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A Brilliant Article by a Retired Superintendent: Please Read It and Help It Go Viral

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2013 //
20

If you read about education, you are sometimes tempted to think that all common sense has departed this nation, its leaders, and its mass media.

They keep looking for quick fixes, miracles, turnarounds, and magical answers as “solutions” to education problems.

Here is Ray Strabeck, a retired school superintendent in Mississippi, who reminds us that there are still people who know what they are talking about and who are willing to speak up.

He reminds his readers of the fads that came and went over his 50 years in education.

He reminds them of the limitations of standardized tests.

As for all the weeping and wailing about how “our schools are failing,” “we are losing the race to nations with higher test scores,” Strabeck has a few wise observations about the goal of “beating” other nations:

 

I find such a motivation ridiculous. Who first landed on the moon? Americans trained in American public schools. Who has orbited Earth more times than any other nation? Americans who were educated in public schools. Who has probed deeper in the sea than anyone else — maybe excluding Jacques Cousteau? Again the answer is Americans who began their learning in public schools. Solar energy, fossil fuels, electronic technologies, social programs, jurisprudence — and the list goes on and on.

If history is to be examined regarding Common Core, it is a program that might last some four to eight years. Having been involved in public education for nearly 50 years, I have watched this timeline remain fairly constant across the years: both politicians and educators finally conclude that the latest fad is not working, and something new arises they want to try.

What, then, assures good schools and higher student achievement? Economics, pure and simple. Find me a good school, and nine times out of 10 there will also be found a flourishing economy in that school community.

Our plea that good schools bring good industries is a misnomer, a case of getting the cart before the horse. Make sure that parents have good jobs, that small businesses are flourishing in the neighborhood and that people take pride in where they live and one of the unfailing outcomes is good schools.

And he adds:

If we would spend the money currently being spent on Common Core on economic development and sustain that kind of effort for, say, four or five years, we would soon see “good” schools emerging. 

Please read the whole article.

 

 

 

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Common Core, Economy, International

Lance Hill: Néw Orleans Lags Nation in Job Growth: LINK ADDED

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2013 //
1

Lance Hill of Néw Orleans, who has a long history in the civil rights movement, notes that Governor Bobby Jindal has been routing the “comeback” of Néw Orleans, giving credit in part to its privatized schools.

Lance points out that Forbes ranks Néw Orleans as 198th of 200 US cities in job growth. No miracle there .

Categories Economy, Jindal, Bobby, New Orleans

Who Should Go to College?

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2013 //
79

In a recent article in the New York Times about the Common Core, I was quoted saying that some kids don’t need to go to college. I was trying to explain to the reporter that the New York Common Core tests used absurdly high standards that resulted in a 70% failure rate. Not every child will make an A, I told her, and we should not fail B and C students.

This was the printed summary of our interview:

“Some critics say the new standards are simply unrealistic. “We’re using a very inappropriate standard that’s way too high,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian who served in President George W. Bush’s Education Department but has since become an outspoken critic of many education initiatives. “I think there are a lot of kids who are being told that if they don’t go to college that it will ruin their life,” she said. “But maybe they don’t need to go to college.”

I have since heard that my remarks were elitist because everyone should go to college.

So, it is time to clarify what I believe.

Who should go to college? Everyone who wants to.

What prevents them from doing so? The cost of college today puts it out of reach for many students, and those who get a degree spend years paying back their student loans.

Education is a basic human right. Every state should have free community colleges for anyone who wants to go to college. In recent years, states have increasingly shifted the cost of higher education to students, when it should be paid for by taxation.

Does everyone “need” to go to college? No, and not everyone wants to go to college. Some people choose to go several years after high school, and some get on-the-job training.

Last week, a terrific auto mechanic fixed my car. He had not gone to college. He loves his work.

When my refrigerator broke down, two expert mechanics arrived, diagnosed the problem, and fixed it. They were proud of their skill. They were not college graduates.

In my professional life, everyone I interact with has one or several degrees. In my real life, where things break down and someone has to do work that is essential to my daily life, many–most–do not have a diploma. Should they? That should be their choice, not my compulsion.

In my ideal world, higher education would be tuition-free for those who can’t afford it. Then everyone who wants to go to a college would not be kept out by high tuition.

So to those who want a higher rate of college attendance and participation, I say “demand tuition-free colleges, open to all.”

Categories Common Core, Economy, Higher Education

When the Major Media Are in a Few Hands, Then….

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2013 //
25

This article reflects on the future of news outlets in the U.S.

There have always been a few fabulously wealthy men and families who owned large media outlets.

But there were also thousands of small-town, small-city newspapers and even local radio and TV stations.

The small papers and media have been snapped up by the big fish, and many have folded outright.

The spread of the Internet has been disastrous for print publications.

These days, the media outlets are conglomerates, and a handful of super rich men and corporations own most of them.

