Duncan and Obama are wrong to praise the firing of all the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island
[Editor's note. Many of us here at Substance are waiting to receive copies of Diane Ravitch's new book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" (which was published this week). We will find someone to review it when it arrives. It's a strange feeling, though, to be returning to her work after nearly two decades of watching her on the "other side" of most of the major debates on the future of pubic education. Our readers need to remember that Diane Ravitch not only ignored the resistance to high-stakes testing and the so-called "standards and accountability" movement for two decades — she was one of the most powerful intellectual apoligists for the destruction of the public schools from the late 1980s until just recently. Of course, she didn't see it that way and will undoubtedly try to ignore a great deal of what she did, but without the support of intellectuals like Diane Ravitch, the attacks on public schools could never have gotten "traction" during the 1990s and early 21st Century. Her record is vast, and few surpassed her both in her promotion of "standards and accountability" and in her attacks on those of us who opposed the madness. After all, it was as a Deputy Secretary of Education that Diane Ravitch tried to suppress the Sandia Report and helped launch the annual "Bracey Report" by Gerald W. Bracey, our late friend and colleague. Long before that era, however, many of us read Diane Ravitch's historical work — on New York City's public schools for the most part — as part of what we needed to study to understand the complexity of what we were facing. So, today Substance publishes a fine essay on the absurdity of the current U.S. "Education Reform" policies of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan while we await the arrival of the book. Readers who wish to read Diane Ravitch's Web site can access it via Google. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance, March 3, 2010.].
FIRST, LET'S FIRE ALL THE TEACHERS! By Diane Ravitch
Imagine that you are a teacher in a high school in a high-poverty district. Many of your students don't speak English. Some don't attend school regularly because they have to earn money or babysit with their siblings while their parents are looking for work. Some come to school unprepared because they didn't do their homework.
But you are idealistic and dedicated, you work with each of the students, you do your best to teach them reading, writing, science, math, history, whatever your subject. But despite your best efforts, many of your students can't read very well (they are struggling to learn English), and many of them don't graduate. If your school eliminated all its standards, you could easily push up the graduation rate.
About 45 minutes away is another high school in a much better neighborhood. Its statistics are far better than yours. The children are almost all born in the U.S., and their parents are almost all college graduates with good jobs. Their kids don't go to school hungry, they have their own room and their own computer, and they have stellar test scores to boot. Their graduation rate is very impressive, and most of their graduates go to college.
What is to be done about the first school? President George W. Bush signed a law called "No Child Left Behind," which required constant improvement. The Obama administration wants to rename the law but they too reject any excuses for low performance and low graduation rates.
Recently, the school committee of Central Falls, Rhode Island, voted to fire all 93 members of the staff in their low-performing high school. Central Falls is the smallest and poorest city in the state, and it has only one high school. Those fired included 74 classroom teachers, plus the school psychologist, guidance counselors, reading specialists, and administrators.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan thought this was wonderful; he said the members of the school committee were "showing courage and doing the right thing for kids."
The kids apparently didn't agree because many of them came to the committee meeting to defend their teachers.
President Obama thought it was wonderful that every educator at Central Falls High School was fired. At an appearance before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on March 1, the President applauded the idea of closing the school and getting rid of everyone in it. At the same meeting, President Obama acknowledged Margaret Spellings, who was President George W. Bush's Education Secretary, because she "helped to lead a lot of the improvement that's been taking place and we're building on."
Well, yes, the President is right; his own education reform plans are built right on top of the shaky foundation of President Bush's No Child Left Behind program. The fundamental principle of school reform, in the Age of Bush and Obama, is measure and punish. If students don't get high enough scores, then someone must be punished! If the graduation rate hovers around 50%, then someone must be punished. This is known as "accountability."
President Obama says that Central Falls must close because only 7% of the students are proficient in math, and the graduation rate is only 48%. Sounds bad, right?
But the President has saluted a high school in Providence, Rhode Island, called "The Met" whose scores are no different from the scores at Central Falls High School. At Central Falls, 55 % of the kids are classified as "proficient readers," just like 55% at The Met. In math, only 7% of students at Central Falls are proficient in math, but at The Met--which the President lauds — only 4% are proficient in math. Ah, but The Met has one big advantage over Central Falls High Schools: Its graduation rate is 75.6%.
But figure this one out: How can a high school where only 4% of the students are proficient in math and only 55% are proficient readers produce a graduation rate of 75.6%? To this distant observer, it appears that the school with lower graduation standards rates higher in President Obama's eyes.
