Comments on: American Schools in Crisis

By: Amanda Rezek

Amanda Rezek — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:42:14 +0000

I think the article that Diane Ravitch wrote was accurate. The United States of America has never been academically superior, so I don’t believe there’s a crisis about how to “beat” other nations. However, the crisis with the Unite States’ education is that people are pinning the blame on the school itself and the teachers, who are already pressured enough with the students and low pay. As Ravitch said, children should receive education before reaching kindergarten. I believe putting a child in pre-school, or any other form of early education, would help advance the next generations to come.

However, an equal oppurunity for all to be able to achieve and be involved in that sort of education is important. Education is to “advance the common good for the community” and it should never be limited to those with a lot more money than those who only make an “average” or “low” amount of pay.

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:26:27 +0000

Excellent article! As a educator for the past 20 years, I have seen the destructive force NCLB has had on our educational system. In my opinion, the generation that was “educated” during the period starting in 2001 until now should ask for their “money” back. Motivation is the key to all learning and NCLB and RTTT do not address this critical element. In fact, both under funded federal mandates seem to totally ignore the important role student motivation has on learning.

When I first understood the content and ramifications of NCLB, I was deeply concerned. To me it looked like an attempt to reinforce the advancement of charter schools, vouchers and privatization by making all public schools look like “failures” by 2014. The goal of 100% proficiency was clearly Utopian and seemed only to serve the interests of those who wished to politicize education. In the final analysis, while NCLB’s stated mission was to leave no child behind, its actual consequence was a generation left behind.

By: German Uribe

German Uribe — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:50:19 +0000

What if Charter Schools Bring new resources into the current system???

I sympathize with many of the arguments made in this article, but am still left with a question: Suppose that we can agree that the current system has problems that need to be fixed. And that among these problems are 1) a lack of funding, and 2) a lack of an ability to attract and retain ENOUGH Top Talent that wants to be public school teachers, particularly in Inner Cities. Now assume that the a Charter school comes into existence in an inner city neighborhood. That this charter school, 1) is a non-profit entity, and 2) that it does not cherry pick students, but rather provides free education to a randomly selected sample that mirrors the population in the surrounding neighborhood. Ok now assume that this charter school by its existence is able to attract Money from wealthy philanthropists, and talented, highly motivated teachers, and that neither the money or the talented teachers would have gone to the existing public school system but rather are incremental resources that come into the system as a result of the charter school’s existence. Given this lengthly list of assumptions: Why is the existence of the Charter School bad for Public Education in America? I would love to hear Diane Ravitch’s, and other’s perspective on that.

By: Neva Salser

Neva Salser — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:48:42 +0000

What if it’s not the educational system at all?

Curiosity and the excitement of discovery. It grows from infancy, fed by family members who answer endless questions and endlessly teach correct pronunciation, grammar, thinking and social skills, and spark more curiosity.

Warehousing children from infancy through their most formative years forces them to abandon curiosity in order to survive the bullying and unhealthy competition of the warehoused mob. To me this seems to be the basis of our education problem. We get them when their curiosity is already broken. Seldom do we get to see the light of discovery dawn from a face.

The worst of it is that the bigger and better stuff that we get with the money that we earn by shunting the kids off to the lowest bidder, is also broken.

A child lasts forever. Stuff is just stuff.

By: Mel Hamilton

Mel Hamilton — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:17:22 +0000

I appreciate your article Ms. Ravitch. It seems you are one of many who “get it”. As a veteren school teacher, I am close to throwing in the towel. It is so hard to fight all these pundits who claim to be reforming education when in fact they are destroying it. When oh when will anyone actually ask classroom teachers for the information they need to make any reforms if any are needed? The only reforms I know of are poverty and then child rearing as a true responsibility. Now these are not school teachers’ responsibilities, but they are basic human needs of love and security that if not met, the child cannot learn. Start here and we will see great improvements. Moms and Dads quit paving the roads for your children as this is just as bad as having no input in their education. Hold the learner ultimately responsible.
Another fix is principals do your jobs and get the loafers out of the classrooms.

