willemite

LATEST UPDATE - 5/22/2012 - new link at bottom

This book should be required reading for every person with a child in public school, for every person who was educated in public schools, for every person who offers an opinion on what should be done with our public schools, for every politician who offers criticisms of public education or solutions to educational challenges, and for every person who has the right to vote in the United States. The author has drilled down beneath the quotidian sound bites of educational policy discourse to offer a hard-hitting, fact-rich examination of what has happened and what is happening in and to American public schools.

Ravitch’s background is as an education historian. She had been a player in designing a history curriculum for the state of California, and in 1991 was offered a position in the Bush (the 1st) Administration Department of Education. She became a supporter of much of the Republican policy view of the time, tilting toward things like vouchers, charter schools, privatization, reducing the power of teachers’ unions.

She has a lot to say about No Child Left Behind, market-based school models, accountability, and the impact of billionaire-based foundations that have become players in the national discussion of what to do with our public school system. She reports on many studies that examined outcomes. Where did the notion of charter schools originate? What was their original purpose? Are charter schools better than regular public schools? Are there downsides to downsizing? How important are credentials for teachers? Do academic outcomes differ when unionized systems are compared to systems where there are no teachers union? What is the impact of the increased focus on testing?

Although she does mention some of the crazies who infest our educational system with outlandish, anti-scientific notions, and faith-based demands, they do not get all that much attention. I thought their toxicity merited a bit more of a look, particularly those in Texas who have such a major impact on textbooks nationwide, but that is a minor beef. I also found it a bit hard to swallow that she claims the NCLB proponents did not intend for the program to destroy the American public education system, but she offers plenty of evidence that indicates it was designed from the start to do exactly that.

Your homework for tonight is to read Ravitch’s informative, thoughtful, insightful look at where our public schools stand and how they got there. It is highly educational. There will be a quiz.

UPDATES
5/12/11
NY Times Gail Collins had a wonderful column re all this on May 11, 2011, Reading, ’Riting and Revenues

5/17/2011 -
The headline of this short NY Times article, does not actually capture the larger picture, namely that the state was overriding local wishes and forcing charter school on localities that did not want them and has now met with resistance in the form of a court decision saying it was not ok to do that.
In Georgia, Court Ruling Could Close Some Charter Schools

7/16/11
A Washington Post Op Ed dealing with the issue of How Important is Class Size After All?

7/17/11
"Charter School Battle Shifts to Affluent Suburbs" - in an affluent New Jersey suburb, a battle looms because some locals want to create a Mandarin-immersion charter school, using public money for what seems pretty obviously a private party.

9/14/11
A very intriguing piece in Smithsonian Magazine Smithsonian Magazine about the world's most successful school system

10/13/2011
Jeb Bush's advocacy of on-line learning offers another example of a right-wing desire to privatize education, from Mother Jones. Also from this source, how the ever-present unscrupulous are cashing in on the charter movement

11/19/2011
Lee Fang, of The Nation has written an amazing article on the nuts and bolts of how our public school system is under attack by the profit sector. Of perhaps the greatest interest here is how the electoral process is being routinely undermined so that voters are distracted by issues A, B, and C, while the real goal, D, slips under the radar. This is a must read. How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools

2/17/2012
This NY Times article tells how a Chicago Charter School network is finding new ways to pad it's income and push out students it does not want


2/26/2012
This NY Times article by Michael Winerip shows that a high profile charter school advocate has based her rep on success with schools in DC when she was in charge. There is only one problem. There is a strong possibility that the improved numbers were fake. So why is the head of the Department of Education appearing at events with her? The same sort of cheating appears to be happening in Atlanta. Amid a Federal Education Inquiry, an Unsettling Sight

4/20/2012 - Teach the Books, Touch the Heart, By Claire Needell Hollander - A New York City middle-school teacher talks about the value of teaching literature instead of solely teaching to mandatory multiple-choice literature-challenged tests.

4/27/12 - In A Very Pricey Pineapple, an op-ed by NY Times columnist Gail collins, she points out who has not been left behind by NCLB.

5/22/12 - This NY Times article Public Money Finds Back Door to Private Schools shows how the religious right has found a way around the legal, separation-of-church-and-state, impediments to vouchers for religious schools, and come up with a tax-code-based workaround, neo-vouchers. This is a compelling example of the religious right nursing at the public tit while decrying the existence of breasts