Why Does Diane Ravitch Hate Children?

Just brilliant satire---

America's education reform movement -- the most significant reform movement in the history of this planet -- is just concluding another amazing school year.  Politicians of all stripes and parties have come together to say, "We will not accept inferior teachers destroying the lives of our children anymore".


With grim budget cuts necessitating layoffs, we are reminded once again that seniority based layoffs make as much sense as saying that U2 should have to keep Bono as their lead singer just because he's been with the band for 30 years and has tenure.


For the past 30 years, education reformers have had to fight the forces of the status quo, but in that time we have agreed that certain changes must be made to education:

• The business principles that have made our economy great should be applied to our schools as well.
• We need a common curriculum 
• We need frequent standardized testing
• We need a longer day and school year to allow more time for increased test prep
• We need a rich curriculum focused like a laser on only math and reading
• We need an end to tenure and LIFO policies
• Younger perkier teachers are superior to the old saddle horses who too often dominate public education.
• The best teachers for poor inner city students are young, preferably Ivy League educated young people from well to do families.
• Charter schools are superior to public schools because they can council students into leaving and public schools must teach everybody.
• We should fire the bottom 1/3 of all teachers every year.

These points are the hallmark of true education reform. They bind together Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Chris Cristie, Arne Duncan, and myself.  Several forces of the status quo have naturally opposed these moves, but lately one of the worst critics has been Diane Ravitch.

READ ENTIRE PIECE AT: http://laststand4children.blogspot.com/
Why Does Diane Ravitch Hate Children?

Hot Stuff for Today

I'm off to the city to do a video shoot for this Manhattan Neighborhood Network TV show - Active Aging - that I work on. An artist in the Village. What else is new? I need to take a shower first- still feel dirty after seeing a great performance by Mark Rylance in Jerusalem last night - but 3 hours of watching people who are basically despicable? My wife is trying to find the meaning behind it. I don't really care that much. Worst part of the evening? The long line at Junior's at 10pm. I had spent the entire 3 hours dreaming of that cheese cake.


Diane Ravitch nails 'em again in this op ed in the NY Times:

OPINION   | June 01, 2011 Op-Ed Contributor:  Waiting for a School Miracle  By DIANE RAVITCH Be skeptical of stories of rapid educational transformation. Also check out this video recommended by Diane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55fhCi2dBag ------------ Michael Paul Goldenberg illustrates the Ravitch piece Please read the latest post at Rational Mathematics Education: An Open Letter to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan "According to news reports, press releases, and other records, from 2003 through late 2006 you lent your support to Spizzirri's organization in various ways, including appearing as an animated cartoon character on SALF's website. Subsequently, a November 2006 ABC7 I-Team story reported that SALF and Spizzirri engaged in a variety of serious misrepresentations. In that broadcast, you yourself raise doubts about SALF's claims. Since then, the organization has been the subject of dozens more media exposes including an October 11, 2010 article in The Hill reporting that SALF was under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau. An investigation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also appears to be underway. MORE at http://rationalmathed.blogspot.com/2011/06/open-letter-to-us-secretary-of.html ---------------- Here is Susan Ohanian's daily digest for today, stuff that will keep you busy: I know you'll want to see the two cartoons. One of them is related to Gus Garcia-Roberts' experience with a Florida diploma mill. This will be a classic: http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=697 And the other one is laugh-out loud funny: http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=696 What a relief to find something funny in these days of constant outrage and horror that pose as public education. Susan \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ To the editor Stephen Krashen New York Daily News 2011-05-30 http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1360 This letter is a wowser!! \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  I Cheated My Way Through High School Last Week  Gus Garcia-Roberts Miami New Times 2011-05-31 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=959 How is it that a student attending a legitimate high school for four years cannot get a diploma without passing the FCAT but this for-profit outfit can hand over a diploma with the only requirement being payment of $399? Take a look at exams that qualified him for the diploma. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Standards Supports for Teachers Eyed Stephen Sawchuk Education Week blog 2011-05-27 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=958  Another Gates-funded standards delivery system. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Avoiding the Poverty Issue Paul Thomas New York Times Online Room For Debate 2011-05-30 http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=957 New York Times online forum Room for Debate asked the question  What do we know about using student achievement tests to judge teacher performance? Paul Thomas was the only respondent who addressed the real issue.