Teachers are teaching and many kids are learning but if we do not recognize that schools need money and attention to the physical plant as well as the academic needs like books, we are all lost. Stop yelling about the money being spent- it is not enough. Invest and there will be returns but a few dollars and expecting great returns is not going to happen. Put your money where your mouths are and stop looking for scapegoats.

Sign me,
Sick and tired of not being heard in Tennessee.

By: David Humphries

David Humphries — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:31:24 +0000

The article correctly states that, “When everything rides on test scores, schools will encourage ‘teaching to the test’ and even cheat to avoid being closed.”

In what industry is it ever acceptable to blame incentives for corruption? If our public school system cannot do the right thing, it has only itself to blame. Those who run the public school system are responsible for the public school system.

Ethics don’t get much simpler than this.

By: Rod Karp

Rod Karp — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:22:08 +0000

Diane Ravitch is a fine educational historian, and was the assistant secretary of education under the George H.W. Bush administration, and was, to some degree, an architect of NCLB. She revisited her research later and found NCLB to be very destructive (more like ECLB). She wrote a book lately, The Death and Life of the Great American Education System, that describes her current thinking. It’s good reading! I hope she can keep on speaking out about her conclusions!
Privatized systems in other countries (England primarily) can be described in other literature—George Orwell wrote The Clergyman’s Daughter in which a portion describes the dismal educational experiences of children in a private girls’ school and the young teacher’s efforts to do better. (He indicated in the book that the public schools in England were intended for the children of families that “were on the dole” and that any families with any middle class aspirations sent their children to private schools, often run by charlatans, without regard to the quality of the educational program offered).
Frank McCourt wrote Teacher Man but no one seems to wonder how it was that this great author was an especially bad teacher in some vocational high schools in New York but suddenly became a wonderful teacher in more affluent prep schools after he was more or less accidentally hired in more up-town schools.
I don’t see any exit from this current condition of thoughtless, market-driven “reform” madness. I would say to any young person that I care about, “DO NOT GET INTO EDUCATION AS A CAREER!” (There may be some hope, though, for the future, if Diane Ravitch is able to express herself and find receptive audiences in the ranks of policy-makers and the general population).
I know time is tight but it’s good to read. Literature, research, and history can still inform us if we are willing to listen or read. Otherwise, we are left with words to make the gut churn one way or another according to the designs of nefarious ideologues rather than nurturing intelligent discussion and making the mind work.

By: Mitch Hettinger

Mitch Hettinger — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:06:27 +0000

Awesome! Kudos to Diane Ravitch for speaking the truth about American Public Education! Problem is no one, and I mean no one in the Republican Party cares to listen to one of their own. They see Diane as traitor to the cause of destroying the American education system, which is what NCLB was designed to do. It has northing to do with educating our kids. It was designed to destroy the NEA, and with it public schools to the Republicans could “privatize” our schools. Better yet, maybe outsource our schools to India or Pakistan, where $8 billion went to build their infrastructure. How many schools, and textbooks could that but in the good ‘ole USA? Thank you Diane for speaking not only the truth, but the facts. Interested in running for President?

By: Kim Dailey

Kim Dailey — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:37:59 +0000

Diane Ravitch said everything! No longer are teachers afforded the time to instill a love of learning. And in a state that was “awarded” Race To The Top Funds, teachers are about to sink to the bottom under the new assessment platform. It’s sad that I spent 8 hours working on a lesson plan for an “announced 15 minute walk-through.” On a scale from 1-5, I’m a “rock-solid” 3! I’ve been teaching 13 years, been Teacher of the Year for my County, have a BS, MS, and an EdS, been a State trained Mentoring teacher, a Curriculum and Instruction Coach, have hosted numerous student teachers, and I’m a 3….feeling a bit deflated. Perhaps I should have spent more time preparing….

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:02:06 +0000

“Is it possible that we succeeded not because of test scores but because our society encourages something more important than test scores: to create, innovate, imagine, and think differently?”

