NEIFPE Letters to the President, 2

Diane Ravitch coordinated a Campaign for our Public Schools in which teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens wrote letters to the President expressing dissatisfaction with the current government policies towards public education. On Saturday, October 20, 2012, Dr, Ravitch reported on the results. A PDF file of all the letters collected was created by Anthony Cody.

The entire file of letters from writers around the country is available HERE. Over the next few days we'll reprint a few of the letters submitted from our members.

It's not too late to tell the President or any elected officials what you think of government policies towards public education. You can find out how to contact your elected officials at http://capwiz.com/npta2/home/.

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Dear President Obama,

It was great to see your debate with Romney last night. In it, you were spirited, in command of your facts, and you held your ground when Governor Romney attempted to misrepresent you. With that same spirit, I am writing this letter regarding education, hoping that you will listen, reconsider, and renounce both the policies that your presidency has endorsed through Arne Duncan and Arne Duncan, himself. Perhaps then I can bring myself to vote for you again in this election. I will admit that before last night's debate, I had not planned to participate in this letter writing campaign, thinking that any and all persuasive attempts would be futile wastes of energy. I had resigned myself to the feeling that you no longer cared.

But in light of last night's debate, I will now ask you to do the following: Please avail yourself of the great and mounting evidence that high stakes testing is detrimental to our nation's children and to the institution of public education. Please consider that the uber-competitive spirit of Race to the Top is, in effect, undermining, and in fact, almost destroying the chance for equitable funding and the desegregation of our public schools. Please consider that these policies are wiping out the staples of the arts and physical education in the public schools for the poorest of our nation's children. Please consider that these policies do nothing to support quality early childhood education. Please consider that merit pay for teachers, based on student evaluations, has already been tried and has failed miserably. Please consider that we cannot build a strong economy without a strong public educational system. Please consider that the things you want for your children in a private school are the things that our less fortunate students deserve in the public school. Please consider that the current policies have done nothing to assure equitable access to quality education. Please read the letters that parents and my fellow teachers are sending your way. Please read Diane Ravitch's blog. Please read the writings of Yong Zhao and Pedro Noguera, to name a few. Please look to the lessons of Finland when it comes to Public Education. Please become informed and don't accept Arne Duncan's failing and failed policies anymore.

I could fill this letter with anecdotes and with facts and sources to support my reasons asking you to reconsider, but my guess is that you already have all these things available to you at your fingertips. I could also list my 33 years of experience in Special Education and my "retirement" work with Adult Education, and my credentials as a parent and a grandparent, but I'm really just one of many educated and informed people who are begging you to reconsider the current educational policies of your administration. One thing further I would ask you to contemplate, and that is; Please consider that I am one of the many undecided voters in this election. It is true that I cannot stomach Romney, but I will throw my vote away rather than vote for a candidate who does not, in truth and in actions, support our nation's children and PUBLIC education for all. Please show the same determination and grit in response to this plea that you showed in last night's debate.

Sincerely,

Cynthia J. Pastore

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NEIFPE Letters to the President

Diane Ravitch coordinated a Campaign for our Public Schools in which teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens wrote letters to the President expressing dissatisfaction with the current government policies towards public education. On Saturday, October 20, 2012, Dr, Ravitch reported on the results. A PDF file of all the letters collected was created by Anthony Cody. Dr. Ravitch wrote,

In a brief, two-week period, nearly 400 letters were submitted. There were many that were eloquent, many that were heartfelt, many written from personal experience.

No one was paid to solicit letter-writers or to write letters. No one who worked to bring the letters together was paid. This was an earnest and completely volunteer effort to carry the views of concerned citizens to the President.

Not a single letter of those submitted expressed support for high-stakes testing or for the policies of No Child Left Behind or the Race to the Top.

The entire file of letters from writers around the country is available HERE. Over the next few days we'll reprint a few of the letters submitted from our members.

It's not too late to tell the President or any elected officials what you think of government policies towards public education. You can find out how to contact your elected officials at http://capwiz.com/npta2/home/.

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Dear President Obama,

After 32 years of teaching, I have been happily retired for a number of years. Even though I am no longer in the classroom, I have become so distressed with what Arne Duncan has done to public education that I have become a grassroots activist, working to slow down some of the reforms that I know are not educationally sound. After the damage done to education by No Child Left Behind, I was hopeful that your Department of Education would turn some of that damage around. Much to my dismay, the Race to the Top has managed to be even worse; it is a punitive NCLB on steroids.