President Obama has said on several occasions that he wants to see 5,000 low-performing schools closed. So, yes, there will be plenty of teachers and principals looking for new jobs.
The question that neither President Obama nor Secretary Duncan has answered is this: Where will they find 5,000 expert principals to take over the schools that are closed? Where will they find hundreds of thousands of superb teachers to fill the newly vacant positions? Or will everyone play musical chairs to give the illusion of reform?
As it happens, Central Falls High School had seen consistent improvement over the past two years. Only last year, the State Commissioner sent in a team to look at the school and commended its improvements. It noted that the school had been burdened by frequently changing programs and leadership. With more support from the district and the state, this improvement might have continued. Instead, the school was given a death warrant.
Will it be replaced by a better school? Who knows? Will excellent teachers flock to Central Falls to replace their fired colleagues? Or will it be staffed by inexperienced young college graduates who commit to stay at the school for two years? Will non-English-speaking students start speaking English because their teachers were fired? Will children come to school ready to learn because their teachers were fired?
It would be good if our nation's education leaders recognized that teachers are not solely responsible for student test scores. Other influences matter, including the students' effort, the family's encouragement, the effects of popular culture, and the influence of poverty. A blogger called "Mrs. Mimi" wrote the other day that we fire teachers because "we can't fire poverty." Since we can't fire poverty, we can't fire students, and we can't fire families, all that is left is to fire teachers.
This strategy of closing schools and firing the teachers is mean and punitive. And it is ultimately pointless. It solves no problem. It opens up a host of new problems. It satisfies the urge to purge. But it does nothing at all for the students.
Diane Ravitch is the author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (Basic Books).
NEW YORK TIME ON RAVITCH'S CHANGE (March 2, 2010).
Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate By SAM DILLON Published: March 2, 2010
Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling.
“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’” DIANE RAVITCH, education historian and a former assistant secretary of education.
Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.
“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an > interview.
Dr. Ravitch is one of the most influential education scholars of recent decades, and her turnaround has become the buzz of school policy circles. > > “What’s Diane up to? That’s what people are asking.” said Grover J. > Whitehurst, who was the director of the Department of Education’s > research arm in the second Bush administration and is now Dr. > Ravitch’s > colleague at the Brookings Institution. > > Among the topics on which Dr. Ravitch has reversed her views is the > main > federal law on public schools, No Child Left Behind, which is up for a > rewrite in coming weeks in Congress. She once supported it, but now > says > its requirements for testing in math and reading have squeezed vital > subjects like history and art out of classrooms. > > Dr. Ravitch’s new posture has angered critics. > > “She has done more than any one I can think of in America to drive > home > the message of accountability and charters and testing,” said Arthur > E. > Levine, a former president of Teachers College, where Dr. Ravitch got > her doctorate and began her teaching career in the 1970s. “Now for her > to suddenly conclude that she’s been all wrong is extraordinary — and > not very helpful.” > > Admirers say she is returning to her roots as an advocate for public > education. She rose to prominence in the 1970s with books defending > the > civic value of public schools from attacks by left-wing detractors, > who > were calling them capitalist tools to indoctrinate working-class > children. > > “First she angered the Marxist historians, and later the fans of > progressive education and the multiculturalists,” said Jeffrey E. > Mirel, > a professor of education and history at the University of Michigan. > “But > she’s always defended public schools and a robust traditional > curriculum, because she believes they’ve been a ladder of social > mobility.” > > Dr. Ravitch was born in Texas and graduated from Wellesley. She gained > formidable influence during the Republican-dominated 1980s. In her > meticulous office on the top floor of a 19th-century Brooklyn > brownstone > hangs a photograph of herself, seated next to Vice President Bush > during > a visit to the White House, directly across from President Ronald > Reagan. > > In 1991, Lamar Alexander, the first President Bush’s secretary of > education, made her an assistant secretary, a post she used to lead a > federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic > standards. > > Since leaving government in 1993, Dr. Ravitch has been a > much-sought-after policy analyst and research scholar, quoted in > hundreds of articles on American education. And she has written five > books, including “Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform” > (2001) and “The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What > Students Learn” (2003), an influential examination of the censorship > of > school books by left- and right-wing pressure groups. > > In her new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School > System,” she describes the bipartisan consensus that took root in the > early 1990s, with her support, and has held sway since. > > “The new thinking saw the public school system as