NPR this morning with Diane Ravitch: rethinking No Child Left Behind

[katty]

Arkansas Blog
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Speaking of charter schools, etc.

Interesting interview on NPR this morning with Diane Ravitch, a conservative Bush-era education official who's rethinking No Child Left Behind and the conservative orthodoxy about free market competition in education and the need for high-stakes tests. (Have faith, the naysayers will intone. The remnant, ravaged school districts populated by the demographic dregs will figure out how to get better after all the cream is skimmed by vouchers, charters, etc.)

Part of the reason schools were so intent on achieving high tests scores was because they were competing with other schools for resources, which were often doled out on that basis alone.

Ravitch is critical of the impact this had on schools.

"There should not be an education marketplace, there should not be competition," Ravitch says. "Schools operate fundamentally — or should operate — like families. The fundamental principle by which education proceeds is collaboration.

[mike_c]

1. did I just here a call for ice-water orders in hell...?

Holy shit, batman!

[FiveGoodMen]

2. K&R!

[klook]

3. That was a very powerful interview

A total refutation of public school privatization and the "standardized testing with financial penalties and rewards" idiocy of No Child's Behind Left. I've got to get her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.