Comeuppance Is Not Enough

This is what I just had published in another related column to the one above: http://www.joannejacobs.com/2010/04/stanford-charter-elementary-will-close/
(background:  A poster said Ravitch was not a lefty.)

Tunya Audain
April 25, 2010 at 6:55 pm

Ravitch A “Progressive”, Is She Not?

I would still lump her in with LDH, Kozol, Meier, now add Alfie Kohn. Comeuppance is not enough for the likes of LDarling-Hammond. Is there no malpractice option by which one can sue for remedies, especially for those 200 kids in this experiment?

Let the list grow … Who else is doing harm with their “intellectual” theories? Are there no safeguards when experiments are being undertaken? What about psychological damage to these subjects, “guinea pigs”?

This is what I’ve written about Ravitch for the Washington Post blog: “Her credibility is low with me. As long as she remains a Director of the Albert Shanker Institute which is funded and housed at the American Federation of Teachers HQ in Washington, DC, I will continue to see her as in the pocket of teacher unions. Albert Shanker, president of the AFT from ’74-’97 never, to my knowledge, disavowed being a Marxist.”

Her other fault I decry is that she is contemptuous of parents. She does not trust them to be instrumental in their kids’ lives and does not support choice or any effective voice for parents in their schools.

Teacher Union-Bashing Bandwagon!

Thanks for the link to the Jay Greene story about the defunding of Linda Darling-Hammond’s charter school. 

In the comments one sees another welcome trend: union-bashing bandwagon by the press.  It’s about time.  Let’s flush out the culprits and resistors to education reform.  The press has been far too lenient with teacher unions. That’s why they appear so cocksure all the time!

Also linked to Greene’s comments is an item by Joanne Jacobs leading us to this story:  Teacher Unions Overplaying Their Hand http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14920955?source=most_emailed

The unions here know all this.  Their espionage and intelligence is superior and right-on-time. 

It’s us citizens that now can catch up with the news around the world.  Thanks to the Internet and watchtowers like SQE for pointing us to news that matters.  To be informed is to be empowered.

The Mercury article: “Sorry, no sale. The public schools operate on our dime. The students are our kids, and whether they succeed will help determine our country’s future. This makes us major stakeholders who deserve to have a voice in how this enterprise goes forward.
If hearing it makes teachers and teachers unions angry, then so be it.”

It is the first time I have heard such strong comments about the state of public education, and how the unions and their views, are being put to the test through the use of logic, and evidence that proves without question, that the teachers unions, and false philosophies on education, do not work, will not work, and will never work. A child, no matter what circumstances they are in, still needs to be taught the ABCs, and not some crap of social values, and ivory tower education theories, that have no basis in reality, let alone to teach all children, to read, write, and do numeracy well.

Today, I read one of the best article from a parent’s viewpoint, on the problems with the education system in Canada. “Jennifer Goodman says she’s been fighting for months to get help from the North Vancouver school district for her dyslexic son but she’s been turned down so many times, she’s ready to give up and take her boy across town to a private school.” But guess what, the private school is moving out of town, and go to North Vancouver. So the parent is back to square one, unless she decides to move to North Vancouver.

The board’s response, to the parent is typical whose child was diagnosed with dyslexic two years ago in grade 4. Dyslexic, is a reading disorder pure and simple, that needs highly specialized reading lessons to overcome, since schools no longer provide the proper reading programs in the first place and no teacher is required to be knowledgeable on the reading processes. As such, the majority of reading disorders, a good reading program such as Direct Reading Instruction are simply not allow in by the teachers unions, and their false ivory tower education theories, that state in confounding terms, that a child’s social skills are far more important than the reading skills.

Stated by the board in respond to the parent, “The North Vancouver district would not comment on Goodman’s complaints, citing privacy reasons, but said in a statement to The Vancouver Sun that it provides early identification and intervention for students at risk of learning disabilities, including creation of an individual education plan and support from a learning assistance teacher.
“Learning assistance teachers, resource teachers and classroom teachers collaborate to provide students who have learning disabilities with thorough demystification of their learning strengths and weaknesses, effective coaching on the adaptation and ownership of independent learning strategies, and gradual internalization of self-monitoring and self-advocacy skills,” it said.”

