Diane Ravitch blog--my new favorite education blog

Diane Ravitch is fighting for public education in America like a fierce tiger mama protecting her own. After decades of employment in a "think tank" dedicated to trashing teachers and public education, she had a 'road to Damascus' moment. She realized that the folks she worked for were only about enriching themselves and cared not a fig for the destruction they wrought on one of America's greatest success stories--K-12 public education.

Here is her post from today:

Denial as a Reform Strategy

August 21, 2012 //

7

Reformers constantly deny any evidence that contradicts their narrative.

They insist that our public schools are failing, despite the clear evidence in the national assessments that test scores have never been higher for every group tested.

They insist that merit pay is necessary, even though it has never “worked,” in any sense of the word, not in raising test scores or in making teaching more attractive as a profession.

They insist that charters are better than public schools, even though study after study shows this is not true.

They insist that vouchers will “save” poor children, even though this has not happened in any of the districts that have vouchers (Milwaukee, Cleveland, D.C.).

Their goal is privatization.


Their goal is to push schools into a market-system despite any evidence that such a system makes any sense for anyone except those selling stuff to schools or wanting to take over schools and make a profit by cutting costs (teachers).

They are deniers.

This reader sees the denial strategy as part of a larger pattern:

They will not stop denying it [the evidence about charters], and they will continue to get promotion and protection from both silent support from fundraising and legislative action groups, and open PR/policy forwarded by elected officials. Truth is moot or arbitrary to them, and once light is shed on one false narrative (see “cake walk”, “shock and awe”, “shared sacrifice”, “lavish salaries…) they scurry for the shadows to gnaw away at another spot.

    Right now the narrative is that public schools are the burden fueling the poverty cycle, as opposed to the truth-that the poverty cycle burdens families and students, hampering academic success. The genius of the jokers driving the reform agenda is they have turned the struggling classes upon each other, fully intending to further dis-empower them all economically, and politically. Siphoning of the easiest to educate; protecting their own in gated communities and private schools others will never see; cementing a caste system that will entitle some to the education and knowledge they can afford, relegating the rest to street vendor markets or tech-support phone banks.

http://dianeravitch.net/