Archives for category: Poverty
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Corporatization of Public Education?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
26

An interesting article at open.salon.com speculates about the current drive to privatize American public education.

Inevitably, the author makes the US/Finland comparison. What is missing? He or she never mentions that Finland does not have any standardized testing. Not until students apply to college (which is tuition-free, by the way).

Teachers are respected not only because it is tough to become a teacher–the selection process is rigorous–but because they have wide discretion to exercise their professional judgment once they become a teacher. No one gives them a script. They write their own tests.

There is no value-added assessment, no merit pay, no charters, no vouchers.

And very few children or families are poor.

What can we learn from Finland?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, International, Poverty, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

No Excuses? Read This.

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2012 //
12

When President Obama visited Memphis, he was introduced by a handsome, articulate teen, Chris Dean.

Read what Chris wrote about his life after the President left town. Read about the details that the “no excuses” reformers dismiss.

Categories Education Reform, Obama, Poverty, Students, Tennessee

The Invisible Children, Left Out of the Obama-Romney Debate

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
6

Jersey Jazzman wonders how our two candidates for President spent two hours discussing domestic issues without noticing our nation’s greatest scandal: the nearly one in four children who live in poverty.

Categories Obama, Poverty, Romney, Mitt

The Word Not Mentioned in the Debate

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
31

Poverty.

Lots of talk about the middle class. Tax cuts for the middle class. Saving the middle class. Doing more for the middle class.

Not one word about poverty.

No mention that nearly 25% of the children in the world’s richest nation live in poverty.

Not one word.

Categories Poverty

Unfair to Kozol?

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
5

An admirer of Jonathan Kozol faults the Washington Post for asking Wendy Kopp to review his latest book. Wendy likes to say that we don’t need to fix poverty,just “fix” schools with more TFA and more charter schools. Jonathan’s book shows how harmful poverty is. Obviously she would not like Kozol’s latest book:

The Washington Post (Sunday, September 30) has just published an inaccurate and biased review of Jonathan’s new book Fire in the Ashes, written by Wendy Kopp, President of Teach for America.

The Post’s choice of Kopp to review Jonathan’s book broke all the rules of literary fairness, and her acceptance of it even more so, in light of their opposing positions on school reform. Jonathan is well known as a thoughtful critic but strong defender of public education, while Kopp has come to be a leading figure in the corporate invasion of the public sector. Kopp is well aware—and has voiced her displeasure—of Jonathan’s critique of Teach for America, which, he’s noted, guarantees instructional discontinuity and high faculty turnover in inner-city schools, since TFAs remain in those schools for only two years. He also believes that TFAs do not receive sufficient training to take the place of well-prepared instructors committed to the education of children as their life’s vocation.

Jonathan recognizes that many bright young graduates are attracted to Teach for America as a charitable service project, but he states clearly in this book that short-term, top-down, charitable action has never been a viable or enduring substitute for systematic justice in our public institutions.

Kopp, too, asks that we “commit ourselves to systemic changes and address the root causes, from poverty to segregation” and then cites a number of organizations—among them, KIPP and the Harlem Children’s Zone—which operate even more deeply segregated schools than our public systems do and divert civic and political support from the public schools that support the vast majority of children.

In promoting her own agenda, Kopp manages to grossly misrepresent Jonathan’s book, which is not, as she leads readers of the Washington Post to believe, a dated summary of the problems facing schools in decades past, but a stirring narrative of the lives of children, from the time he met them, through their teenage years, into the present period of their young adulthood—the failure of some to overcome adversity, and the victories of many others in completing school, doing well in college, and returning to the neighborhoods where they were born to share the benefits of their education with those they left behind. To claim that the book is a critique of past education policy is to have missed its point entirely.

Her attack on Jonathan’s intensely moving portrait of children he has known and loved for nearly twenty-five years is part of a larger ideological attack on educators who believe that public education, for all its imperfections and blatant inequalities, remains a precious legacy in a democratic nation.

I am one of the many friends of Jonathan who do not like to see his work misrepresented and condemned by embittered adversaries. I’m asking those who admire and respect his work to make their opinions known by writing letters to the editor of the Washington Post.

Jonathan is continuing his travels across the country to speak in defense of teachers and the public schools that serve our children. He is honored to be alongside each of you in this fight.

Lily Jones

Categories Poverty, Teach for America TFA

A Teacher Writes to President Obama

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
29

Dear Mr. President,

I have received your daily emails and phone calls – please take me off your lists.

I gave you some money in May, even though I didn’t want to – your phone volunteers are very persuasive!

I voted for you in 2008, and I will again in November.

What choice do I have? The alternative isn’t better, and probably worse overall. Though, I will vote for you reluctantly as I know your policies, and those of your Secretary of Education, like those of your predecessor, are destroying the profession I love and harming the students I teach.

I will instead be using my “$14 or more” to help fight childhood poverty. I will give one of my students a grocery gift card. I wish I had enough money to provide each of my students a healthy dinner at home with their families.

i will do this instead of donating to your campaign as you and many in the Democratic party will not acknowledge the devastating effects of poverty on children’s lives, and then blame teachers and schools.

Our schools need to improve, incompetent teachers need to be fired – as it is in EVERY other profession (including corporations and the financial industry – how is accountability working out there?)

But do not destroy public education because you will not tackle the real problems that face communities – violence, hunger, illness, homelessness…and hopelessness.

