John Thompson, historian and teacher, devoted several articles to reviewing “Reign of Error” with care.

Then he read Mike Petrilli’s critique, in which he accuses me of being “a double agent,” having learned the secrets of the rightwing, and turning their research against them.

Thompson did what a good historian typically does: He followed the evidence.

“Another way of putting Petrilli’s criticism is that Ravitch has studied both sides of the evidence. I wondered if the same could be said for him. So, I followed his links and allusions to “research.”

Again and again, he found that Petrilli was quoting himself or Russ Whitehurst (who headed George W. Bush’s research unit at the U.S. Department of Education).

After offering source-free criticism of Ravitch’s proposals for cutting class size, Petrilli links to an expert on socio-economic desegregation to attack her recommendation that we “devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.”

Petrilli’s source, once again, was Mike Petrilli.

Thomas writes:

Most of Petrilli’s fact-related arguments against Ravitch are aimed at her “solutions” (which he puts in quotes.) They include good prenatal care for all pregnant woman, high-quality early-childhood education available to all children, and medical and social services to the poor.

Petrilli wrote that “evaluations of newer, large-scale programs (like those in New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Texas) suffer from “selection-bias” problems.” Again, why does that sound familiar?

Sure enough, Petrilli’s sources for challenging the effectiveness of early education programs in New Jersey, and Texas and Oklahoma, seem to be Russ Whitehurst and Russ Whitehurst. His other source for challenging early education and wraparound services was – you guessed it – Russ Whitehurst.

Russ Whitehurst is a solid scholar. Also, Petrilli and his colleagues are busy traveling around the country promoting their agenda. But, surely, they could find time to read other perspectives.

When rightwingers quote only themselves, it shows a certain narrow-gauged approach to issues. As Thompson points out, there are other highly credible studies of early childhood education and wraparound services than those conducted by Russ Whitehurst (who, coincidentally, fired me from my unpaid senior fellowship at the Brookings Institution in the midst of the presidential campaign of 2012, on the same day that I took apart Romney’s education agenda, whom Whitehurst was advising).

Thompson concludes:

I’d be glad to meet in the center with Petrilli, and I would propose a modest first step. Could we not agree to read research on both sides of educational issues? Petrilli could be free to continue to criticize Ravitch for knowing too much about the conservatives’ logic and evidence. He could continue to demonstrate his solidarity with the anti-science wing school of reform. Petrilli should follow Ravitch’s footnotes and links to the social science research, however, and then ask whether her historical perspective makes sense when viewed through the prism of actual evidence.

—-
I’ve posted my review for Anton Community Newspapers, a chain of 18 weeklies covering New York’s Nassau County and the Gold Coast of Long Island.

http://www.antonnews.com/features.html

Stop The Educational Insanity

Diane Ravitch’s new book combines heart with the ultimate fact-check

If you want to do one thing this year for our children, our nation and our future, buy a copy of Diane Ravitch’s brilliant and engaging new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (Knopf, $27.95).

It is a best-seller that is destined to change the course of American education everywhere, suburban, urban and rural schools alike. When I started reading it, I was humbled, excited and sad.

Humbled by the depth of her commitment to the nation’s children. Excited that she put everything into one volume. And sad that her book is necessary—because what that says about our elected leaders and their perspective on children and education is distasteful and victimizes too many children.

Ravitch wrote this book to document, with the research of a scholar (charts and statistics — she is a distinguished Ph.D.), why our nation is taking the wrong path in education.

As she puts it, “school reformers are putting the nation’s children on a train that is headed for a cliff. This is the right time to stand on the tracks, wave the lanterns and say, ‘Wait, this won’t work!’… But the reformers say, ‘Full speed ahead!’ aiming right for the cliff.”

Her thoroughly documented position, attested to by millions of parents, teachers and taxpayers across the county, is that “what began as a movement for testing and accountability has turned into a privatization movement.”

Elected and self-appointed education reformers have lost sight of the diagnostic purpose of tests, and use test results to claim that our public education system is broken. Now, that mantra of “broken schools” has become an excuse to turn public education into schools run for profit.

The headlines we read about how bad schools are, how bad teachers are, how important charter schools are, don’t have a factual basis. These notions are propaganda underwritten by some of the nation’s wealthiest businesspeople who believe that education should be run like a business, with efficiency, spreadsheets and bottom-line profits as the driving forces. Are the kids learning? Only the spreadsheet knows.

The corruption and malfeasance behind this are rank—and all documented in Reign of Error.

As she says, her premise is straightforward: “You can’t do the right things until you stop doing the wrong things. If you insist on driving that train right over the cliff, you will never reach your hoped-for destination: excellence for all. Instead, you will inflict harm on millions of children and reduce the quality of the education.”

Ravitch provides solutions in the very first chapter, admittedly so that you don’t have to wait to the end to start making a difference. Her advice is to take better care of our children. Treat them like children, love them and guide them. Giggling is allowed. Kids need to be healthy, and poverty is the number one enemy of education.

