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)
Public school/college is not about education, it is about redistribution of wealth.
Why are union teachers (when they’re not on strike) so afraid of free markets? Why are they horrified of professional scrutiny? How do they rationalize robbing the infinitely “deep pocketed” taxpayers?
If citizens can buy a car, vacations, dentistry, weddings, haut couture, haut cuisine, fine wine, concerts, houses, etc., citizens can buy educations for their kids.
If the education industry were private, prices and wages would be designed so that education was affordable. The “indoctrination” curricula would be eliminated. How much education can a student with an IQ of 75 take anyway?
Public school graduates 50% of the students. Teachers should get a bonus to their $150K+ salary for 9 months work, right? That’ll be the issue of the next strike of “deep-pocketed” taxpayers who are ill represented by elected officials. Off course, the teachers set the standard of “comparable pay” for the rest of the governmental workforce. Holy geez, it’s endless!
Harvard is private. It appears to be financially viable and enjoy a positive global reputation.
Elected officials send their precious children to private school.
Didn’t America get rid of a tyrannical monarch? He’s been replaced with the dictatorship of the proletariat. And they said Joseph McCarthy was wrong. You are enslaved to the psychobabble, whim and mysticism of the teachers’ unions. BTW, what the hell does food have to do with education – don’t parents feed their kids anymore – they had the kids, why don’t they take care of them?
P.S.
Students are taught the lesson of collectivism when their loans are forgiven or modified. They will learn that lesson well and become liberals. Oh yeah. I get that! Forgive student loans – make new liberal voters. That works for me.
QUESTION; When the students have their loans forgiven, will they be
compelled to give their educations back – to return the merchandise?
THE INMATES HAVE TAKE OVER THE ASYLUM
Yea Annie! Break the law if it favors your view point. What a weird world you live in. I’ll stop you before you give me a list of Rep’s things that they did since I don’t like that either. Pointing to bad behavior to justify more bad behavior is well, bad behavior.
Annie,
I don’t disagree that Congress and the Republicans have gone on the record that their number one job is to stop everything Pres. Obama wants to accomplish, but if the executive order goes beyond his authority, it is a slippery slope.
Raff, I respect your stance on this, but I’ve come to realize that to get anything accomplished he has been given NO choice by an intransigent Congress. I also understand we may not always have a Democrat for a President. I also don’t think for one second that any President with an intransigent Congress wouldn’t do the same or worse. One reason to make sure we always vote in a Democrat. Yes it’s very partisan, but it’s also reality. No President can be expected to spend his time as Executive with his hands tied.
Annie,
No I don’t believe creationism should be taught in science class since it isn’t based on the scientific method. If it got talked about as a belief of some in a theology class, I have no problem. As for sex ed, I’m more inclined to leave that up to the parents. What else you got?
Great, now I have to pay for everyone’s college. More personal choices that cost me. The colleges must be salivating at the govt. stealing more of our property so they can raise their tuition some more. I’m glad to see you are finally coming around to how awful the president is.
Nick,
I can honestly deny that I was the person known as Deep Throat from the Watergate scandal. But, I was a big fan of his. I guess you could consider him Snowden’s predecessor.
Annie,
while I am in favor of the concept of student loan relief, I am not in favor of the President going beyond his powers. I realize it will never get done with the Republicans controlling the House, but all Presidents must stay within their constitutional bounds. If he has the legal right to do it, I agree full speed ahead.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/09/factsheet-making-student-loans-more-affordable
Looks like our awful terrible President is bypassing Congress again with an Executive order by helping graduates with student loan debt. What a despicable dictator! Shame on this imperial President, what a Nixon wannabe. Maybe he will continue his lawlessness with some Executive action on illegal immigration. He will go down in history as our worst President ever.
Jim: Thomas Jefferson saw it as the responsibility of government to be in charge of education. It’s largely due to him that we have public education in this country.
RTC – Virginia did not have public education until after the Civil War.
Jim sez,
“Teaching kids what they need to know”…. Would that include Creationism and Abstinence only Sex Ed? How about some revisionist history thrown in?
I would love nothing more than to see the govt. monopoly of education be taken down. Maybe then we could get back to teaching kids what they need to know and leave the social agenda stuff up to the parents. The fact that pro public school people are terrified to let parents have a choice speaks volumes.
Elaine,
Are you proposing that there is no waste or corruption in the public school budgets? If so, I find it hard to believe.
Maybe charter schools aren’t the final answer but it is still better to allow people to have a choice over a public school where teachers are more worried about their unions vs. keeping their jobs due to market forces. Why do teachers need to be protected?
I always suspected raff was “Deep Throat.”
Elaine, I see you proudly proclaim the “experts” in your school district[teachers and administrators] choose textbooks. Certainly wouldn’t want to involve parents or children in that process. Elitism @ its finest.
rafflaw – I was surprised that UCC was being linked on charter schools.
“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.” – Elaine
Isn’t it interesting that one of the characteristics of feudalism
wasis privatization of public entities (American Feudalism – 6)?I would not have guessed that Rev. Jeremiah Wright would end up being quoted on a thread about charter schools! The UCC article linked by Elaine, actually says much of the same thing as Diane Ravitch said in the interview with Moyers.
Paul – (LOL – JFK a mutant – the tangents we go off on……).
I saw the movie (actually 4 on Thursday – including Tom’s new one)
Paul,
I daresay we could find fault with most/all religious denominations. We’ve had a number of discussions on this blog about the Catholic Church. I was raised a Roman Catholic and attended parochial schools from first through twelfth grade. The RCC has done much good in this world. Some of those who have served in the church as priests, nuns, and in positions of authority have also been involved in unspeakable crimes against children or the coverup of those crimes.
Elaine – my comment is about using them as a source on education.
http://www.asbcs.az.gov/ Sorry forgot the link.
Steve,
Massachusetts students have consistently done well on educational tests. I am not an advocate of the overemphasis on high-stakes testing to evaluate schools, teachers, and students. It has perverted the educational process in this country as teachers are pressured to spend valuable class instruction time prepping their students for the tests. That overemphasis has also led to a narrowing of the curriculum. I left the classroom earlier than I had originally planned because of the major focus on testing. I felt that I wouldn’t be able to teach as I had in the past, to meet the individual needs of my students, to involve the children in creative projects, to immerse them in children’s literature, etc. I spent my last three years serving as my elementary school’s teaching librarian. It was my dream job!