Aditya, I just thought I would speak up in support for what was said. Information is only as good as it’s source. There is so much Subjectivity in education today, it’s understandable many parents are unhappy with what their children are being taught. With the infusion of Federal money, writers and “experts” are more prone to reflect interest of the hand that feeds them or their own Biasses.
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Carol, I agree that having a federal department of education may not be very efficient, nor may they have a clear idea of what is needed in each state, and therefore educational needs are best served by state and local governments. However the well being of the citizens and the economic stability of this country depends upon an educated citizenry.
Perhaps you could explain very clearly what you mean by indoctrination. What is it exactly that you believe people who support public education have been indoctrinated to believe or do.
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Stephen, I loathe everything that comes down Federally. I loathed Outcome Based Education, I loathed goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind. I loathe Common Core. For a complete explanation, please go to the Blog, “The Invisible Serfs Collar” by Robin. All the research you could ask for in this educational mess.
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Carol,
Could you tell me when the federal government mandated Outcomes Based Education?
Facts, not opinion.
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Carol,
Goals 2000 had no punishments or rewards attached. It was an aspirational statement. What did you hate about it?
Facts, not opinion.
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Instead of me regurgitating, here it is in a nutshell.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/10827-whatever-happened-to-goals-2000
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Carol,
The article by rightwing extremist proves nothing. The goals were nothing more that “goals.”
There were no federal mandates attached to them. I asked you for an example of a mandate.
Do you find Goal 1 objectionable? “All children will start school ready to learn.”
That implies that all children should have a nurturing and healthy childhood. What’s bad about that?
Please give me one example of a federal mandate attached to the goals?
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Diane, you’re bringing up the idea of mandates. Doesn’t have to be mandated goals. The Federal Government has many tentacles in education. Starting with the Title programs to grants made to Universities for studies in education and behavioral science. Goals 2000 was just the start. I would suggest anyone really interested, go to The Invisible Serfs Collar blog. It’s all there. This is just a sampling of how nefarious our educational system has become.
http://invisibleserfscollar.com/equality-fraternity-democracy-social-cohesion-real-utopias-and-the-electronic-republic/ (It speaks of what those ‘goals” have become.
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Carol,
You are sadly ill informed. The things you don’t like started in the George H.W. Bush administration (I worked for him). The first President Bush launched the Goals 2000 process.
President Clinton built on Bush’s national goals.
President George W. Bush passed No Child Left Behind, the biggest federal interference in state and local control of education in American history.
Barack Obama embraces the George W. Bush NCLB program.
Trump has made no effort to change the Bush-Obama program, other than his demand for billions of dollars for religious schools.
So, are you opposed to both Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Trump?
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Carol,
Would you be able to answer my question as to what you believe is the indoctrination?
Were you trying to say that all of the federal education programs were how people were indoctrinated?
As an educator in the public schools, I follow the mandates that are placed upon us by the administration at the school, by the district and by the state. The state had the choice to abide by the federal rules or to miss out on some funds. For a number of states which were a little down on their luck and looking for ways to raise some more cash for schools, they decided to take the cash and play the game.
I don’t loathe any of the programs, because underneath they all thought this would bring about positive results. And there have been some gains made. But it isn’t enough.
But when it comes time for state elections, certain candidates roll out the same rhetoric and promise the people better schools, and more choices for schools and vouchers for private schools. Many times it is because these politicians have friends at these charter schools and private schools.
But what the politicians haven’t done is take responsibility for the students they have allowed to move on to the next grade. When students who are labeled ” in need of support, below grade level, and unsatisfactory,” by state tests are allowed to move on to the next grade level, you place an extra burden on the teacher and the students in the classroom. Students don’t learn when they struggle, they get frustrated when they struggle. Lowering the bar by allowing students who are not proficient to move forward is a mandate which the state has never taken responsibility for.
But it is the citizens of each state who elect those who run the state. More often than not they listen to the slogans and promises of these politicians about education rather than the administrators and teachers at a school.
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I wasn’t totally aware until I started helping one of my granddaughter with her homework. Her information and work problems all covered Social Issue. That’s when I learned about SEL. I’m totally against this behavioral science experiment being done on our children. That’s not the place of the school.
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Social-and-Emotional-Learning It’s that simple Stephen. In my opinion, the Department of Education and schools over stepping into what is a Parents responsibility. There, I’ve had my say.
