A reader sent a link to the CNN interview, in which Randi Kaye pretends for a few minutes to be Michelle Rhee:
in case this has not yet been posted. CNN News Room posted the Randi Kaye interview with Diane Ravitch. There is a comments section which I’m sure we’ll use responsibly. 
I will be interviewed Sunday night on that great site supporting schools and teachers called “The Chalkface.”
Many readers have contacted me to ask why CNN has not posted Randi Kaye’s interview with me, rebutting Michelle Rhee’s assertions.
This reader, Michael Brocoum, made a copy of the interview and posted it on Youtube. Here it is.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the interview began with a question about the National Assessment of Educational Progress (you will note that it is misspelled by CNN as the National Assessment of Educational Process). I don’t recall the precise wording, but the question went like this:
“You claim that test scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history, but how do you explain that the scale score for fourth grade reading is only 221? That’s 221 out of 500. That’s less than 50%. Isn’t 50% a failing grade?”
I then tried to explain that scale scores don’t work like that, that the question itself was a completely erroneous interpretation of scale scores. NAEP has a vertical scale, and scale scores in the 4th grade are lower than in the 8th grade. They can’t be converted into a grade in the way that Randi Kaye asserted, although they are useful as measures of progress.
Consider this: the average scale score for 4th grade is 221, but students scoring at the 90th percentile–our top students–have a scale score of 264. By Randi Kaye’s fallacious reasoning, they are failing too! In 8th grade reading, the students at the 90th percentile had a scale score of 307 (on a scale of 500). She would convert that to a grade of 61, which is borderline failing.
Wouldn’t you think that the editor or research staff at CNN would have prevented Randi Kaye from making such absurd assertions?
But it was of a piece with all the questions that followed. I felt as if I were being interrogated by someone who worked for StudentsFirst, not by a reporter seeking to ascertain either my views or the basic facts.
Rhee said at the outset of my interview that the answer to what she thinks is the terrible performance of our schools is merit pay. So Randi Kaye drilled in on that with two questions (one of them was dropped from the show before it aired). She ended up with a quote from someone named Lucas who said he wanted merit pay. That wasn’t exactly definitive, since I was able point out that merit pay has been tried again and again and has always failed to make a difference.
I taped the interview a few minutes ago.
It airs tomorrow at 9-10 am EST.
It was a gotcha session.
This is the letter I sent to my contact at CNN.
This was one of the most biased interviews I have ever done, and I have done many.
Randi Kaye asked me about NAEP scale scores, which was technically a very dumb question, and I was stunned.
She thinks that a scale score of 250 on a 500 point scale is a failing grade, but a scale score is not a grade at all.
It’s a trend line.
She asserted that the scale scores are a failing grade for the nation.
That is like saying that someone who scores a 600 on the SAT is a C student, because it is only 75% of 800. But that’s wrong.
The scale is a technical measure. It is not a grade, period.
Then she asked me about an issue in Michigan, which fortunately, I had written about. But it was clear she was trying to blindside me.
The point of her question was to blame teachers, and I refused to be pushed into her trap.
Then she read two hostile comments about my CNN post and asked for my response.
Was that supposed to be a balanced or fair interview?
There was no effort to elicit my views, only a determination to prove me wrong and to assert that US education is terrible.
Shame on CNN.
Many people have asked me what time I will be interviewed on CNN on Saturday.
I will be interviewed by Randi Kaye, who interviewed Michelle Rhee on same program.
Saturday August 18, 10-11 am.
I will do my best to present the facts and to rebut the misinformation that has been disseminated to the public about the work of our nation’s teachers and schools.
Thanks to your letters, emails, comments, and tweets, I have been invited to appear on CNN on Saturday August 18.
Stay tuned for what I hope will be an informative interview.
And never lose hope.
Your voice matters.
Our millions of voices make a difference.
We will end this reign of error.
Diane
My article with the title above appeared on CNN.com.
They heard from you. They invited me to respond and this is the article I wrote.
I think that if we all speak up again and again and again and again, and tell the truth, supported by facts and experience, our voices will be heard.
Write letters to the editor, comment on blogs, speak up at public meetings, do what you can, when you can, where you can.
Your actions will encourage others.
And that is how a movement is built.
From the ground up.
Not with billions of dollars, but with millions of willing hands and hearts and minds.
A retired teacher emailed me and said she found this blog to be extremely informative. She asked her union to put a link to the blog on its website. She thinks that other teachers will not only appreciate the opportunity to learn what is happening in other districts and states, but will find moral support and encouragement in our discussions.
It is no accident that I constantly remind teachers how valuable they are. With all the negativity today in the media and coming from politicians, there must be a place you can turn that appreciates what teachers do for our children and our society and how hard the work is.
When I spoke at the AFT convention in Detroit, I told friends beforehand that I had three goals: 1) to tell the truth, as I saw it; 2) to make teachers feel good about the work they do; and 3) to rock the house. In the warm response that I got–three standing ovations– I think I did all three. And I felt the love.
Share it.
Spread the word.
I mentioned in a post this morning that I had received a letter form the Anti-Defamation League warning that comments on my blog displayed “insensitivity” and that I should take this opportunity to warn readers about the dangers of “hurtful analogies,” especially in referring to Hitler and the Holocaust.
