Education Historian
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University, a historian of education, and author of more than ten books—including The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003) and The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010). Ravitch served as Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993 during the administration of George H. W. Bush. When she was Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. “From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.”
Ravitch, once a champion of charter schools, supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. After careful investigation, Ravitch changed her mind and became one of our country’s most well-known critics of charter-based education. She believes that “the privatization of public education has to stop.” In late March, Ravitch sat down with Bill Moyers on Moyers & Company to discuss the subject of privatizing of public schools—which has become “big business as bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity investors are entering what they consider to be an ‘emerging market.’” You can view a video of that program, Public Schools for Sale?, below the fold.
Public Schools for Sale?
SOURCES
Public Schools for Sale? (Moyers & Company)
Charter Schools Gone Wild: Study Finds Widespread Fraud, Mismanagement and Waste (Moyers and Company)
Diane Ravtich: Curriculum Vitae
FURTHER READING
A Look at Some of the Driving Forces behind the School Reform Movement and the Effort to Privatize Public Education (Res Ipsa Loquitor)
Charter Schools and The Profit Motive (Res Ipsa Loquitor)
From the ABC’s of Privatizing Public Education: A Is for ALEC, I is for iPad…and P Is for Profits (Res Ipsa Loquitor)
Moskowitz “Success Academy” Sues to Block State Audit
By dianeravitch
July 11, 2013
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/07/11/moskowitz-success-academy-sues-to-block-state-audit/
When New York State Comptroller Tom Di Napoli informed Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain of his intention to audit its financial records, the corporation sued to block the audit of public funds on grounds it was unconstitutional.
According to the story in a legal journal,
“Success Academy claims that a 2009 ruling by New York’s highest court found the Legislature overstepped its bounds by passing legislation in 2005 that authorized the comptroller to audit charter schools. “Despite fine-tuning in 2010 that resurrected the audits, they’re still unconstitutional, Success Academy claims.”
In fact, Di Napoli has audited other charters based on the change in the law in 2010 that was written specifically to authorize the Comptroller to audit the use of public funds.
In one of Success Academy’s letters to the Comptroller, it asserts that the comptroller lacked the authority to conduct such audits under the state constitution, which authorizes reviews “of any political subdivision of the state” – which charter schools are not.”
Not being “a political subdivision of the state” is another way of saying that the charter corporation is a private contractor, NOT a public school. This has been the standard line of charters across the nation to evade state labor laws and other laws that apply to public schools but not to private contractors.
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Charter School Claims State Can’t Audit it
By MARLENE KENNEDY
Courthouse News Service
Thursday, July 11, 2013
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/11/59266.htm
Excerpt:
ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) – A New York City charter school operator claims the state has no right to audit it, and asked a judge to stop the state comptroller from doing so.
Success Academy Charter Schools-NYC sued state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and his office and New York State, in Albany County Supreme Court.
Success Academy claims that a 2009 ruling by New York’s highest court found the Legislature overstepped its bounds by passing legislation in 2005 that authorized the comptroller to audit charter schools.
Despite fine-tuning in 2010 that resurrected the audits, they’re still unconstitutional, Success Academy claims.
Charter schools – public schools financed by taxpayer money but independent of local school districts – have been permitted in New York since 1998. They’re designed to offer parents an alternative to local public schools.
Only if everyone’s checking their guns at the door
Paul C. Schulte
rafflaw – you could not be more wrong. Charter schools use public funding and are supervised by government entities. They actually get more oversight then traditional public schools.
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Charter schools have less oversight than traditional public schools.
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NSBA Opposes Congress’s Attempt to Expand Charter Schools
May 8, 2014
http://www.nsba.org/newsroom/press-releases/nsba-opposes-congress%E2%80%99s-attempt-expand-charter-schools
Excerpt:
Alexandria, Va. (May 8, 2014) — The National School Boards Association (NSBA), the leading advocate for public education representing more than 90,000 local school board members, is opposed to H.R. 10, the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act, which is scheduled for a floor vote this week.
Decisions regarding charter schools should rest with the state and the local school board, not Federal lawmakers, NSBA contends. The legislation also fails to recognize that to protect student outcomes, charter schools should be authorized exclusively by the local school board.
“Charter schools absent school board oversight have far less accountability for student achievement than traditional public schools,” said Thomas J. Gentzel, NSBA Executive Director. “The school board governance model protects student outcomes for the many, not the few, and strives to resolve inequities in educational delivery and service.”
Elaine – your first article wants the charter schools to have oversight from the local school board. There is no claim that charter schools have no oversight. The charter schools in Arizona have more oversight than the traditional public schools. The State Board of Charter Schools audits the schools in Arizona.