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Carol, I just read through all of the standards for SEL, they all sound like very positive lessons I would want my own children to have learned. I can see what you are saying, that you believe your granddaughter had already been taught this at home. Most likely there are a large number of students who haven’t been taught these skills at home, which can then have a great effect on the learning in the classroom as well as the school environment. Was there something more in the homework that you thought was overstepping the boundaries?
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It is always so interesting to me when someone who is ‘smarter than everyone’, uses the term “all these people think.” Because real thinking people do not think this way.. I am aware of how our government has always done its ‘thing’ and the government has done some really horrendous things.
BUT…. We, who KNOW WHAT TRUTH LOOKS LIKE , are aware that what we learned in school was the way that democracy works… and IDEAL to follow, and in the world we became a beacon, a model for the Rule of Law.. There was a ‘plan’ to avoid a dictatorship put forth by the Constitution, and it was a good plan, which we learned about in school– that there are 3 branches to balance each other, so there can be no king. It was a dream, but we learned about it in school…like the importance of elections.
WHAT GETS ME, IS “ALL THE PEOPLE” WHO DO NOT. RECOGNIZE THE MOBSTER AND HIS FIXERS IN THE White House, as they attack the foundations that make democracy possible, like our INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
If anything shows the disconnect that has divided Americans, it is the fact that so many Americans, do not know. the truth, because of the disinformation that floods their ‘news”, but you say it is the ‘schools’ that do this!
SORRY, it is the UC— the unintended consequences of the internet, , so that voices like yours can sow division with “alternative facts”, and thrive because of the ‘freedom of speech’ to push opinions as truth..
Now with Trump’s mouth out of control and those gangstas running the show, as the wealthy power-elite get what they want… I do not know whether to laugh, or cry, because THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING…and I fear that America will never recover its reputation for the Rule of Law… which we learned in school.
Instead of the blame game (i.e those lying schools with their indoctrination) we need to look at what needs to change, so that the grand theft of our GNP does not go to a power elite!
Our people can change all this, if they realize how injustice was put into law by the power elite.”The Triumph of Injustice” is the most important new book on government policy that can help us to grasp and change what has occurred. Meticulaous data and a story which is maddening — and yet ultimately energizing.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002727
Found that book in this article which is filled with facts, so maybe you might avoid it, Carol.
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Amazing. YOU have the truth. You have figured it out and everyone else just has opinion. Exactly why I spoke up.
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Values vs. Facts: Poor Justifications of Beliefs
I’ve followed Diane Ravitch’s blog for over 4 years, having read her excellent book, Reign of Error. Mostly, I read these posts to get a sense of how people are thinking about education, its problems, and potential solutions. Every once and a while I post something, and now I do so because of all the recent posts that appear to be poorly justified.
The most egregious are justifications of a value statement by use of empirical fact or by use of so-called authority.
To believe that the federal and state governments ought to stay out of local education matters is a VALUE proposition.
To believe that public tax dollars should not be spent on private charter schools and instead on public schools is a VALUE proposition.
To justify these kinds of claims on the basis of empirical evidence or perceived authority is not warranted. As an example: Murders occur. Since murders occur, we should therefore allow murders to continue. Or, since ______ says murders should occur, we should therefore allow murders to continue.
To make such arguments is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something exists (or is or is not effective) does not justify that it SHOULD exist.
VALUE propositions should be rationally justified by criteria which have intrinsic value.
What we should strive for is WORTHWHILE education for everyone.
My justification is here: https://educology.iu.edu/worthwhileEducation.html
Charles Sanders Peirce wrote about fixation of beliefs in 1877. It’s still relevant today. https://educology.iu.edu/belief.html#fixation .
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Ok. Last time. Life is to short to have conversations with you. I see, you read here for a year, but learned nothing. I get it. your worldview and perspective dictates how you see the world. Facts and truth have no function.
BTW– The reason what I write at OEN is headlined,, is because I am accepted as a “trusted writer” — trust to always speak truth, back what I say by fact. You are insulting to say to me, that I reject the ‘opinions’ of everyone else…no dear. Just YOUR opinions. I base mine on truth.
Speak away… you define who you are.