obsolete, because it > is controlled by the government,” she writes. “I argued that certain > managerial and structural changes — that is, choice, charters, merit > pay > and accountability — would help to reform our schools.” > > In January 2001, Dr. Ravitch was at the White House to hear President > George W. Bush outline his vision for No Child Left Behind, which > Congress approved with bipartisan majorities and which became law in > 2002. > > “It sounded terrific,” she recalled in the interview. > > There were signs soon after, however, that her views were changing. > She > had endorsed mayoral control of New York City schools before Mayor > Michael R. Bloomberg obtained it in 2002, but by 2004 she had > emerged as > a fierce critic. Some said she was nursing a grudge because close > friends had lost jobs in the mayor’s shake-up of the schools’ > bureaucracy. > > In 2005, she said, a study she undertook of Pakistan’s weak and > inequitable education system, dominated by private and religious > institutions, convinced her that protecting the United States’ public > schools was important to democracy. > > She remembers another date, Nov. 30, 2006, when at a Washington > conference she heard a dozen experts conclude that the No Child law > was > not raising student achievement. > > These and other experiences left her increasingly disaffected from the > choice and accountability movements. Charter schools, she concluded, > were proving to be no better on average than regular schools, but in > many cities were bleeding resources from the public system. Testing > had > become not just a way to measure student learning, but an end in > itself. > > “Accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising > standards > but dumbing down the schools,” she writes. “The effort to upend > American > public education and replace it with something that was market-based > began to feel too radical for me.” > > She said she began to feel estranged intellectually from close > colleagues. > > One she heard criticize the No Child law was Chester E. Finn Jr., a > former assistant secretary of education with whom she had written a > book > and worked at two conservative research groups, the Thomas B. Fordham > Institute and the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution at > Stanford > University. > > They were ideological soul mates and just plain chums. Often over the > last decade, they were on the phone together or exchanging e-mail > messages half a dozen times a day. But although Mr. Finn had become > critical of the No Child law, he remained an advocate of charter > schools > and school choice. > > By 2008, Mr. Finn said, “there were more and more issues where the > staff > and everybody else on the Fordham board would say, ‘Let’s do A,’ and > Diane would say, ‘Let’s do B.’ ” > > Finally, she recalled, “I told everybody at a dinner meeting at Koret > that I was going to resign, and they all said, ‘Come on, stay — we > need > somebody to argue with us.” Dr. Ravitch stayed on for a time, but left > both organizations last spring. > > Mr. Finn has done his own rethinking, and he said he shared many of > her > disappointments. > > “Standards, in many places, have proven nebulous and low,” he writes > in > a coming essay. “ ‘Accountability’ has turned to test-cramming and > bean-counting, often limited to basic reading and math skills.” > > But Mr. Finn has reached sharply different conclusions from Dr. > Ravitch. > > “Diane says, ‘Let’s return to the old public school system,’ ” he > said. > “I say let’s blow it up.” > > But Dr. Ravitch is finding many supporters. She told school > superintendents at a convention in Phoenix last month that the United > States’ educational policies were ill-conceived, compared with those > in > nations with the best-performing schools. > > “Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates > for > teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them > with > respect,” she said. “They make sure that all their students study the > arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the > sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to > ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.” > > The superintendents gave Dr. Ravitch a standing ovation. > > “We totally agreed with what she had to say,” said Eugene G. White, > superintendent of the Indianapolis Public Schools. “We were amazed to > see that she’d changed her tune.” >
Comments:
By: Paul A. Moore
Ravitch's Book
The corporate assault on the public schools began in earnest coming out of the Business Roundtable's education summit meeting at the National Governors Conference in 1989. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a part of that corporate assault since its formation. It does not "rely on business principles to improve schools" it seeks to advance the interests of its business, namely the Microsoft Corporation, in the schools. It is the reason for the pathological pedagogy called "data driven education" which has spread like a cancer across the public school landscape (private schools don't bother with such nonsense). There isn't the slightest concern for this nation's children, it's all about the bottom line at Microsoft.
Diane Ravitch is a thoughtful, honest, and rational intellectual who deserves to be accorded great respect. But as she makes her turn away from "market oriented policies" it will turn out to be too late. As Al Gore has discovered and written about in his latest book, rationality and reason no longer hold any sway in the corporate-state that the USA has become. The possibility of addressing global warming or reforming the public schools is itself now "history". We're in the era of mass firings at Central Falls in Rhode Island and pronouncements like "Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans' schools".
