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Who is this Diane Ravitch Person? And Why Do I Care?

Diane Ravitch is like the Rush Limbaugh of Education. She is very popular with the BATs (Badass Teacher's Association.... yes I know that the acronym should then be BTA.. but .. I guess it's a teacher thing). She blogs on the New York Times site. Not sure if she is paid for that or not, but she often has a new post there. Her bio says she "...is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development." More on her extensive background in Education can be found on Wikipedia

Ravitch was, from many accounts a highly motivated and active Educator. Her early books show sharp logic, informed views and enlightened foresight which very often prove to be true. Over the years, this changes and you can follow the changes through her prolific writing. Her vocabulary becomes harsher, her vision narrows and soon there are no stars in the sky, only black and white. There are now only two sides to an area which as become not simpler but more complex.

Honestly, I really wish the Ravitch who wrote The Great School Wars, New York City, 1805-1973 would step back up to the podium. But as she became sharper, her popularity grew, and more people listen to her now than ever before. But these are no longer the people who use to listen to her in years past. These are angry crowds who love her anger, not her once clear sight. Now she works for the think tanks. It is unfair to compare her to Rush, because she actually did something with her life, and doesn't get caught taking oxies in Florida. However, today she has no concern for any other view of reality than her own. I respect who she was, but I can't offer the same to who she is now. Not when the stakes are so high.

How to Lose By Landslide And Fail Education At the Same Time

In any kind of writing, any kind of communication really, there are unbreakable rules. No, the police won't come arrest you for breaking them, and your 6th-grade English teacher isn't going to fly out of the closet with a red marker. What will happen, in fact, is nothing. Not a damn thing will happen. The reader will simply quit reading, and walk away. The failure to connect will be so strong, they may not return.

I've said before that I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. Like a growing number of people in the US, I've turned my back on party, and have taken up the responsibility of voting for who I believe will do the best job. Research isn't as difficult as it was a decade back. There are websites with stockpiles of organized, deep information on every candidate, their history, where they have voted before -- were their actions in line with their voters desires? -- which is what I look at most -- and just about every other dynamic you can think of. But trust me when I say,  ignoring the basics is fatal and taints the entire party.

I was fairly busy during Sept and October so I missed this "campaign". I was confused in November that the Republicans took so much. I asked myself many times, How does a party with 9% approval rate take 94% of the election? How does that happen?

Today I came across the answer.

Keeping Up With Your Own Misconception Driving Yourself Over the Edge

TEENS MISJUDGE HOW WILD 

THEIR PEERS REALLY ARE 

Posted by Stanford on January 12, 2015

Because teens have dramatic misconceptions about their peers’ sex lives, drug use, and studying habits, it’s possible they’re conforming to social norms that don’t exist.

A new study shows that adolescents overestimate the amount of drug and alcohol use and sexual behaviors that many of their peers are engaging in. At the same time, they underestimate the amount of time their peers spend on studying or exercise. (this links to the study this article is based on)

“THIS QUEST FOR IDENTITY CAN SOMETIMES LEAD ADOLESCENTS IN THE WRONG DIRECTION”

We use to call this Judging your Insides by Other Peoples Outsides...

“When they are judging the popular crowd, the jocks, the burnouts, or the brainy kids at school, the gist is that students in these crowds are misperceived,” says Geoffrey Cohen, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education who coauthored the psychology study along with researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including lead investigator Professor Mitchell Prinstein.

Some places to look into

This is Jane Robbins latest article. Posted to Grand Herald.. into the Opinion area. Most papers won't print pieces like this in to the news area. They've done the research and know the flaws of these arguments But they don't mind the traffic they bring in.  It is getting a lot of mentions from the Right, mostly Tea Party on Twitter

Stotsky is getting a lot of free mentions through the college  network after writing a paper which stresses that college students read at a 7th grade level. At least that's a topic she might know something about.

The American Principles project is increasing frequency.

These two are heading for Nevada soon as well -- The visiting experts are Dr. JameThat is on the s Milgram,  and Dr. Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita at the University of Arkansas’ Department of Education Reform.

It is possible that Milgram is going to find a better place to be. I caught him in a lie today. A rather large one. I'm waiting a couple of days for him to make a choice, but then I'm publishing. The choice is either come clean or explain his actions to the feds.

That is going to be next Tuesday, on the 13th. Jane has her thing in Mississippi on the 12th.

Then on the 15th Stotsky is at Nissitissit Middle School, 33 Chase Ave, Pepperell, MA 01463 for  a Common Core Informational Forum with Jamie Gass. Jamie Gass is Pioneer Institute's Director of the Center for School Reform. Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts. Also it  is a free-market think tank -- which means that it is privately funded by Koch, with Left wing verification of that who agrees with this guy. That guy is looking pretty Left-wing as well.  SourceWatch agrees with both so I'm going to take it on faith that Jamie Gass is a hardline pressure guy, and will likely try to incite rather than inform.

This is probably a good place to set the record straight. Put that on my list of things to do tomorrow.

The Case for Annual Testing

By: Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Martin R. West, Matthew M. Chingos and Mark Dynarski

The new U.S. Congress is moving post haste to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). With Republicans in the majority in both houses and the relevant committees chaired by individuals with considerable legislative skills (Lamar Alexander in the Senate and John Kline in the House) the smart money is on Obama seeing a bill in this session.

The most recent incarnation of ESEA, signed into law in January of 2002 by President George W. Bush, is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). NCLB is the seventh reauthorization of ESEA since 1965, which means that Congress historically reworked this legislation roughly every five years. We’re now 13 years into NCLB, so reauthorization is long overdue. It is not just the long delay that argues for congressional action, but the extent to which the Obama administration has replaced the provisions of the bill with its own set of priorities implemented through Race to the Top and state waivers. Whatever one thinks of the appropriate federal role in education, there are surely strong reasons in our constitutional democracy to prefer that we get to where we are going through law rather than executive edict.

This is really a good article, well researched, thoughtful and I learned quit a bit from it. I've been so busy with awareness that Common Core has no testing requirements, I've been a little derelict with whether standardized testing should be out there. Not sure I'm qualified to press it one way or the other.

Anyway , if it caught your attention at all, it won't waste your time. 

The Words of a Senator