Spurred by a recent "public notice" in the Kennebec Journal seeking bids to evaluate Maine teachers and administrators with an eye toward merit schemes, I started to scratch the surface of the ubiquitous "edreform" movement. As I look to accomplish this possibly Sisyphean task, Dear Reader, I recommend anyone interested in sorting out the vested interests read the recent NYer article on Diane Ravitch, her own blog, and a confirmed corporate ed skeptic, the edushyster.
For the overachievers, here are the New York Review of Books Diane Ravitch pages.
Valid Date
5 years ago
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Another valuable almost daily aid on education -- and particularly the false hopes of 'charter schools' is the blogger David Safier at Blog for Arizona. Safier's writing is to Ravitch's much as the Nevada blogger "Desert Beacon" -- google her, since two cites can kick out some comments, but Google her -- is to Paul Krugman. In both cases the feel is similar, but the lesser-known blogger neither has a reputation that is 'off-putting' to uncommitted readers nor do they assume the reader has the background they have.
Two other useful -- I hope -- thoughts. If the temptation comes to think kindly of 'vouchers' -- take a good look at how the Jindal program has turned out, with 90% of the money winding up going to Creationist Academies that have no state standards they need to meet -- some of them barely have classrooms. ("CenLamar" -- blog and blogger -- is great on this.)
And I've yet to see any 'educational reform superhero' from Joe Clark to Michelle Rhee come along whose foundational ideas and 'claim to fame' were not, after a year or two, re-investigated and proven to be *ahem* somewhat exaggerated. So before you hear the sounds of piping and decide to dress your children for the parade, take a good look at the piper.
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