Bush's Paige/Spellings and now Obama's Duncan are taking their turns rearranging the educational deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg is still dead ahead.
The economy of the United States is now fully devoted to war and no longer has the capacity to maintain a functioning public school system. The District and every state in the Union faces a deepening hole in their budgets. Unemployed people stop paying income taxes. Foreclosed upon people stop paying property taxes. No wealth is created in this country today so there's nothing to tax. Nothing of value is made in the United States anymore!
Nothing that is except weapons of war. War making is the only "healthy" sector of the US economy left, which is why were staying in Iraq, escalating in Afghanistan, and expanding the fight to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But an ability to deliver bombs from drone aircraft on people around the world will not rescue a broken economy.
Duncan's Race to the Top funny money is hot off the FED's printing presses. Whatever real wealth that hasn't been turned over to the banks or earmarked for keeping our Chinese creditors happy is devoted to war making and the weapons trade. The steadily accelerating destruction of public education in the United States is the result.
By: George N. Schmidt
Obama, Duncan, RTTT, are Anti American
Now that I've gotten the book, hopefully I'll have the time to read it while joyfully updating the news and analysis here every day. I still find it ironic that Diane Ravitch has come back to the side of democracy and public schools after being one of the architects of the program to destroy public service, public schools, and the democracy we bring. But I remember the days I organized against the war in the "G.I. Movement" and reminded myself that the men and women who were the backbone of the movement inside the U.S. military to end the Vietnam War were the men and women who enlisted in the Army (and other services) because they believed the lies. Their conversion, when they realized they'd been lied to, was fierce and absolute. "Sir No Sir!" finally does justice to that fact and ends the illusion that short timers and draftees were the reason for the fierce resistance to the imperial adventure in Vietnam.
Having been an activist for more than 40 years, I thought I would at least have seen most of it (you never see "it all").
So much for that. We're facing a new time, and so soon after all those tears of "Hope" here in Chicago in Grant Park in November 2008. Betrayal is the only word that comes to mind. This is more than disappointment.
But the scramble for "Race to the Top" dollars reminds me of the cruel tourists you sould see in some Third World countries who would throw a quarter into a crowd of child beggars and then watch them scramble for the coin. The people who are running the current attacks on public schools (and the broader attacks on democracy) are that kind of sadists and racists, from Arne Duncan on.
Lately, because my two younger sons are interested in it, I've been studying (again) the Second World War and my parents' role in it. As Barack Obama once said (in a Chicago speech that my wife Sharon and son Sam were at), we can't be against all wars — just bad ones and stupid ones. There may be no "good war", but some are necessary. The two imperial wars currently being carried out by Obama are not examples of those.
But there are still men and women who fought for real reasons, and good ones, even as they admitted and never forgot the horror that every war is. One of the items I carry now (and have explained to my sons) is the medal my parents, both of whom saw World War II combat. My father served in the infantry in Europe. My mother served with the Army Nurse Corps on Okinawa throughout the entire battle, from Kamikazees through the last "cleaning" out of the caves and tunnels into late September 1945. Both were proud of their "service" and reminded us that public service is never easy, and should be honored.
Every soldier who served in World War Two received a service medal. The medal soldiers received had the "Four Freedoms" written on the back. It reads:
"Freedom from fear and want.
"Freedom of speech and religion."
It didn't say "freedom of entrepreneurship" or "freedom for greed." They certainly didn't promote a "race to the top" because every man and woman who actually served knew men who lived but would never "race" again, and every veterans hospital still holds some of those men. The entire notion that life is some kind of silly macho "race" was odious to men and women who learned that massive service and cooperation were what made this country worth living in, and in many cases dying for.
While imperial America may today be a militarized state (and economy), it's important to remember the history.
The men and women who defeated fascism and imperial Japan were not fighting for 'market share' or the right to become greedy 'entrepreneurs.' In fact, it was only when their generation (and the vision) receded that the nut case versions of the American purpose were able to seize the media heights and command such obnoxious thinking as "An Army of One" or a perverted vision of reality that views disasters, from Katrina to Port au Prince to Chile, as "investment opportunities."
The ideology currently in command is facsist — the corporate state — and the men who spout it are doing the same work our fathers and mothers fought to defeat.