With the acquisition of The Washington Post by amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, another major family-owned newspaper falls into the hands of a billionaire.

Unfortunately, the typical billionaire apparently believes in privatization of public education; after all, those are the values that made them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Will the New York Times be acquired by Michael Bloomberg?

The Times is in deep financial trouble. It bought the Boston Globe 20 years ago for $1.1 billion, and just sold it for $70 million.

The Los Angeles Times may be bought by the Koch Brothers, or Eli Broad.

What is at risk? Democracy.

Thank goodness for social media.

The Internet may have doomed many newspapers, but it has given everyone a way to communicate outside the reach and control of the major media.

We don’t have to confine ourselves to listening to, watching, and reading only what they give us.

We can write what we want, read what we want, express our views without their censorship or approval.

Through social media, we have the power to organize and to use the tools of democracy.

That is our strength, and it is our greatest weapon against the power of big money.

Categories Economy

Why Is America Wasting Our Children’s Futures?

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2013 //
11

In a brilliant essay in the Los Angeles Times, Susan Ochshorn says that the United States is squandering its future by not investing in the well-being of children.

Ochshorn, an advocate for early childhood education, cites an Urban Institute study showing that “federal spending on children fell by $2 billion from 2010 to 2011, the first dip in 30 years. The children’s share of the budget pie was reduced from 10.7% to 10.4%. By 2022, the children’s portion of the budget is expected to drop to 8% and their share of GDP is expected to drop from 2.5% to 1.9%, which will include significant cuts in early care and education. With the Census Bureau reporting nearly 25% of the nation’s children younger than age 6 in poverty, this is not good news.”

It is a cliche to say that “children are our future,” but it is actually true. Children are our future, and if we neglect their basic needs, we sacrifice the future.

Ochshorn writes: “We now know more than ever about how to nurture human capital, with eye-popping technology offering graphic evidence of the rapid pace and complexity of brain development in the first years of life. The bottom line is that kids need time for sensitive, stimulating interactions with adults to promote growth, resilience and mastery, the foundations for their healthy development and academic success. They need access to good healthcare and nutrition, and high-quality early learning settings, not to mention viable communities invested in their well-being.”

Her article cites numerous authoritative sources to demonstrate one basic fact: We are not investing in the well-being of children. Instead, we are spending more and more to test them and to hold their teachers accountable. This is not good social policy. This is criminal neglect.

 

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Economy, Education Industry, Poverty, Testing

Detroit Emergency Manager: Union Workers Were “Dumb, Lazy, Happy, and Rich”

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2013 //
32

Electablog comments on an interview that Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr gave to the Wall Street Journal.

Orr said that the union workers who built the city’s great manufacturing base were “dumb, lazy, happy, and rich.”

This, apparently, is what he thinks caused the ruination of Detroit: All those dumb, rich working stiffs in unions.

Nothing about those dumb, rich executives who sat on their fat salaries while Japan designed a better, more fuel-efficient car.

Nothing about the happy, rich corporate executives who outsourced basic industries to low-wage countries.

Electablog says:

“What Mr. Orr seems to forget is that it was the rise of the manufacturing industry in the United States along with the labor unions that created the middle class. The men and women he degrades with this callous statement worked hard every day in the factories that built things in this country. To describe them as dumb, lazy, and rich is beyond absurd and is incredibly insulting. Detroit’s problems don’t stem from union workers being able to make a decent wage with benefits and a pension. This country is strong, both economically and socially, because workers had enough money in their pockets to buy the things they were building.”

 

Categories Detroit, Economy, Unions

Amazon in Culture Clash in Germany Because of Anti-Union Policies

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2013 //
25

The New York Times reports that Amazon is involved in labor disputes in Germany, one of its biggest markets, because of Amazon’s antipathy to union labor.

Germany has strong unions.

Amazon eventually plans to bring in robots to do the work of people and fears that  unions will be an obstacle.

Robots never form a union and don’t ask for higher wages, health care or pensions.

The article says:

Last year, the company spent $775 million to buy a manufacturer of robots that it plans to eventually deploy in its warehouses, though it has not said when they would come to Germany. The last thing it wants is to have to get approval from unions for such changes.

“This really isn’t about higher wages,” Mr. Clark said. “It isn’t a cost question for us. It’s about what our relationship is with our people.”

“We’re still a developing industry,” he added — despite the fact that Amazon posted revenue of $15.7 billion in the last quarter and the company is enjoying a buoyant stock price.

In the United States, Amazon successfully thwarted efforts to unionize.

Imagine that: a company with revenues of $15.7 billion claiming to be “a developing industry.”

Amazing what lengths some billionaires will go to to prevent paying low-level workers a living wage.

 

Categories Economy

Robert Putnam on the Crumbling American Dream

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2013 //
33

This is one of the most powerful articles I have read in a long time.