Since all of the educational research says that high stakes testing is neither good for students nor for teachers, it defies reason as to why Arne Duncan and you are putting so much emphasis on test scores. I have heard you say that you do not believe that teachers should be teaching to the test, but that is completely antithetical to what Duncan's competitive rush towards high test scores has caused. If a teacher's performance, if a school's performance, and if a child's performance are based on test scores, how else do you think those scores are going to be raised?

In your speeches, you often claim that you support and honor teachers. Sadly, your rhetoric does not match the actions of the D.O.E. Why are teachers who are in the trenches not consulted? Why are real educational experts not consulted? Why is poverty never addressed? Why is the whole child never considered? Why do faux corporate experts such as Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg have more sway with your administration than teachers?

Are you aware of how much money is being poured into money making schemes on the backs of the children of our nation? Are you aware of how many teachers are fleeing from the profession they used to love? Are you aware of the unintended consequences of all of these reforms? Are you aware of the level of exhaustion, frustration, and sadness that most good teachers are experiencing as a result of these so-called reforms?

I urge you to speak to those who have been impacted by these ill considered reforms. If you cannot find a teacher who is willing to voice his or her honest concerns, I would be happy to share mine.

Sincerely,

Phyllis A. Bush

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Diane Ravitch Offers Suggestions

Diane Ravitch gives some suggestions on what you can do to help turn things around for public schools.

A LETTER TO MY FRIENDS AND READERS

Many people have asked what they can do to try to change the conditions and misguided policies that I describe in my book. Wherever I go, the same question comes up: What can we do? How do we stop these bad policies and programs? Whether they are parents, teachers, administrators, school board members or citizens concerned about the future of our children and our society, they want ideas about how to persuade our elected officials to change course.

Education used to be a state and local function. Unfortunately, since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001–02, the levers of power now are in the hands of federal officials. With Republicans and Democrats both advocating policies that endanger the future of public education, the situation seems dire indeed. Unfortunately, many of our nation’s wealthiest philanthropies and individuals embrace the misuse of testing and accountability and the advance of privatization.

The odds against us seem overwhelming, but we cannot afford to do nothing. We must take action. At present, the Obama administration is embarked on a course of action that many find repugnant. The Race to the Top is built on the foundation of No Child Left Behind. It emphasizes high-stakes testing, judging teachers by their students’ test scores, closing low-performing schools instead of helping them improve, and promoting a huge increase in private management of public schools. These approaches will narrow the curriculum and promote teaching to the test, which will rob children of the opportunity for a good education. Furthermore, none of these strategies has a solid research base, none has been proven effective in practice, all have the potential to disrupt students’ education, demoralize teachers, and shatter communities. The burden of these policies will fall heavily on low-income, minority communities, but many other communities will be affected as well.

What we need to improve education in this country is a strong, highly respected education profession; a rich curriculum in the arts and sciences, available in every school for every child; assessments that gauge what students know and can do, instead of mindless test prepping for bubble tests. And a government that is prepared to change the economic and social conditions that interfere with children’s readiness to learn. We need high-quality early childhood education. We need parent education programs. We need social workers and guidance counselors in the school. Children need physical education every day. And schools should have classes small enough for students to get the attention they need when they need it.

We cannot improve education by quick fixes. We will not fix education by turning public schools over to entrepreneurs. We will not improve it by driving out experienced professionals and replacing them with enthusiastic amateurs. We will not make our schools better by closing them and firing teachers and entire staffs. No high-performing nation in the world follows such strategies. We cannot be satisfied with the status quo, which is not good enough for our children, nor can we satisfied with the Bush-Obama-Duncan “reforms” that have never been proven to work anywhere.

This is what I suggest:

1. Join Parents Across America. Their website is http://parentsacrossamerica.org. This is a group of parents who want to work together to strengthen public education and restore common sense reforms.
2. Write your elected officials. Find out whether any Congressmen or Senators from your state are on the education committee in their House of Congress. Write the members of the education committees even if you don’t live in their state. Ask your colleagues to write letters to them. Write letters to the editor. Comment on education blogs. Call in to talk shows. Speak up at school and community meetings. Speak up, speak out.
3. Gather a group of teachers, principals, and parents and schedule a meeting with your local legislator, your member of Congress, your state and local representatives. Prepare a list of issues and explain to them how federal and state regulations are harming their schools and what must be done to remove these burdens. Explain that what the media calls “reform“ has no evidence and is actually the opposite of real improvement. Remind them why public education is important and how it matters as a cornerstone of our democracy.
4. Run for your school board. Run for elected office in your town, your city, your community, your state.
5. Vote for candidates who pledge to support public education and to fund the needs of children and schools.
6. Invite local civic and business leaders to spend a day in your classroom and school. Invite them to teach for a day.
7. Build alliances between teachers, principals, parents, and the local community to support children and the school.

