I’ve been a fan of Diane Ravitch for decades. It seemed like Ravitch was one of the few national figures who “got it” on education issues. But then she joined the Bush Administration and drank the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND Kool-Aid. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education tells Ravitch’s story of how she came to her senses. My favorite chapter in Ravitch’s book is “What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?” Mrs. Ratliff was Diane Ravitch’s favorite teacher when she was in High School. Mrs. Ratliff was demanding and piled on the work. She did not teach “self-esteem.” She taught Literature and Composition to teenagers. No multiple choice tests, no fill in the blanks. The students were required to write essays on a regular basis. Mrs. Ratliff taught Shakespeare, Dickens, Kipling, Keats, Johnson, Hardy, and other literary heavy-weights. No dumbed down readings. Ravitch confesses that she bought in to the educational testing that has so warped teaching today. Teach to the test! What a waste of time! Ravitch also was an early proponent of charter schools, but now sees that they aren’t being regulated so the education most of those kids are getting is zilch. I’m glad Ravitch came to her senses. GRADE: B+
Jackie says all the time how happy she is NOT to be teaching these days and I’m sure Diane feels the same. When you have people like Joel Klein who know nothing about education in charge it’s no surprise that ‘teaching to the test’ is the rule.
Yes, Diane (like Jackie) is happy to be out of the “teach to the test” routine, Jeff. When those kids reach my level, they know very little about history or Art. But they do know how to take a test!
When everything from teacher salaries to how many students are assigned to each class to what technology you will have access to in the classroom is based on test scores, then, yes, you teach the test (or what you assume is going to be on the test). I work in a Title One junior high school in a low-income neighborhood and my problem is less with teaching the test than what is on the test in the first place. Last year one question on the 7th grade test required knowing the meaning of the word “Parlor.” I’m in my fifties and “parlor” to me is the room in Grandma’s house where no one ever went. I can’t imagine that a child in today’s world has any idea what a parlor is. I shared my concern with a colleague who said that on the 8th grade test one of the analogy questions began “Yacht is to Regatta as…” What kids today–low-income or not–would get that one?
Exactly, Deb! The tests are culturally-biased so poor urban kids don’t do well which affects the funding of their schools and teachers. It’s a vicious cycle!
I had a Mrs. Ravitch too-Mrs. Van Til and we read difficult books,, poetry, essays and wrote essays that only got As if they showed research beyond what was in the book. I didn’t much like her but I knew how to write an essay when I got to college. My husband’s undergraduates have no idea at all. Boy, I sound like an old lady this morning.
Most of my students are smart, Patti. But they’ve been cheated out of a good education. They read poorly. They write poorly. The current education system is dysfunctional.
I took freshman English in college with a teacher who had taken the NYC Board of Education to court because they said her leg brace (from childhood polio, I think, but it’s been a while) would make her ‘unsafe’ to teach in case there was a fire and she had to get out of the building. She won her case and told them to shove the job, and at the time was teaching freshmen how to write essays in Hunter College.
I learned more about how to write (and how not to write) in that class than all of high school. Most of the kids didn’t like her but she really taught.
You wouldn’t believe the number students who tell me they’ve never written a research paper, Jeff. I teach sophomore level classes so these students have been through High School and one year of College. And, of course, I require my students to write a research paper. What is happening in those English classes at the lower levels? At a certain point, students wake up and realize that education is not about taking popular (aka, “easy”) teachers, but taking teachers who know how to teach important skills.
I agree with all that’s been said above. The real pity, I think, is that no one who matters and could make any positive changes to the system will read this book or accept it’s premises.
I also blame the home environment. At some point, perhaps n the 1970s or early 1980s, many (most?) parents began to believe that education was for schools and the teachers there and all the parent has to do was provide food, clothing and trips to soccer practice. No, the VALUES involved in learning, trying, and understanding begin at home.
I too had some tough teachers in school and they were the best, both in communicating knowledge and in developing my skills in applying it.
I had a student complain at the beginning of last semester that I required THREE books when other teachers only required one book, Rick. I told her, “That’s because you’ll be learning THREE times as much!” At the end of the semester, that same student came up to me and told me, “You were right, Dr. Kelley.” There’s no short cut to learning: it requires a lot of work.
As my maternal grandmother was born a Ratliff, I’ll have to wonder about consanquinity…yes, I’d have to wonder why Ravitch was so foolish there in the early part of the decade.
Ravitch, like a lot of educational types, were looking for the “magic bullet” to improving teaching, Todd. She and others in the Bush Administration thought testing was the answer. Finally, they realized it wasn’t the answer. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to REQUIRE that all of our College administrators teach at least one class per year. They have resisted. But dealing with Real Students on a regular basis would change plenty of their decisions. Ravitch, like many educators, occasionally become removed from the teaching process. That leads to disaster.
Now how did I type a q for a g? Consanguinity!
Consanguinity…is that dyslexia creeping up on you, Todd?
My eyes are getting worse, and I’ve always been very mildly afflicted with something akin to dyslexia…I always have to actually think as which is right and which left. (Which doesn’t make me appreciate centrists any more, mind!)
I had a girl friend who confused “left” and “right” all the time, Todd. When she was driving, I had to point to the left or right so she would make the correct turns. The words “left” and “right” literally had no meaning to her.