This is the question future educators need to be constantly asking and reminding ourselves. Teachers need to start departing from the Industrial Age teaching methods, where students memorize random facts, listen to monotonous lectures, and are treated all the same. We currently live in the Age of Technology, where ingenuity, creativity, and individuality thrive. Therefore, our public schools need to promote and foster this within our students.

Standardized tests with multiple choice questions about selective information hinder this creativity and innovativeness. Public schools need to revolutionize their methods of measuring knowledge in a way that students can critically think and discover more about their world. Teachers should be preparing and equipping students with the skills to survive socially, economically, and physically in the real world. “Teaching to the test” should become “teaching for life.”

Until public schools not start doing this, then I agree with Ravitch, our American schools are in crisis.

By: Paul E. Brunelle

Paul E. Brunelle — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:57:01 +0000

Brown v. Board of Education was strictly a desegregation order, aimed at ending the hypocrisy of “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites, schools which were grossly unequal and which assured discrimination against black children. Brown v Bd of Ed DID NOT establish ” . . . the basic principle . . . of equality of educational opportunity” in American public education as stated by the author.

By: Diane Franken

Diane Franken — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:23:12 +0000

“Staying in School” a recent study given in NYC, gives evidence that students that have engaged in arts education classes within the school day have a higher percentage of graduation. Another study, “Critical Evidence”, gives evidence that arts education helps students do better in their other subjects. These are important and our school policy-makers, legislators and teacher preparation schools should make some dramatic changes, including integrating the arts and providing equal access for all students. Arts Education teaching infuses skills everyday in classroom tasks. Among them…collaboration, self-direction, critical problem solving, flexibility, innovation and creativity. Skills needs no matter what career a students selects. Read Sir Kenneth Robinson’s: Out of Our Minds, Learning to be Creative to see how education should be changed to reflect this. Lastly, I want to add my own two cents. After teaching, supervising, reading and writing about arts education for a life-time, in spite of the above evidence; the arts can stand on their own. Read Eliott Eisner. I feel the arts make meaning out of life and give life meaning. They make us human and humane. Tragical, they have not been recognized for what they do to prepare us for life and many students who have the potential for success by studying the arts are forever lost because we have not provided for them in the school day. There should not be a hierachy of importance or place in a school day for what skills our students possess. We need to open worlds for students, not close them. Arts Education is one important answer to an authentic education and it has not been allowed to even begin to flourish. Share these studies with parents, administrators and legislators. The students of today and our country cannot afford the status quo.

By: Mikaela

Mikaela — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:10:16 +0000

As I enter into my senior year education classes, this article seems to be particularly relevant to me and my upcoming future as a teacher. Throughout the course of my professional education, my professors have made a point of lecturing about the details of NCLB and the various aspects that go along with it. Never fail, every class discussion always reverts to the pitfalls of the program: how teaching to a test stifles creativity, how effective teaching is reflected in so many ways other than test scores.

I believe this article speaks to many of these fears, fears that are plaguing teachers, both future and present. Ravitch makes her greatest point in the article when she states ‘Just as every neighborhood should have a good police station and firehouse, every neighborhood should also have a good public school.”

By: A Concerned Citizen

A Concerned Citizen — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 05:37:55 +0000

The responses to this article saddened me. Ms. Ravitch’s piece, replete with unsupported statements and emotional distraction, denies facts so obvious and pervasive that one would have to have a strong, emotionally-based, personal reason to engage in her delusion. Teachers, please wake up. The system is crumbling. Charters and homeschools are taking over. The emporer is wearing no clothes.

By: Jen B

Jen B — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 02:13:03 +0000

Thank you for this article. I am a post-baccalaureate student seeking my English certification in a university in Pennsylvania. I am excited to get in the classroom and put all of the information I’ve assimilated to use with my future students. That being said, I’m horrified to think that I’ll be expected to teach to some ridiculous test that has no real merit in evaluating knowledge. I’m learning how to teach students to think critically, problem solve, and learn how to collaborate in communities. Blanket testing to measure education is the antithesis to the innovative ideas being embedded in my teaching repertoire. I can only hope that I will be part of the movement to end NCLB.