I know dealing with these issues is not as easy as a test score, and carrots and sticks. It would probably cost more money. Making education about winners and losers does not have a home in my classroom, and it is not good for our schools.

If our school had a library full of books (or digital readers), access to a full and holistic core curriculum, ability to enjoy art and PE every day, had adequate health care (and didn’t have to miss school for the free clinic), had a clean (and warm) place to live, were able to have a healthy meal, and were able to go home not worrying about having their basic needs met…it would go a long way toward improving student academic performance.

I had “hope,” I believed in “change,” now I’m a pragmatist when dealing with my elected political leaders.

It’s a Sunday night. I’ll go back to grading papers, giving my students formative feedback, and preparing lessons for tomorrow… trying to find one of my students a place to live in since she and her daughter were kicked out of a low income apartment (her income is too high now because of a new job), and secure childcare for another student so he can access an after school arts program. I will be organizing volunteers for a faith based organization trying to solve the issue of homelessness in our community, and will need to figure out which day I can volunteer for our Optimist club’s Christmas tree lot – all proceeds going back to our youth organizations.

I teach at an alternative school that keeps at-risk students and teen parents from dropping out. I see the effect of poverty each day. It’s tough for a teen mom who has been up all night with her own child to perform well on a one-time assessment, let alone graduate on time with the skills necessary to be successful.

As a parent, I am appalled by the 8 days of testing my 6 year old son will endure this year. I have excused him of all testing and data collection that does nothing but line the pockets of Pearson and ETS – The same folks who will be making a LOT of money off of the new Common Core Standards and ancillary products that will be peddled to our schools. Yes, I’ll sign him out of the new Common Core testing too.

If you’d like to talk some time, ring me up. I have many stories to share and ideas about how things could change for the better. Though, teachers are never asked what they think. Politicians and corporate donors get the most airtime – even though most of them have never spent a day in a classroom. I suppose it is because they have deep pockets. Money “talks” right?

Maybe if I had donated 10K or 100K to your Super PAC I could meet you and share my ideas. Perhaps if I started a non-profit that solicits money from corporate donors, then works to privatize schools you would listen to me. But I don’t have the money, and my ethics keep me from using public schools for profit…

Please consider the professional experience of your teachers in the trenches. It’s hard work helping our students achieve their dreams. We are willing to do it even after the bell rings at the end of the day. We teach because we believe in our students, our schools, and America.

I’ll be expecting the requisite form letter…so thank you in advance for listening.

Your constituent,
Ed

Categories Obama, Poverty

Wendy Kopp Reviews Jonathan Kozol

By dianeravitch
September 29, 2012 //
16

As Edushyster calls it, Wendy is miffed that Jon didn’t mention TFA.

Another hilarious article from one of our best satirists.

Categories Humor, Poverty, Privatization, Teach for America TFA

Why Is the South So Easily Fooled?

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2012 //
29

When I lectured in Chattanooga last week, I noticed a strange phenomenon. When I said things bluntly, people gasped. At one point, for example, I responded to a question by saying that the Legislature should not cut education to give tax breaks to corporations. The audience noticeably gasped. There were several moments like that. It occurred to me that the politicians in Tennessee are so eager to attract corporate investment, that it is a sacrilege to question the strategy of cutting education to fund corporate tax breaks.

A thoughtful comment by an educator in Tennessee:

Thanks for the visit. It sparked much needed conversation around these issues. The South seems so willing to sell out to invading corporate giants…perhaps b/c of our long history of poverty. Last to industrialize, means last to unionize, means furtile ground for the invaders. We are the third world the Romneys used to have to go abroad to find and exploit. But, as the Chicago strike indicates, we are not alone in the fight to protect our basic negotiation rights. Unfortunately, I fear that we in the south will be dependent upon the outrage of our northern counterparts who have historically had more practice protesting against those who would sell our souls to the company store. The Rhees of the world will have more traction here for all the reasons the now insulted 47% here still vote Republican: poverty, ignorance, and prejudice. However, nothing feuled the privatization of education in the south like desegregation. As a teacher here for the last twenty-five years, I can attest it is still the prime mover. I’m pretty sure this is true nationally. NCLB is just a clever way to come into this effort through the back door…undetected apparently even by our first black president.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty, Tennessee

Will Race to the Top Reduce Poverty?

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
1

This is an excellent analysis by economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson about poverty and educational opportunity. She provides excellent links to up-to-date statistics about children living in poverty. She understands that their opportunities are shadowed by the circumstances of their lives.

But at the end of this otherwise excellent article, she concludes that President Obama’s Race to the Top program is addressing the problem of poverty and limited opportunity.

I am guessing she has no idea what the Race to the Top consists of. I wonder if she knows that it is designed to cater to the “no excuses” crowd at the NewSchools Venture Fund that believes that poverty is no obstacle if public schools are turned over to private management, if students take more tests, if teachers are evaluated by their students test scores, and if kids are taught to walk in straight lines and drilled to take tests.

I left a comment, something I seldom do. You should too.

Categories Poverty, Race to the Top

What Was at Stake in CTU Strike

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
1

This is an usually thoughtful reprise of the issues and context of the strike.

It pulls together a lot of different threads:

Research about class size; conditions of teaching and learning in Chicago; the ongoing efforts to destroy unions; the poverty level among children in Chicago.

I recommend it.

Categories Chicago, Poverty, Unions
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