Schulte: “I was one of the brightest in my class.”
I’d like to see the rest of the class for a little context. That’s a civil way of puttin’ it.
Elaine: Schulte is working from a prepared list of responses his contractors supply him with; facts are not going to alter what he has to say, so stop pestering him with reality.
John: Speaking of reality…. Jefferson believed that everything you earned in your lifetime should “return” to the state upon your death. I don’t think I’ve seen you make a rational statement yet.
We are having a reunion this year if you would like to join us.
Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform
Federal testing has narrowed education and charter schools have failed to live up to their promise.
By Diane Ravitch
Updated March 9, 2010 12
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704869304575109443305343962
Excerpt:
I have been a historian of American education since 1975, when I received my doctorate from Columbia. I have written histories, and I’ve also written extensively about the need to improve students’ knowledge of history, literature, geography, science, civics and foreign languages. So in 1991, when Lamar Alexander and David Kearns invited me to become assistant secretary of education in the administration of George H.W. Bush, I jumped at the chance with the hope that I might promote voluntary state and national standards in these subjects.
By the time I left government service in January 1993, I was an advocate not only for standards but for school choice. I had come to believe that standards and choice could co-exist as they do in the private sector. With my friends Chester Finn Jr. and Joseph Viteritti, I wrote and edited books and articles making the case for charter schools and accountability.
I became a founding board member of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and a founding member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution, both of which are fervent proponents of choice and accountability. The Koret group includes some of the nation’s best-known conservative scholars of choice, including John Chubb, Terry Moe, Caroline Hoxby and Paul Peterson.
As No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) accountability regime took over the nation’s schools under President George W. Bush and more and more charter schools were launched, I supported these initiatives. But over time, I became disillusioned with the strategies that once seemed so promising. I no longer believe that either approach will produce the quantum improvement in American education that we all hope for.
NCLB received overwhelming bipartisan support when it was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. The law requires that schools test all students every year in grades three through eight, and report their scores separately by race, ethnicity, low-income status, disability status and limited-English proficiency. NCLB mandated that 100% of students would reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014, as measured by tests given in each state.
Although this target was generally recognized as utopian, schools faced draconian penalties—eventually including closure or privatization—if every group in the school did not make adequate yearly progress. By 2008, 35% of the nation’s public schools were labeled “failing schools,” and that number seems sure to grow each year as the deadline nears.
Since the law permitted every state to define “proficiency” as it chose, many states announced impressive gains. But the states’ claims of startling improvement were contradicted by the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Eighth grade students improved not at all on the federal test of reading even though they had been tested annually by their states in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Meanwhile the states responded to NCLB by dumbing down their standards so that they could claim to be making progress. Some states declared that between 80%-90% of their students were proficient, but on the federal test only a third or less were. Because the law demanded progress only in reading and math, schools were incentivized to show gains only on those subjects. Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in test-preparation materials. Meanwhile, there was no incentive to teach the arts, science, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages or physical education.
In short, accountability turned into a nightmare for American schools, producing graduates who were drilled regularly on the basic skills but were often ignorant about almost everything else. Colleges continued to complain about the poor preparation of entering students, who not only had meager knowledge of the world but still required remediation in basic skills. This was not my vision of good education.
When charter schools started in the early 1990s, their supporters promised that they would unleash a new era of innovation and effectiveness. Now there are some 5,000 charter schools, which serve about 3% of the nation’s students, and the Obama administration is pushing for many more.
But the promise has not been fulfilled. Most studies of charter schools acknowledge that they vary widely in quality. The only major national evaluation of charter schools was carried out by Stanford economist Margaret Raymond and funded by pro-charter foundations. Her group found that compared to regular public schools, 17% of charters got higher test scores, 46% had gains that were no different than their public counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse.
Charter evaluations frequently note that as compared to neighboring public schools, charters enroll smaller proportions of students whose English is limited and students with disabilities. The students who are hardest to educate are left to regular public schools, which makes comparisons between the two sectors unfair. The higher graduation rate posted by charters often reflects the fact that they are able to “counsel out” the lowest performing students; many charters have very high attrition rates (in some, 50%-60% of those who start fall away). Those who survive do well, but this is not a model for public education, which must educate all children.
NAEP compared charter schools and regular public schools in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009. Sometimes one sector or the other had a small advantage. But on the whole, there is very little performance difference between them.
Given the weight of studies, evaluations and federal test data, I concluded that deregulation and privately managed charter schools were not the answer to the deep-seated problems of American education. If anything, they represent tinkering around the edges of the system. They affect the lives of tiny numbers of students but do nothing to improve the system that enrolls the other 97%.
