Arne Duncan's Race to the Top is "The Carrot That Feels Like a Stick.”

Educator Diane Ravitch worked in the Bush Department of Education. She has completely turned against the current approach to education, and has been having much to say.

Ravitch on NCLB failures and the dangers of privatization.



"What if" is right. At the pace the movement to close public schools and open charter schools is progressing....it will be too late to fix this mistake.

Ravitch further believes that Bush would have tried to impose this agenda, but he did not have as much money....and the Democrats in Congress would have opposed it. So it was left to a Democratic president and a Democratic congress to get the privatization agenda through.

Diane Ravitch answers a blogger



She points out one reason that Obama will be more successful than Bush in getting this agenda through. There is far more money to give the schools that comply.



That is a whole lot of money.

Here is a quote from her article The Race to Nowhere



And from her book Bridging Differences...a quote I found at the blog of educator Susan Ohanian



The Broad, Gates, and Walmart corporations have unlimited money to wage the battle against public schools. They form and fund parent groups which work strongly against public education. They pay for advertising, a luxury not afforded the public schools.

I believe Diane Ravitch is right. The privatization of public schools is a fait accompli.

And that is truly a shame.

Newspapers are printing hit pieces on teachers and their unions to create doubt in the public mind. I don't know how to do this except stand out there with a sign. Do you have any other ideas?

They can be marked down on their evaluations. Right now fresh out of ideas. The other side is so powerful they have convinced most of DU convinced as well.

I appreciate these posts immensely, madfloridian. Even if I can't think about what to do with them right now.

They are so chickenshit as a group, it is sickening. All because of the gross power imbalance between principals and other administrators and teachers. They allow it to continue with their silence.

THIS is the REAL problem in public education. Teachers should be able to have free speech without having their careers destroyed.

If you are even so much as written up, the "disciplinary" crapola can follow you everywhere to all 13,000 school districts in the United States. Then you are open to being fired for all kinds of bogus reasons and can never teach again.

No other occupation or sector of the economy has systemwide blackballing. Only public education.

I said some critical words once at the teachers' table at lunch. It was reported to the principal, and I was told it annoyed other teachers to hear him criticized.

I lived by that credo. It didn't stop colleagues from lying about me at my termination hearing, but I always believed never to socialize with colleagues in any endeavor.

We were in a leadership team meeting talking about testing and the burden it was placing on our kids. I said we all needed to contact our reps and tell them to amend or throw out NCLB. My principal said "Oh, Proud, not EVERYTHING is political!"

as you and I are.

for Obama pushing for Republican-style "reforms" solely because Obama has a "D" after his name.

Outrageous.

Even if the man we fought for 2 years ago, never intended to fight with us.

I don't like large schools. To me they reek of prison atmosphere, constant ranking and depersonalization of students. Certainly that was the environment at my son's elementary, which is also huge. I attended a public school for only one year in my childhood (in Florida, by the way), and unfortunately it was academically a backwater compared to the Catholic school that I'd attended before and very inferior to the Catholic high school I went to thereafter. But do you defend large schools? I am completely against privatization (piratization!) of public schools, so I agree with you wholeheartedly there. But I wonder if you see a move toward smaller schools as an inherently bad thing. It's my understanding that the move toward very large high schools was decision directed not by parents or local communities, but by behind-the-scenes decision-makers in Washington for their own (probably corporate-driven) agenda.

Not only do large schools depersonalize students, but I suspect they also depersonalize teachers. Teachers ought to be in charge, not treated like serfs or pedagogues by tyrant-principals or by unaccountable bureaucracies.

Here is that quote:

"In the past few days, Chancellor Joel Klein has announced that he is closing nearly two dozen public schools. Some of these schools are the anchor in their communities; some have long histories as gateways for immigrant children. In recent years, the Department of Education decided that it does not like large high schools, so it has been closing them down and sending their lowest-performing students to other large high schools, which then have lower scores and more disciplinary incidents. Some of the large high schools were beyond saving, but most could have been improved by a thoughtful plan of action, including smaller classes, better supervision, and the kinds of resources that hedge-fund managers pour into "their" charter schools."

That was not the point, the largeness or smallness. It is about the futility of what they are doing. Instead of supporting public education they are closing schools, not fixing those that can be fixed. Instead of supporting public education they are making the issue so muddy that people do not understand what they are doing....turning schools over to private companies.

The issue is not the size of the school. It is what they are doing to public education.

Just like water companies and public highways..the private sector sees it as another opportunity to make a bundle. And in the case of schools, the added "benefit" is the ability to shape the minds of the future in ways that don't threaten the existing power brokers.
So what can we do? What is the most effective way to oppose this?