Goin' to a Party

What could be a better birthday gift for a Real Reformer than going to a viewing party later tonight for Diane Ravitch's appearance on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show?" Well, it wasn't all too easy to make this happen and required more delicate negotiations than a Bloomberg/UFT contract. Or a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

You see, birthdays are a big thing for my wife and tonight she is taking me out to "One if by Land, Two if by Sea" on Barrow St. where I get to nibble on my yearly dose of Beef Wellington.

So, when Leonie announced Class Size Matters was hosting a viewing party tonight from 9:30-11:30 [NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE BELOW] with Diane as the guest at the Hotel Benjamin and since we'll be in the city anyway and since dinner will be over by 9 - hmmmmm.

I opened up negotiations with a woman who I am about to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary with - a woman who has had it up to here over my ed obsession even 9 years after I retired.

I was forceful: "It's my birthday," I whined.

I tried bribery: "You don't even have to get my birthday eclair this year." (I got 4 of them - yum.)

I was persuasive. "Leonie needs me to tape it."

I was suave. "Think how much more romantic I will be on our upcoming anniversary trip to Paris."

Finally, I used charm: "I'm spending 2 hours each way driving to Philly to visit your brother's daughter and granddaughter on Saturday. Don't I get something for doing it?"

See you tonight.

Ahhhh, the art of negotiation.

CHANGE OF VENUE TONIGHT:

The Club Room, Affinia Hotel

155 East 50th Street
New York, NY 10022
50th and 3^rd

An updated map is located here: http://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?ETID=3295

Related:
Alexander Russo tries to take down Ravitch - over changing her mind- but doesn't address the content of what she is saying.

Sharon left a comment:

At least Ravitch is willing to talk about the exceedingly high U.S. child poverty rate and its effects, and understands that urban public schools are dealing with an even higher proportion of suffering children from that group -- more now than ever before.
For some reason, Duncan, Obama, and the others don't seem to be willing to utter one meaningful word about the topic. Talk about having one's head in the sand!
Just under the warped, manipulative, and undemocratic approach of the big education "venture philanthropists" (Ravitch's Billionaire Boys Club framing is perfect), the biggest problem I have with the reformers is how they seem to live in a fantasy world where the effects of poverty don't matter. They seem to think public schools and their teachers are somehow powerful enough ("if they only tried!" - stomp feet, stomp feet, stomp feet) to overcome those effects. They come off as silly romantics who believe, in their heart of hearts, that EVERY single American child who suffers from the nightmare consequences of lifelong and generational poverty could become upper-middle class -- if only the teacher unions were all dead and charter schools reined the world. And if isn't happening fast enough, too many of these are people perfectly willing to resort to expressions of contempt.
I am so sick of Gates, Bloomberg, Rhee, Canada, Duncan, Oprah, Kopp, John Legend, etc. being given so much primetime airtime to spout off their side. At long last, tonight the world will get to hear a different point of view.
Maybe TDS should get started on lining up Richard Rothstein next.

I left this comment:

Content, content, content Alexander. I saw you at Ravitch's appearance at the Parents Across America event where she spoke for 38 minutes. She laid out a blueprint on the failures of the ed deform movement - boom, boom, boom. one after another. Now in this post you have not one word about the content but it's all about her changing her mind and how certain she is. Where do you stand on what she was saying? Why not address those points - What if I said the same things Diane does - which I do and I was a critic of hers before her conversion. I have always been certain. But so what if Ravitch saw the light? I put up a video of her at PAA - http://vimeo.com/19755379 maybe watch it again and address what she was saying, not her certainty in saying it.
And by the way, maybe I missed it but I didn't notice anything posted by you about that event. How about the Seattle, Chicago (which you should know) or the New Orleans story where parent "choice" has come down to KIPP or KIPP? Which by the way, many of we critics of charters have been predicting with much certainty is what the charter game is all about.

