Information provided by USA Today - Greg Toppo
Over several decades, Ravitch says, American schools have essentially lost their way, forgetting to focus on giving students a solid curriculum and strong teachers. Instead, she says, we've bumbled through a series of crises that have left us with "vague and meaningless standards," an odd, antagonistic public-private competition and an "obsession" with test scores.
"If the goal of schooling is to produce educated people, we've lost sight of that goal," she says in an interview.
Ravitch says charter schools, privately run but publicly funded, cherry-pick a neighborhood's best students and kick out under-performers, forcing surrounding public schools to teach a depleted talent pool.
It's a far cry from the vision of Albert Shanker, the late American Federation of Teachers leader who championed charter schools in the late 1980s. Shanker, she says, envisioned charters as small "laboratories of innovation" within existing public schools. What they've become, she says, is a privatized sector that competes with the public school and in some cases wants to "kill" it.
To read the entire USA Today article, click on the link below.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-10-ravitchbook10_st_N.htm
Delmar DustPan: A Day In The Garden
2 weeks ago
16 comments:
BIG TIME.
Unfortunately America has lost its way. Schools are a reflection of America as a whole. Too often people point at schools as 'failing', 'underperforming', etc... when in fact American families, communities and cities are 'failing' and 'underperforming'. Read the NJ everyday about the communities that are under seige with murder, gunfire, unemployment and teen pregnancy.. does anyone really expect the majority of kids ffrom those areas to perform?
"obsessed with test scores" Amen to that brother. Anyone who wants to see some sheer idiocy stop by your local school and watch a bunch of kids taking the DSTP these next few days! --For many of these kids it borders on state mandated child abuse. You can't believe it unless you see it yourself!
Yes, we should expect all kids to perform, even when it is hard. The fact that some assume that kids in poverty can't perform is part of the problem. Continuing to rely on the same tired model to try to raise their performance also may be part of the problem. If something isn't working, you don't just keeping doing the same thing over and over and hope it works. You have to adapt and realize they have different needs and may need a different educational approach to succeed. A charter can cultivate that, but a regular public school shouldn't be inhibited from doing that, either. If our system prevents a regular public school from adopting a model of education that suits its population, that's a problem.
Totally agree with anon 8:29 AM. Great comment!
I agree with these comments strongly and I have become a huge fan of Diane Ravitch - very proud she is a professor at my alma mater.
However, I think if we are going to address this problem, we need to get it right with ourselves as parents/teachers/citizens: yes, there are ghettoes that appear to be the only ones failing, but it is not a failure isolated to those communities. It is a failure of the wider society of which we are ALL a part, ghettoes and privileged communities alike.
Those of us who are not actively seeking to be a part of the solution (and there are many many ways to do this within your comfort level), are a part of perpetrating the problem.
It's high time for a wake up call - the failure of a whole segment of our society is going to affect everyone. How far away from them do you think you can really run?
I think there are new models being tried all the time...unfortunately, they seem to be limited to charters rather than the traditional schools for the general population. Again, they are "succeeding" by cherry-picking. The main excuse I have heard for trying new models under charters is because they allow for avoidance of the teachers' union, which has been resistant to change and accountability in underperforming schools - this was a major point those of us who attended the UD panels (when Arne Duncan spoke) last year came away with...does anyone know how true this is?
the thing that absolutely no one wants to hear is that to address the problems of education (and maybe with the rest of our decaying society as well) there has to be a ton of money involved. You can't cure schools that teach high poverty kids on a shoestring budget. You have to get rid of some of the ivory tower beauracracy and let people create well funded, well staffed programs that start from the ground up. NCLB has left millions behind. The standards and test scores movement have damaged a generation of kids.
"You can't cure schools that teach high poverty kids on a shoestring budget."
Bull!!! You don't need a lot of money to do a good job, just concentrated effort. The successful charter schools sure don't have much money, but they succeed. The answer is to educate, not indoctrinate, children, and that doesn't take big bucks, just smart spending,
I do not think the major problem in education is the lack of money, we need each person to be responsible.
"The main excuse I have heard for trying new models under charters is because they allow for avoidance of the teachers' union, which has been resistant to change and accountability in underperforming schools."
This is a common and unfortunate myth. I am the president of a local teacher union, the second largest in the state. Our local and state unions have been supporting change for years. Teacher unions are often agents of change. Generally, most teachers believe that what is good for kids is good for teachers. Delaware teachers had been involved in education reform for years, before any of us ever heard of V2015 and Arne Duncan.
We are committed to fairness, equity, and reasonable change. Asking teachers to accept that a majority of their evaluation as effective teachers be based upon student DSTP scores did not seem reasonable, fair or equitable.
I am a 6th grade science teacher. The nature of my classes changes dramatically from year to year. I can guarantee that I always have a full range of student abilities, from top-performing students to average kids to students with well-below average skills and knowledge. I also have my share of special needs students--about 10-15% of my total. I have kids who know how to "do school" as well as kids who sometimes appear as if they have never before been in a classroom. I have students who require much teacher intervention and accommodation in order to succeed. I have kids with strong and effective parent support and others whose families never respond to our requests for assistance or attention to the child's needs. I have kids who arrive from every one of Red Clay's 15 elementary schools, plus kids from private and parochial schools. I have kids with perfect attendance and kids who have been out more days in any one marking period than they have been in my classes.
How could we allow a system where one giant test could identify me as effective or not effective from year to year with all of these factors coming into play. Not fair--certainly not equitable across all of our schools, and not reasonable.
Teachers do not mind being held accountable. Most of us have a strong and urgent sense of accountability every day to our students and their parents. Teachers demand accountability of our leaders both in school and in the wider education community. We don't often get it, but it is in the forefront of our thinking.
""You can't cure schools that teach high poverty kids on a shoestring budget."
Bull!!! You don't need a lot of money to do a good job, just concentrated effort. The successful charter schools sure don't have much money, but they succeed."
Which are the successful charters operating on a shoestring with truly high-need/high-risk students?
I think everyone can agree that while assessment is necessary, testing is doing much more harm than good to the kids and the teachers. The new test isn't going to look much different is it? But I heard there were proposals of more nuanced assessments of progress, at that same Arne Duncan event...I really hope there is truth in that.
I just saw this posted by Bill Gates on Twitter and wanted to share it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?em
anonymous at 6:50 has no idea what he is talking about. The article in question states: 'Charters skim from the top leaving a depleted talent pool" --
I assume 6:50 has never taught a class of kids who live a hectic life, live in an area of high crime, murder and gunfire. These kids need lots and lots of resources. 6:50 should spend a few days in a high poverty school before speaking.
Public money follows the kids to charter schools. Each kid at a charter brings the same amount of per student $$ to the charter as they would have brought to a community public school. High poverty schools in both community public schools and charter schools--which are PUBLIC SCHOOLS (do not forget)--get additional federal monies through awards like Title I. In some ways, no one should be operating on a shoestring in Delaware.
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