Goodbye,
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Great letter from Waldorf Education to NAYEC on the latter’s Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practice:
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A8ea4b943-eca8-4c0e-97c1-00731c93225f
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Bernie Sanders has a history with Teach For America:
“If you had a heart condition, and you were going to go to a surgeon, you would go to a surgeon who has many surgeries successfully done,” he [Sanders] added. “And while another surgeon may be wonderful, a young surgeon who hasn’t yet performed his first surgery, you would probably go to the experienced [surgeon] who has already achieved a certain level of accomplishment.”
But Sanders faced great pushback in the committee from Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat who had been appointed to his seat in 2009. Bennet, who had previously served as superintendent of Denver Public Schools, was one of the most education-reform friendly members of Congress, and echoed Teach for America’s talking points in the committee. (Bennet is now one of Sanders’s opponent for the Democratic nomination for president, where he is polling at 1 percent.)
“I strongly object to this amendment,” Bennet said after Sanders finished speaking. “If this amendment were to pass, the federal government would in one fell swoop basically dismantle alternative certification programs, render it impossible for local districts and schools to hire alternatively-licensed teachers that they want to hire. … Adoption of this amendment would kill Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, and any other alternative certification constructs built on the idea that a program participant is a teacher of record while participating.”
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Academia should review the latest research on the science of rights and one day the world may become a better place to live via studies within a science class:
https://www.academia.edu/37021128/Scientific_Proof_of_Our_Unalienable_Rights
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Dr. Ravitch,
My wife and I are public school teachers in Little Rock, AR. We have appreciated your work for years and I wanted to thank you for all you have done for public education. We are fighting the good fight against a WFF-friendly State Board of Education that is undermining the Little Rock School District. The response that I have received since making this statement to the SBE on 10/10/19 has been positive, overwhelming, and encouraging. I wanted to share my words with you as I have learned so much from reading and listening to you over the years.Thanks also for paying attention to Little Rock and Arkansas.
Sincerely,
Charles Zook
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2019/10/11/charles-zook-on-lrsds-future-and-billionaire-backed-systematic-destruction-of-public-education
Starts at ~5:28:00
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After putting forth her (greatly encouraging for us) education plan, Warren has found betting market odds going down about 20% practically overnight. Hoping it’s a coincidence.
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The latest from Maurice Cunningham has n all the Walton inve$tment$ in MA. http://www.masspoliticsprofs.org/2019/10/22/the-walton-familys-massachusetts-political-team-2019/
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https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/11/07/heritage-of-evil/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Evil%20histories%20the%20abandoned%20Kurds%20Brexit%20and%20Ireland&utm_content=NYR%20Evil%20histories%20the%20abandoned%20Kurds%20Brexit%20and%20Ireland+CID_90b26c30a5458175e841b1f896055fbf&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=A%20Heritage%20of%20Evil
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Providence, RI’s state senator Sam Bell visited Achievement First Charter School. His observations are damning.
“Sometimes, overly mild rhetoric is irresponsible. We have to think carefully about the language we use. Words matter. If we water down Achievement First to a budgetary issue, then the Mayor of Providence will feel justified in letting them expand as long as better charter schools are prevented from opening or expanding in Providence. Instead, we must condemn Achievement First as a fundamentally immoral institution.
Half measures are not enough. No expansion is acceptable. Instead, we must talk about a turnaround plan to revamp and fundamentally reform these schools, returning actual learning to the classrooms, ending cruel discipline, and respecting the human rights of the students. And no turnaround plan will be real, no reforms will be lasting, without replacing the toxic administrators currently in charge with turnaround leaders who have true compassion for the students.”
https://upriseri.com/2019-10-27-sam-bell/
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Detailed reporting on the situation in Little Rock, AK schools. The Waltons, of course, feature prominently.
https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2019/10/28/the-second-little-rock-crisis
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Teachers’ kids are well, special. These CTU kids made some Lori Lightfoot Lemonade.
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Milton Friedman has a lot to answer for, including the economic and education policies which have contributed to Chile’s current crisis. Here’s a quick video explainer if you’re trying to catch up on what has been happening:
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What the reformsters miss: joy
“Just in time for Halloween, K-8 dance teacher at Birney School of Southfield, Michigan, Jennifer Hawkins, led her students in a flash-mob-style dance to “Thriller” down their school’s main hallway.”
https://www.comicsands.com/teacher-students-thriller-dance-video-2641170071.html
On YouTube:
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More evidence on how LeBron gets it: https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20191104/lebron-james-teaming-up-with-hotel-group-to-develop-housing-for-i-promise-school-families
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I have been missing you, GregB.
