Diane Ravitch On School Reform, Part 2

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Run time: 05:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rxp3mKF7yY   Posted on YouTube: April 09, 2010 By YouTube Member: knickerbockervillage Views on YouTube: 596   Posted on DU: September 26, 2010 By DU Member: proud2BlibKansan Views on DU: 190

 
From NYU's Radical Film and Lecture Series held on 3/26/10
full video can be found at
http://www.rfls.blip.tv/
description:
What type of School Reform do we really want? A public discussion featuring: Diane Ravitch -- Author of over twenty books, former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, and currently research professor of education at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In her latest book she explains why shes changed her mind and now views testing and choice as barriers to public education. Lois Weiner-- Professor in the College of Education at New Jersey City University; Editorial Board member and education editor of 'New Politics' magazine; and former long time New York City high school teacher. Edward Fergus-- Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. A former high school teacher, he continues to provide technical assistance and analysis on education policy and research to school districts. He has published various articles on disproportionality in special education, race/ethnicity in schools, and author of 'Skin Color and Identity Formation: Perceptions of Opportunity and Academic Orientation among Mexican and Puerto Rican Youth'. Just about everyone agrees that the American education system is in bad need of fixing. This is all too clear for people who see equal access to comprehensive, high-quality schooling as a pillar of democratic society. But what kinds of reforms will help us move there? Do charter schools promise real change? How about school budgetary autonomy? No Child Left Behind? Merit pay? High stakes testing? Should we join Obama in supporting a Rhode Island school district's decision to fire every single teacher in a poverty-stricken school they deemed to be under-performing? Or are these policies actually undermining public education? Do they distract from the centrality of unequal funding? Our hope is to use this discussion to produce basic criteria for judging policy and for formulating new policies that move public education in a more democratic, comprehensive and progressive direction.