Saturday, March 13, 2010

Diane Ravitch on the politicization of the charter school movement


According to Crain’s Insider, the charter school industry is discussing whether to finance an opponent to Harlem’s State Senator Bill Perkins, a fervent opponent of further charter school expansion in his district. (See this article in the NY Times and this interview with Perkins on Democracy Now.)

Remember how Klein raised $1 million from the Broad foundation for Eva Moskowitz’ chain of charter schools, telling the head of the foundation that “she’s done more to organize parents and get them aligned with what our reforms than anyone else on the outside”?


Here is a comment from Diane Ravitch on the latest news:

Imagine the outrage in the tabloids if a public school principal or a group of public school principals announced that they planned to launch a political campaign to eliminate an elected official whom they didn't like!
The use of charter students and parents as political shock-troops should be considered a stain on the reputation of the charter school movement. It reveals that their interest is political power and money, not education.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

God save us from these national standards!

See the front page story in the Times today about how the National Governor’s Association took a year to develop national standards, which now the Obama administration intends to pressure all states to adopt.

Chester Finn grandiloquently pronounces, "this is one of the most important events of the last several years in American education.... This is a big deal.”

A year to develop, and they now intend to give the public only three weeks to comment before forcing them down our throats?

As Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, pointed out: “When was the last time you saw a national effort that was rammed through in three weeks?”

How about this standard, that 11th-12th graders are supposed to master; it's one of the most incomprehensible pieces of badly written verbiage I’ve read in a long time.

Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed.)

Maybe they're worried if anyone really had more time to examine and analyze these standards, we might just figure out how bad they really are.

You can read and/or comment on the standards until April 4 at http://www.corestandards.org/

What does the closings of Kansas City schools say about our own?

Check out my posting on the Times blog about the plan to close half of Kansas City's public schools, and what warning this poses for our schools here in NYC. And please leave a comment!