Friday, September 27, 2013
Careerism on parade
Looks like Comrade Ravitch wants a government job.
But Ravitch recently — and very publicly — changed her mind. She looked at the data and decided that the kinds of changes she'd supported weren't working. Now she's a prominent critic of things like charter schools and school choice — and she's particularly opposed to privatizing schools.Pleeeeease give me a job! I wanna be Secretary! I wanna be Head Thug of NEA!
What's wrong with charter schools is that they originally were supposed to be created to collaborate with public schools and help them solve common problems. Because they have now been taken over by the idea of competition, they have become part of the movement to turn education into a consumer product rather than a social and a public responsibility. ... What I mean is that you go shopping for a school. I don't believe in school choice. I believe that every neighborhood should have a good public school. And if the parents don't want the good local public school, and they want to send their child to a private school, they should do so — but they should pay for it.Collaborate? Nonsense. Public systems and teachers unions had a total monopoly and saw no reason to change their habits. Educrats and NEA thugs were getting rich. All was right with the world. Now public schools in SOME places are improving. This didn't happen because charter and private schools were COLLABORATING; it happened precisely because charter and private were TAKING PAY UNITS, i.e. children, away from the public system. Direct parallel to the US auto industry in the '70s. The big three had a cozy relationship with the UAW that kept both sets of executives rich. Detroit didn't change its habits, didn't start satisfying customer demand, until the Japs took serious numbers of customers away from their monopoly. = = = = = Example in today's news: Raytheon honors 25 math teachers for innovation. The awards are focusing in exactly the right direction. One of the winners says "I want to be able to show my students that math is not just solving problems using pencil and paper ... but that math is everywhere! I want them to be able to apply what we do in the classroom to their everyday lives. I want them to see that no matter where we choose to look in this world, we can find math." Yes, yes, yes! Bravo. Among the 25 schools listed, 9 are private, parochial or charter, judging by the names. Over-represented. Proves the point nicely. Before the educational equivalent of Toyota came along, you'd struggle to find 25 marginally competent math teachers in the whole country, let alone 'math heroes'. ¶ 3:41 AM
