Diane Ravitch LIVE w/Bob McChesney - callers welcome - Today @2pm EDT

[Bozita]

http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters

Media Matters with Bob McChesney
Sundays at 1 pm Central on AM580

Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests. Listeners may call with comments or questions.

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The media are central to all our lives," he says. "Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society."



Media Matters programs & archives:
Sunday, April 01, 2012

Diane Ravitch discusses the turmoils of the America public education system.

In The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril.

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. In addition, she is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She shares a blog called Bridging Differences with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week. She also blogs for Politico.com/arena and the Huffington Post. Her articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines. Most recently her opinion piece, "Another Battle in the War Against Public Schools," ran in The New York Times.

Join the conversation this Sunday at 1pm by calling [phone] or [phone].

[Igel]

1. Anything interesting?

Most people quoted Ravitch before because she was all gung-ho for tests and accountability, charters and the way reform was done under NCLB.

Those who quoted her didn't care about her. Just that she was supporting them.

She's honest enough to evaluate data, unless 95% of education gurus and profs. So she changed her mind. Good for her. The kind of thing that compels respect. But her position before was also based on data and only compelled respect from one side, those she agreed with, not those against NCLB.

Now all those against tests and accountability, charters and the way reform was done under NCLB are quoting her in exactly the same way she was quoted before. To the extent she supports them, she's right. But they don't respect her because she plays honest with the data. She's just a convenient prop.

Hard to find much said about what she is in favor of. What little I've seen in the MSM isn't something that I suspect most DUers would like.

[Bozita]

4. The link in the OP will take you to the archive of the show.

I found it to be an interesting and informative 55 minutes.

[Diane Ravitch]

2. from Diane Ravitch

Dear Bob,
Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you about the state of the schools today and the push for privatization, as well as the attacks on the education profession.
It's been my experience that the journalists who understand the issues best these days are those who have a teacher in the family or who have been teachers themselves. Most of the mainstream discussion seems to be driven by business executives or hedge fund managers or the people they hire to advocate for carrots and sticks.
At the end of the discussion, you asked me for my ideas about what needs to be done. I have consistently argued, in my book and in media, that we need to address the issues of poverty as well as school improvement. The status quo these days is testing and accountability, and it doesn't work. We need to reduce poverty, make sure that every child arrives in school healthy and ready to learn, aim for a more just and equitable society, while working daily to improve the conditions of teaching and learning. By the latter, I mean that schools should have the resources they need, teachers should have the support they need, children should have the class size they need for optimum learning, bubble tests should be replaced by genuine demonstrations of learning, and every child should have a full curriculum, including the arts, history, civics, foreign languages, and plenty of time to play.
Diane Ravitch

[mopinko]

3. welcome to du.

might i suggest that you put up a post in the education forum? you will be greeted by quite a few fans.

[Bozita]

5. Good to see you here, Professor!

Welcome!