UPDATE Parents Across America

Last Update - Weds, Feb. 9, 9:45PM
NOTE UPDATED BROAD LIVING DEAD POSTER TO INCLUDE MORE TWEEDIES:

I found last night's PAA event organized by Leonie Haimson and parents from, well, across America, a powerful experience and a sense that the resistance to ed deform is growing.

Diane Ravitch, introduced by Leonie Haimson: 38 strong minutes:
http://vimeo.com/19755379

Here is an excellent 5 minutes from Julie Menin, chair of Community Board 1 in lower Manhattan with some comments from Leonie Haimson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieAYxCIC2I

More videos in this space as they are processed. I have to leave Diane Ravitch till tomorrow because it is almost 40 minutes and take hours.

I extracted some stills from the video.

Sharon Higgins, of awesome Perimeter Primate blog, Oakland

Karran Harper Royal, New Orleans

I am processing the video as fast as I can and will put up links in this post over the next day or two - I'll put a link at the top of the sidebar. I forgot to mention that our pals from Rochester who are battling former Klein slug and Broad Academy grad Jean Claude-Brizard were in the house last night - I met a bunch of them when they came to town on July 5 to protest mayoral control and held a demo at Malcolm Smith's Queens office. This time they were joined by teacher Mark Friedman who blogs at the Colorado-based Failing Schools blog.

And guess who was in the house? Remember that great blog Chancellors New Clothes? Both of them were there and it was to nice to see them. They are thinking of restarting the blog. Hope they do.

As I was watching one parent after another present the horror story of ed deform going on in their city, I felt I was watching a version of the Night of the Living Dead, starring graduates of the Broad Academy. A quick email to David Bellel and Voila:

Diane Ravitch Wins Moynihan Prize

Leonie Haimson Reports

Diane Ravitch was just selected as the 2011 recipient of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize, created by the American Academy of Political and Social Science to honor those individuals whose careers in the academic or public arena have been dedicated to the use of social science research to improve public policy.  The $20,000 prize was awarded in recognition of her long career of distinguished work on urban education as a researcher and public official.   More on the Prize here: http://www.aapss.org/the-moynihan-prize

Diane is a true public intellectual, someone who has engaged fully in the public arena in order to ensure that local, state, and federal education policy is informed by history, social science research and good sense.  She has also passionately advocated for the parent and teacher voice to be recognized in the national debate over education reform.   I can think of no one else in any field of public policy who is more esteemed, or who has made more of a contribution to the wider understanding of the history of public education and what should be done to ensure that all children receive a quality education.

Over the past few years, she has tirelessly written and travelled the country, cogently and persuasively arguing that the current craze for privatization and high-stakes accountability is neither research-based, nor an effective means to improve our public school system. Rather, she has pointed out how the imposition of these policies will further degrade opportunities for children, particularly the most disadvantaged students who reside in inner cities and other high-needs areas.

If it is indeed true that education is the civil rights issue of our generation, Diane is one of our most esteemed leaders in the struggle for the right of all children, no matter where they attend school, to be provided with a well-rounded and rich curriculum, high standards, small classes and experienced teachers – indeed, the same conditions as the elite have long demanded in the schools that their own children attend.

As John Dewey once wrote, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children".  Through her eloquence, vision, and scholarship, Diane has passionately and convincingly argued that our public school system should be strengthened, rather than undermined – so that it can provide for all the nation’s children the kind of education that the best and wisest parent wants for his or her own child.

I cannot imagine a more deserving candidate for this award.  Like Daniel Patrick Moynihan himself, Diane’s vision is entirely non-partisan, transcends ideology, and is based on the best evidence and scholarship, as opposed to the latest political fads or fancies. Her immense courage and honesty has impelled her to speak truth to power, whereas lesser individuals would keep quiet or repeat the delivered wisdom. 

More personally, Diane has been a mentor and a friend to me, as well as a personal inspiration, when I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the immense power and money of the oligarchy that has come to control education policy in this country.

She will receive the prize at an award ceremony in New York on June 2, 2011.

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/