Chapter by chapter her book refutes the nonsense that reformers disperse—she provides summary facts, claims versus reality statements, and solutions, at the head of each chapter. And enough charts for the most data-obsessed reader.

Facts:

High school dropouts are at an all-time low, and high school graduation rates are at an all-time high.

Charter schools run the gamut from excellent to awful and are, on average, no more innovative or successful than public schools.

Virtual schools are cash cows for their owners, but poor substitutes for real teachers and real schools.

Poverty is highly correlated with low academic achievement.

Solutions:

Reduce class sizes to improve student achievement and behavior.

Eliminate high-stakes standardized testing and rely instead on assessments that allow students to demonstrate what they know and can do.

Devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce segregation and poverty.

Recognize the public education is a public responsibility, not a consumer good.

I can’t convey her eloquence, dignity, and compassion. This erudite scholar is also very accessible. She is called Wonder Woman, Hercules, a national hero—and Mom and Grandma.

Her book is an act of defiance, protest and revolution. And love.

Diane Ravitch is right, her cause is, indeed, “the civil rights issue of our time.”

John Owens is editor in chief of Anton Community Newspapers, and author of Confessions of a Bad Teacher: The Shocking Truth from the Front Lines of American Public Education (Sourcebooks, $13.99).

—
John Owens, author
CONFESSIONS OF A BAD Teacher
The Shocking Truth From The
Front Lines of American Public Education
Published by Sourcebooks
Available at Amazon and wherever books are sold

Aaron Barlow considers the implications of Reign of Error for higher education.

After a full decade of the testing mania of No Child Left Behind, professors are seeing students less well prepared for college courses that in the recent past.

After a decade of guessing the right answer to every question, it is not surprising that students are ill-prepared to think about complex issues with more than one answer or which no answer at all.

Barlow writes:

“Though the impact has been strongest on American k-12 schools (No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top), the impact is felt in colleges and universities, too. “Learning outcomes” are one of the results, attempts to quantify just about everything and to justify specific learning activities rather than seeing a student as a whole being and an education as something that prepares students for their own explorations, for development of their own ‘learning outcomes.’ This is the factory model of education and, frankly, it has no place in a democracy, where education is supposed to produce participants in the public square who can examine evidence and make decisions on their own. That this ability also makes for better workers is critical to the success of both education and the United States, but the primary focus is on creating good citizens.

We college professors, with problems enough of our own–with changes in governance heading toward a corporate model of top-down decision making, with academic freedom becoming a narrower and narrower aspect of our lives, with more and more of us living and working as contingent and part-time hires, keeping us barely on the fringes of the middle class (if there at all)–haven’t been paying enough attention, as a group, to what has been happening to the schools that feed students to us. Yes, many of us have noticed that our students (especially at non-elite public institutions) are coming to us less and less prepared for college work each ensuing year, but we haven’t put in the time to really explore why. It is hard enough trying to make up for the lacks our students are coming in with. How, furthermore, can we have the time to advocate for changes in k-12 curricula when our own are under fire?”

He says it is time for college professors to inform themselves and become involved. If they do not, they too will be judged by the rise or fall of their students’ test scores on standardized tests.

Harvard Yard, here I come! I will be sponsored by Citizens for Public Schools and accompanied by the famous EduShyster.

CPS Presents Diane Ravitch
in Cambridge, Oct. 24

Citizens for Public Schools is proud to present Diane Ravitch, speaking on her new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Reign of Error picks up where Diane left off with her ground-breaking book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Excitement is building for Diane’s talk just one week from this Thursday. Register now so you do not miss out.

When: Thursday, October 24, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Memorial Church, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
Ticket Donations: $12

Come join us and learn how corporate reforms threaten public education as a cornerstone of democracy. Stay to hear Diane’s proposals for reasonable and achievable solutions to the challenges our public schools face.

As Jonathan Kozol, our speaker from last fall, wrote in The New York Times, “Those…who have grown increasingly alarmed at seeing public education bartered off piece by piece, and seeing schools and teachers thrown into a state of siege, will be grateful for this cri de coeur — a fearless book, a manifesto and a call to battle.”

Thanks to our generous co-sponsoring organizations, including: AFT Massachusetts, Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, Boston Teachers Union, Brookline Educators Union, Center for Collaborative Education, Center for Law and Education, Educators for a Democratic Union, Educators for Social Responsibility, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, METCO, National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest).

To become a sponsor of this event and/or register and pay online, click here.

18 Tremont St Ste 320 | Boston, MA 02108 US

This teacher blogger decided to review the book by selecting his or her favorite quotes.

What do you think? Do you agree with the method or the choices?

Edward Berger is a blogger who lives in the southwest and is passionate about preserving public education and democracy.

In this post, he writes an eloquent tribute to “Reign of Error” and expresses his understanding of the organic connection between communities and their public schools, an insight that seems to elude those who call themselves “reformers.”

