"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, November 10, 2012

D. Ravitch: the President sends out mixed messages about education.

Quoted in the Huffington Post, Diane Ravitch commented on President Obama’s future education policies (http://tinyurl.com/amyjkne).

"My worst fear is it'll continue to be the same. His education policy is indistinguishable from Mitt Romney's, aside from vouchers. It's based on test test test test."

She also noted that "The president sends out mixed messages. He says he doesn't want teachers teaching to the test, and that he likes that his daughter's school doesn't focus to the test, but I wish someone can get across the idea to him that he should want that for other children."

I know just the person who can do it.

I recommend that President Obama invite Diane Ravitch to the oval office for a serious discussion about education.

For a description of the astonishing amount of testing we can expect.
Krashen, S. How much testing? July 25, 2012
Posted on Diane Ravitch’s blog: http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/25/stephen-­‐ krashen-­‐how-­‐much-­‐testing/

And recent plans to add still more tests: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/11/more-tests-skrashen-cbirmingham-comment.html




1 comment:

  1. stephen,

    i was an applied linguistics major, and i 'm a big fan of your research and writing. i have grown so much by focusing my lens on comprehensible input as seen through the SIOP model, which my school employs.

    i am nationally board certified, teach a high needs, low income immigrant population and relish every second of it!

    i agree with your notion of diane ravitch, but it will take so much more . . . this will be a long term fight for at least a decade, and all we can do now is to bond with parents and form teacher/parent coalitions. . . the mainstream factions within teacher unions (notice how i am NOT saying the "teachers", but rather, their union leadership) should absolutely and militantly be excluded from such coalitions because these unions are mostly in bed with reformers, especially like the union leaders in newark NJ, randi weingarten, etc.

    such coalitions will be the ONLY way to combat this, and actually, the parents, if they really were to be educated about why and what is going on in public education, will have the greatest voice.

    diane will never be considered for the position. .. she's not corporate enough and far too cerebral to fill a federal cabinet position. we should be that fortunate . . . . she has my vote.

    sincerely,
    robert rendo
    NBCT

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