Comments on: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again!

By: Belinda Gomez

Belinda Gomez — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:15:24 +0000

I don’t understand why refugee kids are mainstreamed right away. Shouldn’t they need smaller classes with more intense work to learn English, etc. before they’re plunged into the regular curriculum?

By: Joe Hill

Joe Hill — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:17:06 +0000

What you don’t seem to get is that this story is the tip of the iceberg. The so-called “reform” movement has been profoundly destructive of the public common school movement, which is, of course, exactly what the right wing neoliberal movement has wanted for thirty years – the destabilization of the last virgin piece of public social real estate, K-12 education. By trying to apply market discipline (and hasn’t that worked well in the rest of the world) to a fundamentally non-market social space, the so-called “reformers” (and, gods, how I wish we had not let the bad guys co-opt that word!) have taken American education to the brink of the abyss.

Back off. Or wish you had.

By: GGW

GGW — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:45:56 +0000

Bigger picture -

Seems like both Times and WaPo (Strauss) have recently added the Ravitch perspective:

1. Question ed reform (good)

2. Twist everything to fit that narrative (bad)

3. Omit all stories on the overwhelmingly common reality in urban schools (traditional and charter): sleepy classroom, kids who are way behind any reasonable definition of grade level, not particularly effective teacher (bad).

So instead of reform versus status quo, it’s reform versus idealized alternate version of change, or more commonly reform versus idealized version of recent past.

It’s like a marriage columnist with one note: “Look at the divorce rate, I’m going to chronicle every failed marriage I can….I wish it were 1950s again! The Golden Age. Zero divorce rate. I’m going to forget about women unable to pursue careers or escape violent husbands.”

By: Chris Smyr

Chris Smyr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:08:47 +0000

^ Given the “well yeah, but…” reply above, should we infer that you have no specific objections to the arguments raised by Andy in this blog post that you’re commenting on?

By: Billy Bob

Billy Bob — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:15:11 +0000

Wow. You spent all this time ripping apart a story you hate, but you never included the Houston Chronicle where the Texas Governor, Sec Duncan, and HISD Super Terry Grier celebrated a turnaround school that “turned” around only because they excluded black kids from the accountability system and used a very shaky projection measure to upgrade one accountability level. In fact, the black kids that made the school low-performing were low-performing again. But Sec Duncan was soooo desperate to find a turnaround school that he couldn’t resist this Enron-style smoke-and-mirrors turnaround school.

Sounds like the same terrible “evaluation” done of the UVA turnaround school project.

I think your hypocritical slanting of evidence on a daily basis is far more dangerous to the education of our children than any “failing” teachers.

Perhaps when you are old and gray you will wise up like Diane Ravitch and see the errors of your ways.

By: Chris Smyr

Chris Smyr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:41:33 +0000

If the first sentence of an article doubles as an appeal to popularity and as a hasty generalization, it should trigger the bullshit-ometer of any critical reader to promptly kick in. The rest of the article is equally dishonest, as already noted.

My question is: Why do some think it is reasonable to say that someone is doing “a great job” without any real operational definition of what “great” means to them? “Working tirelessly” is a plus, but is it the effort that constitutes a “great” educator, or is it the results that ensue from their efforts? Even if “great” were defined solely by effort, on what scale do we measure the effort of this principal compared to other principals in other schools?

By: edlharris

edlharris — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:01:03 +0000

How to fund Race To The Top

We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get. Well isn’t that nice. Some poor bastard is going to get a break for a change

David Obey: I Leave More Discontented Than I Started

By: edlharris

edlharris — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:45:36 +0000

Tried and True: "Just as people shouldn't have been celebrating last year, they shouldn't be overly disappointed this year. You're always going to have ebbs and flows." "I frankly don't read too much into it," said Casserly, who compared the D.C. test score trends to the bull and bear cycles of the stock market.

By: Tim Furman

Tim Furman — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:35:54 +0000

In your opinion, looking at the data, is Wheeler Elementary a lousy school?

By: Linda/RetiredTeacher

Linda/RetiredTeacher — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:31:47 +0000

That is a matter of opinion. Some of the most dedicated teachers choose to work with disabled students. As the saying goes, there is a place in heaven for these people. They are heroes to me. If we honor these people, perhaps we’ll be able to lure more of “the best and the brightest” into our most challenging schools. The more we bash them, the less likely talented people will elect to teach in these schools.

The very best thing we can do to improve education is to honor the people who provide it.