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In case you haven’t heard, despite the efforts of the clergy in Texas to save public schools, this shows just how far we still are from the goal: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/11/04/texas-district-white-flight-state-takeover/?+Texas+Tribune+Master
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Interesting essay on why and how Americans do little to support our nation’s children.
https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/your-child-your-choice-how-the-united-states-made-parenting-impossible/
“These white evangelical parents were fighting for the right of their schools to refuse to contribute to the commonwealth. They wanted out of a shared kitty that funds public education under a social contract of collective responsibility for the next generation. Moreover, they were refusing these funds in order to tailor the schooling their offspring would receive in the private sector.
Building on their success opposing private school integration, conservatives applied the “choice” frame to further transform public education. Where school vouchers and demonizing teachers didn’t work at first, the idea of empowering parents to select what is best for their own children through “opportunity scholarships” was an ideal conceptual cornerstone on which to build the charter school movement.”
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Christine Thank you for this resource. CBK
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😉
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To our perspective, it seems that Campbell Brown has endorsed Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29778076/facebook-campbell-brown-elizabeth-warren-news-site/
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NOT.
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Careful where you are when you read this. Most teachers will be enraged. Putting young kids in what amounts to solitary confinement.
“ABOUT 20 MINUTES after he was put in one of his school’s Quiet Rooms — a 5-foot-square space made of plywood and cinder block — 9-year-old Jace Gill wet his pants.
An aide, watching from the doorway, wrote that down in a log, noting it was 10:53 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2018.
School aides had already taken away Jace’s shoes and both of his shirts. Jace then stripped off his wet pants, wiped them in the urine on the floor and sat down in the corner.
‘I’m naked!’ Jace yelled at 10:56 a.m.
Staff did not respond, the log shows, except to close the door ‘for privacy.’
By 11 a.m., Jace had also defecated and was smearing feces on the wall. No adults intervened, according to the log. They watched and took notes.”
https://features.propublica.org/illinois-seclusion-rooms/school-students-put-in-isolated-timeouts/?utm_content=bufferaf592&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=ProPublica+Main+
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Another example of how comedians are the most important speakers of truth in our tragic times:
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Michael Bennet to host talk about getting better results in education in New Hampshire next week. (I’ll try link in next post because site generally doesn’t let me post them…)
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Michael Bennett, who turned Denver into a portfolio district, wants to make himself the education candidate.
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Exactly. He always scares me, but he scares me more when he’s desperate. He’s very smart at knowing what to day. A lot of Democrats (not those on here, of course) think he’d be a great Secretary of Education.
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Your post on Mayor Pete’s position on charters was most informative. Will you be posting similar articles on other candidates?
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I have posted reviews of Sanders, Warren, and Booker. For more information on the candidates, look here:
https://npeaction.org/npe-action-2020-presidential-candidates-project/
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Unfortunately, Gina Painter is correct about school shootings:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/19/shooting-my-school-will-be-yesterdays-news-nothing-will-come-it/?utm_campaign=week_in_ideas&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas&wpmm=1
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Hi Diane. I’m a long time reader of your blog and a huge supporter of public education. I’ve even commented on this site and you have re-posted them once or twice. Recently, I have notice that Google is no longer listing this site when I perform searches for particular articles. In the past, I was able to search using a string of your last name and the topic of the article and it usually came up, along with many other articles. That no longer seems to be the case. Instead, you get the steady stream of critics as the search results. It might just be nothing, but you might want to have someone take a look at you SEO settings of your websites. Thank you and have a great Thanksgiving.
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Thanks, Bill.
FYI, Facebook changed its algorithm in ways I don’t understand, which sharply reduced links to my blog.
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I took an all-day workshop through the California Writers Club several years ago to learn how to gain search engine rank for a blog I was planning to start.
The lecturer said that no matter how Google ranks its algorithm and they change the rankings all the time, there are basic fundamentals like having a photo or embedded video in every blog post, having embedded links (not just the link but an embedded link that shows the specific names of the site or news piece being linked to. He also said every one of our blog posts should have one of those embedded links to another post we wrote and the terms we use when we create those external and internal embedded links should be key search terms that fit the theme and topic of our blogs.
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the power elite ( the BILLIONAIRE’S BOYS CLUB that you have nailed as the ones who are responsible for he destruction of public schools.
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