Al Zheimers,
Some of the smartest people I know are teachers. Are you suggesting that the scientists of today were taught by less than great teachers? I was blessed with many good teachers from the Benedictine sisters in grade school, all the way up to law school. My high school had two Nobel prize winners in the sciences that were challenged and taught by the excellent teachers.
Tank dog I don’t have kids.
And another thing. Go to your high school reunion. Check out who the kids were who turned out to be teachers. Best and the brightest in your class?
Al – I was one of the brightest in my class. For the females it was one of the only ways to go if you had any brains at all.
As a survivor of a very good public school system I have a great deal of despair in what has happened in the past fifteen years. The problems are from many directions. The colleges which churn out teachers are not all that good. The principals are universally a holes who watch out for self. The curriculum gets dumbed down each year. Why have summer off? Charter schools can be good, bad or ugly. Private schools are a choice not an echo. But who has the money. Home school might be good if the parents were great teachers. But it all comes down to that old saying: Those who can: do. Those who can’t: teach. Those who cant teach: teach teachers.
Al – the little ditty that you used has a different meaning than you think. I am not a fan of teacher schools since I think they do not teach what you really need in the classroom. Still, some of the education professors I had were good at their jobs, the problem was that their job was not good for education.
I am not sure if you are aware but each graduate schools sets its own bottom school on graduate school tests. The College of Education has the lowest entrance score required. At ASU they were far below even the Fine Arts, who are not noted for their brainiacs.
ALL RIGHT! Now we’re talkin’. Secure those “blessings of liberty” will ya? Support those private property rights, as Jefferson said,
“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment.”
Jefferson UNDERSTOOD, as did all the Founders, that real property and personal (i.e. moveable) property, including money was private even “before the establishment of government.” They deliberately excluded Individual welfare when they included general welfare. Taxing, or confiscating money from one man to give it to another is unconstitutional.
Redistribution of wealth in any form for any purpose is unconstitutional. The government cannot take private property (i.e. money) from one man, make it public then give it to another. It cannot make private property public, including moveable property or money. The government has the power to tax for governmental operations, not redistribution.
Redistribution is unconstitutional which makes all laws and programs that redistribute unconstitutional including public school/college, social services, welfare, food stamps, HHS, HUD, Labor, Education, Medicare, HAMP, affirmative action, quotas, rent control, etc., etc.
Not to mention effectiveness, efficiency and consumer choice – another “blessing of liberty.”
Thank you for this article – a revelation!
nikki
Elaine really gets under your skin, doesn’t she?
Can I rely on a version of Bobbie Jindal’s own words? Let’s let the party of stupid run all our schools.
Yes. That should improve things.
Great article Elaine and the full video is worth watching. To think that a charter school is a public school when it is privately run is erroneous. Charter schools are an attempt to privatize public education. The Race to the Top program and Arne Duncan’s efforts to require charter schools in order for school districts to earn funds under that program is one of the reasons charter schools have grown. The for profit charter schools are not in the majority nationwide, but in Michigan and in South Florida, to name a couple, they are very prevalent. In many states Charter schools do not have to hire certified teachers. That means lower educated and in many cases less skilled teachers.
rafflaw – you could not be more wrong. Charter schools use public funding and are supervised by government entities. They actually get more oversight then traditional public schools. Some are for-profit, some are non-profit. They key is do they get results for their money.
NAEP does not test all students only representative students in representative schools. It is a no stakes test and the students are not warned they will be taking the test. They are just pulled out of class, set down and told to take the test. It has limited to no validity.
rafflaw – you are aware that colleges and universities do not required their teachers to be certified? That does not make them less capable to teach.
It is time to abolish the Federal Dept of Education. The Federal govt should have no say in the education system. Leave it to the states.
anon – could not agree more.
A shorter video in response.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/osYZ1uZasN8
Watching Bill Moyers is classified as torture under the Geneva Convention.
Nick – if I was forced to watch more than 10 minutes of Bill Moyers I would confess to killing Lincoln. BTW, saw the new X-men today and learned that JFK was a mutant. Learn something new everyday.
School marm says, “Paulllly, you could not have possibly have done your work that quickly.”
Paul,
Interesting! I published this post about 10:40. How did you mange to view the entire video–which is more than twenty minutes long–in such a short amount of time?
Elaine – it is called speed watching. Didn’t they teach you that in your teacher school? Did I miss it? Does she at some point admit that charter schools are public schools?
Ravitch fails to admit that charter schools ARE public schools. She is welcome to her own opinions but sadly for her, Bill Moyers has a low viewer base. She might as well be spouting off on MSNBC.
What charter schools do is put education back in the hands of the parents. If they are unhappy with a school, they can transfer their children to another school. In a traditional public school, if you do not like the school, you have to move to get into a different district or system.