Parents brought the passage of laws to educate special education students because they attacked en-mass. They are the only ones who have the power, period. I am fighting in my state via my teachers union, but the politicians see the promise of money and they are not swayed by what will be best for kids. Parents are not involved in schools in this way. If their children seem to be doing OK at school they are happy and I don't fault them. They are overworked, over scared about everything, many are out of work.

Arne and Barrack will get their way in this and personally I hope it works, because I truly care about the kids and after 35 years of fighting, I'm tired and ready to say maybe they know something I do not. If you ask me this is the stupidest most foolhardy plan I have ever seen. How can privatizing schools, lowering the requirements to become a teacher, paying on a merit pay basis, and testing, testing, testing equate to better education???? It is just stupid, and slick.......but then they must know more than I do about education.....right???

There will be no education left for the masses and only education for the tiny number of wealthy.

That's the way these people want it, and they have bribed politicians to make it happen.

if they are run/funded properly. Some of the best colleges in the country are huge and i don't see anyone trying to shut them down. I attended one of the largest high schools in NYC, Tottenville High School. We had over 4,000 students and I didn't think it was a problem at all. We had great facilities and state of the art programs, like a dental assistant program, mechanic's garage, virtual enterprise program, academy of finance, science institute, humanities institute, a actual small-scale supermarket in the school for students with learning disabilities to train in, among many other excellent programs. I also think larger schools prepare students better for university/the real world by introducing them to a wider diversity of people. I also disagree that it depersonalizes students. There are more students, and thus more groups one can fit into. For example, if you are goth skateboarder but you like to do well in school you can probably find others to identify with in a bigger school rather than a smaller one.

as an organizing principle for our mass institutions.. Someone posted some poetry here a day or two ago, a blog, and it talked about being in favor of "dignitarianism" instead of "rankism". I thought that might be hitting the nail on the head toward a lot of issues in our society today.

:toast:

Bush couldn't have passed this sort of measure without opposition from the Dems. But now that it's the Obama administration doing this, hey, the shredding of our public school system can continue and grow.

One more reason that I won't be voting for Obama again in '12, this issue effects me personally and I can't simply give my implied acquiescence by voting for the man again.

and Republicans to get it over the top with a ready and willing Democratic President to sign it into law.

Sadly, the only way to stop this is that both enough Democrats will rebel against this crap and enough Republicans hate any form of public education enough to oppose any Federal effort whatsoever, even if it is actually fitting with their goals. My feeling though is that there will be wide "bipartisan" support of no less than 30 Republicans willing to work with the President and that between the stooges and some automatically loyal Democrats to shoot this garbage on through.

has been so prolonged and powerful that I don't think we can stop it. It is like a machine, a steam roller.

That is all.:headbang: :yourock:

He's big on charter schools, merit pay, standardized testing, and every other thing that USED to be anathema to Democrats, to liberals, to anybody who cares about democracy.

Privatization of public education is happening at an astonishing speed.

Take a look over at the education forum; there are dozens and dozens of threads about the wrongheaded turn this country is taking on education.

It can no longer be pinned on Bush.

And I'm getting even more scared about the lack of outcry from way too many on the left about it because they

a) don't want to believe Obama would pull this BS.
b) don't want to give ammo to the right.

We're in BIG trouble on this. He's doing something the far-right has been salivating over and he's getting away with it because liberals aren't making a big enough deal about this!

:kick:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/4966

"Three years into his first term Mr. Reagan's criticism of public education reached a crescendo when he hand picked a "blue ribbon" commission that wrote a remarkably critical and far-reaching denunciation of public education. Called "A Nation At Risk," this document charged that the US risked losing the economic competition among nations due to a "... rising tide of (educational) mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people." (The commissioners did not consider the possibility that US firms were uncompetitive because of corporate mismanagement, greed and short sightedness.)After "A Nation At Risk" the nation's public schools were fair game for every ambitious politician or self-important business boss in the country. Its publication prompted a flood of follow-up criticism of public education as "blue ribbon" and "high level" national commissions plus literally hundreds of state panels wrote a flood of reform reports. Most presupposed that the charges made by Mr. Reagan's handpicked panel were true. Oddly though, throughout this entire clamor, parental confidence in the school's their children attended remained remarkably high. Meanwhile Mr. Reagan was quietly halving federal aid to education.

That sums up Mr. Reagan's educational legacy. As governor and president he demagogically fanned discontent with public education, then made political hay of it. As governor and president he bashed educators and slashed education spending while professing to valued it. And as governor and president he left the nation's educators dispirited and demoralized."

of public schools and formed private academies. They also began pressuring their reps for financial aid for their private schools. Reagan and his crew knew that wouldn't fly so they began dismantling public education instead.