As the great Southern writer Flannery O’Connor wrote in a letter to a friend, “You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you.”

This age is pushing mighty hard against children, against educators, and against the very concept of good education.

Let’s all push back as hard as we can.

Diane Ravitch

Equity and the Fight Against Competition

Diane Ravitch has posted a profile of a tireless advocate for public education and equity.

Ravitch, who is a powerful and vocal advocate for public education in her own right, describes Jan Resseger, a lay minister for Public Edcuation and Witness for the United Church of Christ, as

a fearless and tireless advocate for public education and for equity. She has a passion for justice and a deep and loving concern for people. She understands in a visceral sense that a decent society must sustain vibrant public institutions.

Resseger's focus for this year, according to an email she sent to Ravitch and others on her list, is to fight the concept of competition in public education.

My biggest beef is with the Administration’s transformation of Title I from a formula program that delivers federal funds (admittedly so small relative to the need that these dollars don’t accomplish what I wish they did) to schools with large numbers of or concentrations of students in poverty. The goal of this program is to help those schools meet the students’ needs. Title I was created back in 1965 as the cornerstone of the War on Poverty. Its context was expanding civil rights for children who had been shut out or left out or left behind. The current Administration and Congress have frozen the Title I formula program in the last two budgets and re-directed the money into competitive programs like Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants in which the states or districts with the best grant proposal writers can help their states or districts be winners. That means, of course, that a lot of states and school districts and schools are the losers. If you have winners, you always have losers and I don’t think any state or school district or school that serves children in poverty ought to lose the chance to serve those children. You may think this particular issue is way too deep in the weeds of policy to worry about, but for me it is a big, heartfelt worry—and let me warn you, I’ll be mentioning it again and again this year as part of my personal campaign against competition.

You can read more from Jan Resseger here and here.

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Diane Ravitch in Fort Wayne, Indiana

Diane Ravitch spoke to over 1000 people at IPFW last night (March 13). The Journal Gazette...

Ravitch and phony reform by Karen Francisco

The key to improving schools isn't found in vouchers, charter schools, teacher evaluations, merit pay and all of the other current approaches, according to Ravitch. Schools must end the punitive approach to education. They must identify their best performers and allow them to share what they know with other educators. It's making the arts a key piece of the curriculum and ensuring that students learn how to think critically and write well. It's ensuring health care for all children – including prenatal care – and quality early childhood education.

Read it all HERE


Educator criticizes Indiana reforms: Sees trend as threat to public system by Devon Haynie

Ravitch lamented that some Indiana legislators had jumped on the national education reform bandwagon, and she expressed concern that Daniels had successfully campaigned for the most expansive voucher program in the country – a system she said would weaken public education.

“There are no new ideas here,” she told a group of reporters before the lecture. And “no research” to support the ideas.

Ravitch questioned Indiana’s expansion of charter schools, which she said have no record of outperforming traditional public schools, and expressed dismay over how many for-profit charter management companies do business in the state.

She dismissed teacher merit pay as ineffective and said standardized tests were designed to evaluate students – not teachers. Moreover, she said, standardized tests aren’t the best way to measure whether students are getting a great education.

“I’m not opposed to tests,” she said. “I’m opposed to the usage of tests.”

Ravitch also called for an end to the “attack on teachers” – a trend she said was turning people away from the profession.

The entire article is on the Journal Gazette web site.

Diane Ravitch speaks at Barnard College

...a preview of what's to come when Diane Ravitch speaks in Fort Wayne.

Dr. Ravitch spoke at Barnard College on February 21, 2012.

Her speech -- Is A Public School a Public Good, or a Shoestore? -- begins 8 minutes into the video. Questions and answers begin at about 45:00.



You might also be interested in these articles by Diane Ravitch:

• Do Politicians know anything about education?
• How to Demoralize Teachers

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Book Review: The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch.

Reviewed by Susie Berry

The Death and Life of the American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education was written by Diane Ravitch in 2011. Dr. Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the featured speaker on March 13 at the Omnibus Lecture Series at IPFW.

In this book, Ravitch reviews the No Child Left Behind legislation which promised
a “new era of high standards, testing, and accountability in which not a single child would be overlooked”. Five years after this legislation was enacted, a panel of scholars and representatives from a conservative think tank presented evidence that none of the remedies advocated in NCLB were making a difference. According to Ravitch, choosing your child’s school also did not improve test scores. The information learned that day and the thorough research conducted after that presentation were really the basis for Ravitch’s change in thinking and the motivation for writing this book.

Ravitch addresses the newest information about charter schools, vouchers, the standards movement, accountability, and the “billionaire boys’ club”. She questions how corporate leaders – and many politicians – can write blanket prescriptions for restructuring schools without consulting educators.