Robert Putnam describes life in his home town of Port Clinton, Ohio, population 6,059, as he was growing up in the 50s.

Port Clinton was “ a passable embodiment of the American dream, a place that offered decent opportunity for the children of bankers and factory workers alike.”

But today, “wealthy kids park BMW convertibles in the Port Clinton High School lot next to decrepit “junkers” in which homeless classmates live. The American dream has morphed into a split-screen American nightmare. And the story of this small town, and the divergent destinies of its children, turns out to be sadly representative of America.

“Growing up, almost all my classmates lived with two parents in homes their parents owned and in neighborhoods where everyone knew everyone else’s first name. Some dads worked in the local auto-part factories or gypsum mines, while others, like my dad, were small businessmen. In that era of strong unions and full employment, few families experienced joblessness or serious economic insecurity. Very few P.C.H.S. students came from wealthy backgrounds, and those few made every effort to hide that fact.”

Putnam and his generation grew up in a healthy society, where opportunity was widely available and many did well in life. Nearly three-quarters got more education than their parents and succeeded economically as well.

But then manufacturing collapsed; jobs were outsourced. The social fabric of the community wore thin.

“The social impact of those economic hammer blows was initially cushioned by the family and community bonds that had been so strong in my youth. But as successive graduating P.C.H.S. classes entered an ever worsening local economy, the social fabric of the 1950s and 1960s was gradually shredded. Juvenile-delinquency rates began to skyrocket in the 1980s and were triple the national average by 2010. Not surprisingly, given falling wages and loosening norms, single-parent households in Ottawa County doubled from 10 percent in 1970 to 20 percent in 2010, while the divorce rate more than quadrupled. In Port Clinton itself, the epicenter of the local economic collapse in the 1980s, the rate of births out of wedlock quadrupled between 1978 and 1990, topping out at about 40 percent, nearly twice the race-adjusted national average (itself rising rapidly).

“Unlike working-class kids in the class of 1959, many of their counterparts in Port Clinton today are, despite toil and talent, locked into troubled, even hopeless lives.”

What is happening to our country?

Why are the bankers and the major corporations blaming teachers and public schools for problems they not only created but benefit from?

Why do they think that adoption of the Common Core standards or the privatization of public schools will heal the deep economic and social problems caused by the outsourcing of our manufacturing base and deep income inequality?

How many shell games will Americans fall for?

Categories Economy, Education Industry

EduShyster: Training Minority Youngsters for the McJobs of the Future

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2013 //
4

EduShyster is excited to see that Morgan Spurlock has discovered charter schools, which are training minority students to be busy every minute every day. Spurlock has a CNN program called “The Inside Man” where he sees how things really work.

When Spurlock decided to find out why our schools are “failing,” This is what he did:

“The Inside Man was off on a mission. First stop: Finland, where Spurlock joined a long and growing list of American visitors who descend on that country intent on learning nothing. Then it was time to find a school that takes every single one of the elements of the Finnish success story and either ignores them completely or does the precise opposite of what the Finns do. Welcome to Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, where there is no magical 100% solution but rather one hundred, individual 1% solutions. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

What are the secrets of this charter?

“Williamsburg Prep’s “immersion approach” relies on key special sauce ingredients like tracking the speaker plus some nifty new flavors, including lots of hand clapping and snapping. Most importantly though, neither these students, nor their hands, are ever idle. And that’s key because it is a well known historical fact that idle hands do the Devil’s work. Also, in the jobs of the future, there will not be much downtime, if you know what I mean. In other words, Williamsburg Prep looks a lot like a school in Finland, if Finland was actually called SLANTland and instead of educating students, the Finnish teachers were training seals.”

To learn more about this miraculous school, read on.

Categories Charter Schools, Economy, Education Industry

Jersey Jazzman: “College and Career Ready” Standards Are a Fraud

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2013 //
10

Jersey Jazzman noticed that the proportion of students rated as proficient by New York’s State Education Department is very nearly identical to the proportion in the population of the state with a four-year degree.

It occurs to him that the phrase “college and career ready” is phony. It really means “ready for a four-year college degree.”

Should students be failed unless they are ready to get a four-year bachelor’s degree?

This is nuts.

Many good jobs do not require a four-year college degree.

Some graduates with a four-year degree are waiting on tables or selling Apple products for $12 an hour.

Why should New York state penalize students who will be doing important work for society and earning a good living as plumbers, electricians, construction workers, and other careers?

He observes: “…this is all about making the public education system look as bad as possible, so privatizers can move in and teachers unions can lose power. It’s a political agenda; it has nothing to do with education. “College and career ready,” like “achievement gap” and “x months of learning,” is a useless, phony phrase designed to set the parameters of the debate in a way that favors those who would blame our country’s serious problems almost exclusively on our public schools. Be on your guard whenever you hear it used – you’re probably being conned. “

 

 

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Economy, Higher Education, Privatization
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