Arne Duncan's program is not merely an attack on public schools, it is an attack on what has made this country decent for generations. He has been denigrating public service and public servants his entire career, only when he was doing it here in Chicago he could mask it because of the craven support he received from corporate Chicago and the cover given him by Chicago's corporate media. From time to time, perverts like Duncan and his boss seize power — for a time — not only here, but in other nations as well. They have to be resisted, as we are seeing and doing. But they have to be stopped, not just argued with. Their cynicism is beyond the reach of reason. We had a front row seat to the viciousness of Arne Duncan throughout his career here.
But I personally believe that their philosophy and the programs they are pushing (including "Race To The Top") are not merely Un-American, but
Anti American.
No democracy can survive by destroying its public services, denigrating its public servants, and undermining its public schools. That's what this generation's confrontations will be about, and yesterday (March 4, 2010) was a good beginning.
For us in Chicago, our responsibility is to narrate how 15 years of "mayoral control" — local fascism — and the hypocrisy of the city's leaders (not just Duncan, but the media and corporate people who created him) created this monster that has now been loosed on the rest of the USA thanks to the landing of this generation's "Chicago Boys" in Washington, D.C. Let's never forget that this script was followed before, following that other September 11 — September 11, 1973, when Henry Kissinger and corporate America established the "free market" fascism of Augusto Pinochet over the people of Chile. Like this one, that one had its brain trust here in Chicago.
By: Margaret Wilson
retired teacher/parent
George, I agree with you completely. I supported Obama as the lesser of the evils and held out some hope that he would care about teachers, students and parents but he has proved to be a traitor to all three. I always find your information very interesting.
By: Sharon Schmidt
Finally, something funny regarding this (Bill Maher's piece)
FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010
New Rule: Let's Not Fire the Teachers When Students Don't Learn -- Let's Fire the Parents
Last week President Obama defended the firing of every single teacher in a struggling high school in a poor Rhode Island neighborhood. And the kids were outraged. They said, "Why blame our teachers?" and "Who's President Obama?" I think it was Whitney Houston who said, "I believe that children are our future - teach them well and let them lead the way." And that's the last sound piece of educational advice this country has gotten - from a crack head in the '80's.
Yes, America has found its new boogeyman to blame for our crumbling educational system. It's just too easy to blame the teachers, what with their cushy teachers' lounges, their fat-cat salaries, and their absolute authority in deciding who gets a hall pass. We all remember high school - canning the entire faculty is a nationwide revenge fantasy. Take that, Mrs. Crabtree! And guess what? We're chewing gum and no, we didn't bring enough for everybody.
But isn't it convenient that once again it turns out that the problem isn't us, and the fix is something that doesn't require us to change our behavior or spend any money. It's so simple: Fire the bad teachers, hire good ones from some undisclosed location, and hey, while we're at it let's cut taxes more. It's the kind of comprehensive educational solution that could only come from a completely ignorant people.
Firing all the teachers may feel good - we're Americans, kicking people when they're down is what we do - but it's not really their fault. Now, undeniably, there are some bad teachers out there. They don't know the material, they don't make things interesting, they have sex with the same kid every day instead of spreading the love around... But every school has crappy teachers. Yale has crappy teachers - they must, they gave us George Bush.
According to all the studies, it doesn't matter what teachers do. Although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child's academic success is parental involvement. It doesn't even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards.
It's also been proven that just having books in the house makes a huge difference in a child's development. If your home is adorned with nothing but Hummel dolls, DVD's, and bleeding Jesuses, congratulations, you've just given your children the gift of Duh. Sarah Palin said recently she wrote on her hand because her father used to do it. I rest my case.
When there are no books in the house, and there are no parents in the house, you know who raises the kids? That's right, the television. Kids aren't keeping up with their studies; they're keeping up with the Kardashians. We're allowing the television, as babysitter, to turn us into a nation of slutty idiots. By the way, one sign your 9-year-old may be watching too much One Tree Hill: if she has an imaginary friend with benefits.
POSTED BY BILL MAHER AT 11:10 PM
http://therealbillmaher.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-rule-lets-not-fire-teachers-when.html
By: Karen Lewis
With Baited Breath
I am also waiting for Ravitch's book. I got an email saying it had been shipped, but it hasn't made it here. I was hoping it would be here by tomorrow so that I can take it to the Delegate Training on Saturday. Seems like they'll be playing Randi Weingarten's sellout speech, "A New Path Forward" - also the title and theme of the "workshop". I'll probably have an opportunity to get a lot of good reading (the table of contents alone had me salivating)reading done while Ms. Weingarten tells us how to tie test scores in with our evaluations.