(via Peter Greene
@palan57)
And it is a big part of the reason why their enterprise is faltering. You cannot reform what you do not understand--Dr. Daniel Katz explains in this piece what reformers don't know about education; good read:
http://danielskatz.net/2014/10/09/what-education-reformers-do-not-understand-about-teaching-and-learning/
* * *
and from Diane Ravitch (
@DianeRavitch), a poem on reform:
“All I really need to know I learned in smoke-filled back rooms.” (apologies to Robert Fulghum)
0. *****Always accept grant money from Bill Gates.****
1. Test everything that moves (even the classroom goldfish)
2. Play with cut scores.
3. Don’t hit teachers (Just fire them)
4. Always leave things in more chaos than when you found them.
5. NEVER (EVER!!) CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Never admit you are wrong and never (ever!) say you are sorry.
7. Wash your hands of everything that goes wrong.
8. Flush after each school closing.
9. VAMs and failings (students, teachers, schools) are good.
10. Unions and teacher independence and creativity in the classroom are bad.
11. Mandate a Fair and Balanced (TM) curriculum – teaching some
Common Core math and some close reading and never (ever) allowing
students to draw or paint or sing or dance or play or go out for recess
and making sure they do a minimum of 4 hours homework every day
(especially in kindergarten)
12. Take a shot of whiskey every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for Diane Ravitch, hold secret meetings, and stick together.
14. Beware the American Statistical Association. Remember Vergara:
The student test scores go down and the teacher firings go up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we all like that.
15. Statistics and standardized tests and VAMs – they all lie. So do we.
16. And then remember the Common Core books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – Test”