He writes:

“American communities are democratically operating groups of citizens who tax themselves to pay for bond issues to build schools and who vote to pay taxes to provide better education for all. They do not do this for the wealthy or for those who want access to our tax dollars for personal or corporate profit. They do this because they know that education is their access to the dream.

“As our failed political-economic system has allowed a few to accumulate the nation’s wealth, those few, by nature of their power, work to destroy the voice of the people. To maintain their power, they destroy communities and their schools, and any form of democracy – i.e., elected school boards. They force top-down coercive destruction that squashes the hopes and dreams of the people – i.e., the present US Department of Education, Pearson, Melinda and Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and several dozen more destructors. They buy and manipulate elected officials, subverting Democracy – i.e., ALEC and a list of individuals like the Koch Brothers. They have taken over and destroyed education, communities, and workers – i.e., Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, Louisiana , and parts of NY City, Pennsylvania ,and Ohio, to name a few. It seems to many that Americans will soon be enslaved by the few.”

And more:

“The people of America, in order to preserve a vital and necessary public education system, now have a source of correct information. The few will fight to destroy the America of the people, but We The People are stronger and we can stop the stupidity and greed, heal the damaged teachers and community schools, and come out of the reign of error with improved schools, and the freedom to elect our leaders and work to serve every American.”

You might even meet the brilliant, beautiful, elusive EduShyster!

CPS Presents Diane Ravitch
in Cambridge, Oct. 24

Citizens for Public Schools is proud to present Diane Ravitch, speaking on her new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Reign of Error picks up where Diane left off with her ground-breaking book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Excitement is building for Diane’s talk in less than a week. Register now so you do not miss out.

When: Thursday, October 24, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Memorial Church, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
Ticket Donations: $12 (To register online today, click here.)

Come join us and learn how corporate reforms threaten public education as a cornerstone of democracy. Stay to hear Diane’s proposals for reasonable and achievable solutions to the challenges our public schools face.

As Jonathan Kozol, our speaker from last fall, wrote in The New York Times, “Those…who have grown increasingly alarmed at seeing public education bartered off piece by piece, and seeing schools and teachers thrown into a state of siege, will be grateful for this cri de coeur — a fearless book, a manifesto and a call to battle.”

Thanks to our generous co-sponsoring organizations, including: AFT Massachusetts, Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, Boston Teachers Union, Brookline Educators Union, Center for Collaborative Education, Center for Law and Education, Educators for a Democratic Union, Educators for Social Responsibility, Harvard Students for Education Reform, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, METCO, National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), Save Our Schools.

18 Tremont St Ste 320 | Boston, MA 02108 US

Diane Aoki felt that something was wrong, terribly wrong, as No Child Left Behind changed the schools. It felt even worse when Race to the Top came in.

Everyone told her, “don’t worry, this too will pass,” but it only got worse every year.

When she read “Reign of Error,” it all made sense to her. She understood that “reform” was not about reform at all.

Things are bad, she knew, but “Reign of Error” offered her hope, hope that her own inner convictions were validated, and hope that it shouldn’t be this way.

She wrote:

This is what I love best about the book. Throughout the book, there is a thread of hope as she contrasts the corporate agenda to what it’s supposed to be, what it should be, what it can be. I highlighted those silver threads whenever I saw them, here are a few, with positive solutions underlined:

“Once upon a time, education reformers thought deeply about the relationship between school and society. They thought about child development as the starting point. “(P.19)

“The reformers define the purpose of education as preparation for global competitiveness, higher education, or the workforce. They view students as “human capital” or “assets ” one seldom sees … the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship.” (P. 34-35)

“Children who are poor receive less medical attention and less nutrition, and experience more stress, disruption, and crises in their lives…. That is why por children need even more stability, more support, smaller class sizes, and more attention from their teachers and others in their schools, but often receive far less, due to underfunding.” (P. 36)

“Of course we can do better. Students should be writing more and reading more and doing more science projects and more historical research papers and should have more opportunities to engage in the arts.” (P.54)

“If we were serious about narrowing the gap … schools … would have a stable, experienced teacher, a rich curriculum, social services, after-school programs, and abundant resources to meet the needs of their students.” (P.59)

Regarding teacher evaluation based on student test scores: “If by great, we mean teachers who awaken students’ desire to learn, who kindle in their students a sense of excitement about learning, scores on standardized tests do not identify those teachers.” (P.113)

“…there remains the essential question of why scores on standardized tests should displace every goal and expectation for schools: character, knowledge, citizenship, love of learning, creativity, initiative, and social skills.” (P.114)

“Also forgotten is that public schools were created by communities and states for a “civic purpose.” In the nineteenth century, they were also called “common schools.” They were a project of the public commons, the community. They were created to build and sustain democracy, to teach young people how to live and work together with others, and to teach the skills and knowledge needed to participate fully in society.” (P.207 )