Now, I have to start this post by saying I love my mom. I really do. She is great. But, I often worry that either a) she does not really understand what her son does; b) she has started to "lose it" as she gets on in her years; or, most likely, c) as my older brother would say, "she's just tryin' to start stuff."
The article, from the Washington Post and called "Three books about education" basically tries to paint President Obama's education reform agenda as a power-grab disguised as part of a stimulus package. This, of course, is true. Everyone knows this. I don't get why she's actin' surprised. Second, she claims that Obama's Race to the Top winners are those that are willing to adopt the most radical of reform packages. She claims that the states that won the competition are those that are willing to "privatize education, pick on the poor teachers, and tear-down the beacon of American hopes and dreams: the neighborhood school" (my translation).
Finally, she shares three books that SHE thinks we should look to when engaging in the national discussion on education reform.
I laughed. Then I cried a little bit. Then I sent my mom the following e-mail:
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From: Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 7:33 PM
To: karen.smith@
Subject: RE: A washingtonpost.com article from: karen.smith@
Hi Mom!
Thanks for sending this along. I hadn't seen it, but given it's union/higher ed slant I'm not surprised that it hasn't made its way around the Teach For America network. :)
I think Ravitch makes some decent points, but they are supported by such strong union buffs that it's hard for me to give it much credence. Linda Darling-Hammond, of course, is one of the single biggest adversaries of Teach For America and has been for a long time. I don't give her much credence. Here are the two things I know about LDH:
1. About 10 years ago she released a crack-pot study done on Teach For America that used sample sizes as small as 2 or 3 corps members, was never peer-reviewed before being published, and conflated the difference between teacher certification and teacher experience. The Education Journal Education Next did a survey of the studies about TFA. In terms of quality LDH's study received a "C": http://www.teachforamerica.org/about/research.htm#card
2. LDH and her crony friends at Stanford's School of Education believed that they could "do it better" than KIPP and Teach For America, so they started their own charter school. Like Ravitch says in her article, they did not track student achievement (as supposedly Finland does not) and didn't really hold very high expectations for their students. I'm guessing she used some of these "flat-world education strategies" written about in her book. Last year, that school was placed on the state's list of "persistently lowest-achieving schools" and was denied a 5-year extension of its charters because upon review, no one could tell that any real learning had gone on there. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/education/16sfcharter.html
I don't know much about Veltri, but the title of her book is both incendiary and silly. While our teachers certainly DO learn on the job, its clear that students learn from our teachers. Any good study done on TFA shows that.
In fact, The University of North Carolina recently completed a study of pathways into teaching in North Carolina. The objective was to better understand the effects on student achievement of graduates of the UNC teacher-preparation system—which is the leading provider of teachers in the state—compared with teachers from other pathways, including Teach For America. At every grade level and subject studied, Teach For America corps members did as well as or better than the traditionally prepared UNC graduates. Teach For America corps members had a greater impact on student achievement than traditionally prepared UNC graduates in middle school math and in high school math, science, and English. http://publicpolicy.unc.edu/?q=CIPP/Publications
The best argument seems to be that of Rothstein, because it's tough to argue that we don't want all of our kids getting a well-rounded education. At the same time, what good is it that our kids can sing, paint, draw, etc. if they can't decode words or do simple arithmetic? I think ALL of our kids should be exposed to a broad curriculum. Still, I want them to be able to read and write first.
I guess the most concerning thing about his book is that if you look at who writes the positive editorial reviews on the book, they're done by the former president of the country's largest teacher's union, the head of an organization that's set up to run colleges and universities of education in New England, a professor at the University of Michigan's School of Education (Susan B. Neuman), and Bella Rosenberg, a former secretary of Education but now serves as special advisor to Randi Weingarten who is the current president of the AFT. http://tinyurl.com/25jq4dh
Which, brings me back to my point that the article sounds like the typical propaganda spewed by the union and schools of education who, of course, are lovers of the status-quo (and think that the way things are are pretty good). http://tinyurl.com/qu6l9s
Diane Ravitch, of course, is a professor at a school of education. She has her own website and her curriculum vitae can be found here: www.dianeravitch.com/vita.html
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About 30 seconds later I sent her this e-mail:
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From: Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 7:34 PM
To: karen.smith@
Subject: RE: A washingtonpost.com article from: karen.smith@
Ps.
We should get together for dinner soon!
:)
Daniel