The author’s research also indicates that the real problem facing schools is poverty and advocates for family involvement in education from an early age.

Based on Ravitch’s thorough research and keen insight into the educational needs of students, teachers, and families, her presentation on March 13 will surely impress.

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Diane Ravitch in Fort Wayne

The Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education (NEIFPE) has announced some events of interest to everyone concerned about Public Education.

Diane Ravitch author of The Life and Death of the Great American School System and a strong advocate for public schools will be speaking at the Auer Auditorium on the IPFW campus at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 13. Dr. Ravitch will be part of the Omnibus Lecture Series. Tickets, though free, are needed for this event. Call the IPFW box office at 481-6555 for further information.

As a prelude to Dr. Ravitch's appearance, NEIFPE has arranged for the showing of two films at the downtown Cinema Center.

Waiting for Superman will be shown on Sunday, February 26 at 4:15 p.m and on Monday, February 27 at 4:00 p.m.

As a response to "Superman," Cinema Center is showing The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman on Sunday, March 4 at 4:00 p.m. and on Monday, March 5 at 4:00p.m.

Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Educations will lead a discussion of the two films following the two Sunday showings. There will be no charge for these showings, but donations will be accepted to help the producers of The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman defray their production and distribution costs.

A flyer with information about NEIFPE will be distributed at the Cinema Center events. You can download a copy HERE.

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NEIFPE Beginnings, by Phyllis Bush

I have been asked numerous times why I went to the SOS March in Washington. I have given this much thought. I have been bothered by the direction of the “Education Reform” movement ever since No Child Left Behind became law. The latest “reform” movement, The Race to the Top, appears to be a punitive extension of the No Child Left Behind. Given the rapid nature that Indiana has passed so called education reforms, I am appalled that those who have never taught and those who have never worked in education seem to be deciding the direction of how reform should be addressed. I am also appalled that those who are on the front lines of working with young people seem to be the target of all of the reform.

I am bothered that no one who is making all of the charges about our failing schools seems to address the fact that learning is a collaborative effort which must include students, parents, teachers, and a community that values education. I am also bothered that no one making policy has addressed poverty as an issue. While no one would ever suggest that poor children cannot learn, how important is learning to a child who is hungry, to a child whose school has substandard facilities, to a child who is homeless?

Many imply that teachers only want the status quo, job protection, 3 months of summer vacation, no accountability -- the list of red herrings goes on and on. I do not know any teacher who wants to keep lousy teachers in the classroom because the handful of teachers who are not doing an adequate job give a black eye to all of the teachers who are doing a good job. However, most teachers would like to see their unit head (principal, superintendent) work with ineffective teachers either to help them improve or to help them out the door. Teachers are not looking for special privileges to keep them in lifetime employment. They are looking for due process, so that they cannot be fired unjustly.

Most public school teachers don't feel threatened by charter schools or vouchers. However, they feel threatened by the non-level playing field that school “choice” represents. If there is fair and equitable funding among schools, public schools can easily compete. However, when tax dollars go to private schools which do not have to accept all students, which do not have to provide services to special needs students, and which do not have to have the same accountability, something is wrong.

Accountability is another issue. I cannot imagine that most teachers resist accountability; however, the accountability police seem to think that testing and testing and more testing is the same as learning. To my mind, there are only two good reasons for testing. One is for diagnostic purposes; the other is for evaluation. Accountability should be judged on something over which teachers have some control. If a child has decided that he/she cares not about the test being given, then why should his/her teacher be held accountable for that?

One of the things which I find most bothersome about “education reform” is that I have heard very little from critics talking about the joy of learning, the intrinsic value of an “aha” moment, or the creative process.

After we returned from the SOS March, several of us here in Indiana gathered together to see if we could channel this energy. We decided that we needed to inform our community about what is happening in public schools. When we found out that Diane Ravitch, noted education historian and critic of the current reform movement, would be speaking here in March, we decided to work with the Cinema Center to bring some films about education so that we could begin a community conversation.

First, the Cinema Center will be screening, free of charge, the movie Waiting for Superman on Sunday Feb 26th at 4:15 pm and Monday Feb 27th. 4 pm. The Sunday showing will be followed by a discussion.

The next weekend, Cinema Center will show The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman at 4 pm, Sunday March 4th and Monday March 5th. Again a discussion will follow Sunday’s movie.

On Tuesday March 13th, the Omnibus Lecture Series at IPFW will be hosting Dr. Diane Ravitch, one of the nation’s most important voices in the education debate. Tickets are required for her lecture and are available free of charge from the box office at 481-6555 beginning Feb 21st.