A reader wonders if he was the one who wrote the comment that was reported as offensive to the Anti-Defamation League:
| I think that the comment referred to was mine. I am a teacher in one of the 24 “closed” NYC schools. I went back to look for what I actually wrote but could not find it but I definitely remember reading the comments after that post and being surprised at the reaction.First, let me say that I am also Jewish. Whichever members of my family remained in Poland at the start of the war, were totally wiped out in the camps. I am also a history buff, I read and make analogies. (Obviously, I am a product of a great public education, Thomas Jefferson HS, Brooklyn, NY.) If I offended anyone by my comparisons I am sorry, but I do not withdraw my statements. Let me instead, back them up.
I typically refer to the Holocaust and our situation in 2 ways and I don’t remember which I used in that previous post. First, I believe that our mayor, his flunkies, and all those trying to tear down public education are using what my World History text back in 1962, called the “Big Lie” technique. Tell a lie often enough and boldly enough and even those who know it is a lie will back down. Hitler and Stalin were both masters of the “Big Lie” and used it to secure and maintain their power. The “Big Lie” technique includes scapegoating. Again, as a Jew I am particularly sensitive about scapegoating but now, as a teacher being scapegoated, I think I have have an even better understanding of what my Jewish/Polish/Austrian family and their friends felt as they heard Hitler rant about how the Jews were responsible for every bad thing in post WW I Germany. Yes, I know that there are (currently) no camps to be transported to, but the lie still hurts every time I hear it. This leads into the second way I draw analogies to the Holocaust. As I said above, my family split just about the time of WW I. One branch came to America, the other branch stayed in Poland and Austria and were decimated. My grandma spoke German as well as Yiddish and English. Even after the holocaust, she proudly referred to our family as Austrian. From her, from other friends and family and from my reading I have learned that most German and Austrian Jews thought of themselves as Germans. Even as the Nuremberg laws went into effect, even as Kristal Nacht destroyed their businesses and homes, they told themselves that they were good Germans, important to the Reich and the minority of hotheads will eventually see this and respect them for the contributions that they made to their country. Many Jews continued this denial until they were packed off to the camps. A few days before the end of this school year, as we were sitting in the heat grading the Regents exams, my colleagues and I were being told our fate by those involved in this ridiculous hiring system. I know that the ones not hired are not going to camps but the damage to their spirits was still substantial. These are people who have been teaching for 10 even 15 years. One of the main centerpieces of their identity is teacher, right up there with mother, father, Jew, Christian or other identity labels. This central part of their identity was ripped out unjustly and with violence. Not the violence of guns but more like the violence of the Judensau when Jews were forced to bend down and kiss the statue of a pig for only one purpose . . . public humiliation. Teachers were being divided into 2 lines. The “effective” teachers who were staying and the “ineffective” teachers with astonishment and tears in their eyes who could not understand this injustice that had been done to them. As my friends and colleagues were told their fate my thoughts went back to the words of Victor Frankl, a survivor of the camps who said, “the best of us did not survive.” No, I don’t expect the Brown Shirts to be knocking on my door tonight. In fact, as much as I think teachers are being falsely scapegoated and blamed for things beyond our control, I think the real holocaust (note the lower case) is being carried out against the children of NYC. Under performing students need smaller classes which means more teachers. They also need more experienced teachers. Privatizing education siphons off money that should be going to the children and sends it to overpaid CEOs and shareholders of these charter businesses. Thomas Jefferson saw public education as necessary to maintain a democracy. Wouldn’t it be terrible if after true public education is gone we discover that Jefferson was right. I could go on about the economics of fascism as taught to me by Mr. Kraft in the 5th grade, Mr. Hudesman in the 7th grade and Mr. Horowitz in the 10th grade (great teachers among other great teachers who I remember fondly) how we can draw parallels to big business today, but this is already a very long post so I shall stop now. |
A few days ago, I received an email from the Anti-Defamation League of New York City saying that it had received “several complaints regarding references and analogies to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust that appear in the comments section of your blog.”
It went on:
“In researching the complaint, we see that you defended the postings on free speech grounds. As a staunch supporter of free speech and the First Amendment, ADL has historically fought hate and offensive comments not by censoring, but by fighting bad speech with good speech. While you certainly have the right to leave the material up, we believe you have an opportunity here to address the insensitivity of the comments with your respected voice, rather than allowing them to go unaddressed.”
“We urge you to use your speech–as an educator and blog moderator–to address the hurtful analogies, and encourage readers to think about the impact of their words.”
(signed)
I was surprised when I read this as I am very sensitive to hate speech. In addition, I am Jewish. Members of my mother’s family were annihilated in the death camps in Hitler’s time. None survived.
I couldn’t think of what he was referring to. Last Sunday, when I first saw the email, I responded and asked if he might point me to specific examples, but I have heard nothing more.
Using the search function, I scanned the comments, and the only exchange that I could find was in the discussion following a post called “For the Children?”
When someone complained in that exchange about a reference to Nazis, I replied:
“Commenters exercise freedom of speech.
So do I.
So do you.”
I will not tolerate hate speech on the blog. I have the power to delete comments. I have deleted comments that I thought were beyond the bounds of civility. And I am not going to spell out the rules beyond that, because this is my blog and I will delete whatever offends me.
But having said that, I think that historical analogies are acceptable, even if they are overstated.
The supreme irony here is that in 2003, I published a book called The Language Police, which was a plea against censorship in schools, textbooks, and tests.
The book ended with these words:
“Let us, at last, fire the language police. We don’t need them. Let them return to the precincts where speech is rationed, thought is imprisoned, and humor is punished.”
“As John Adams memorably wrote in 1765, ‘Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write…Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.'”
I believe that.
So, dear readers, consider yourself informed of my views about the importance of free speech and the free exchange of ideas.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 