Where does it state, the teaching of the reading skills and how it is done. I and many other parents have been faced with the same type of response coming from boards right across the country, where learning how to read well, is not the most important thing, but to teach your child how to advocate, take ownership, by effective coaching, is the key, instead of teaching them to read well. Reading well, is not a goal of the public education system, the goal is to handicapped the individual from obtaining the right and access to reading programs that will teach them to read. Ditto for writing and numeracy as well.

Another tactic that unions employed on a regular basis, is to deny specialized tutors to enter into the school, to teach children who are struggling in the reading process, that the educators cannot or will not teach them to read.

“The district is prohibited under contract with the North Vancouver Teachers’ Association from allowing paid tutors to work in schools because that would be considered contracting out, district communications manager Victoria Miles said in an e-mail. Instead, students meet tutors in local public facilities and “feedback ... indicates it is generally working well for parents,” she added.” 

Yeah, working very well, parents are still footing the bills for the high-priced tutors, for an essential service that schools no longer feel that they have to provide, teach all children to read well, no matter who and what they are.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Special+needs+neglected+public+school+shortfall/2951497/story.html

Progressive teaching methods, which brings me to a new organization making its way into Canada, called the Institute of Child Education and Psychology (ICEP), an online school for teachers and now there even have a parent course, to make the most of your child’s potential. “The course, to be launched May 10 by the Institute of Child Education & Psychology (ICEP) Europe, is intended to empower parents with practical information they can’t always get from their children’s teachers—including what services they should expect from schools and what they can do to help. Collaboration between home and school is essential, Reid said.”

Practical information perhaps, but no where are they informing parents on to get their children up to speed on reading, writing, and numeracy skills. What they are telling parents what to expect from the schools, and what the parent can do to help. Here is the link, and no where are they talking about the most important knowledge that a parent needs to know, the reading programs, and all other programs that have been proven to work, and are well researched, In no certain terms, they are telling parents you have to go else where if you want your kid to be able to read well. The school’s job is to keep the children happy, good self-esteem, and all that nonsense and parents jobs is to accept our children as they are, and not what they could be, especially with a good set of skills of reading, writing and numeracy.
http://www.icepe.ie/dyslexia-parent.html

Of course this parent course comes with a fee, of $175 Euro dollars. A course, that has information that can be obtained freely on many sites, but not the real information and knowledge needed to navigate your child through the education system, to become an effective advocate for your child. Instead, it commits the parent to become a willing participant, advocating for more ivory tower education theories, rather than effective teaching and curriculum methods.

Palo Alto school was very poor school with 2 years of low scores. Surprise? The trustees vote 3-1 with one absent. Wow.

Albert Shanker was a Neo-con for the last 15 years of his life Tunya an you know that.

Doug, you are at again relaying misinformation.

“The Albert Shanker Institute, named in honor of the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to three themes—children’s education, unions as advocates for quality, and freedom of association in the public life of democracies. Its mission is to generate ideas, foster candid exchanges, and promote constructive policy proposals related to these themes.”

http://www.shankerinstitute.org/

Beating up a man who has been dead for a while, implying that he stood for something else, when he was one of the power brokers for the teachers unions and their goals. If he had live, he would be advocating for the return of proven teaching methods and curriculum, and put a stopped to progressive teaching ideas, that are merely based on nothing more than a person life style choices, and not based in science but rather in funny ideas that should have no place in the instruction of children.

Albert Shanker went Neo-con in his later years and everybody knows it.

Google “Albert Shanker goes Neo-con. I seldom do links.

Albert Shanker went to the other side in his last few years, just like some other well respected educators have already done so. Children’s education mixed with teachers unions as the sole advocate for quality and freedom to associate in a democracy is a recipe for poor education outcomes.

No, we know you do not do links, but you have the rarest of reading disorders, that allow you only to read what fits in your present reality. All other facts that state otherwise, are missed, so it does not give you the discomfort that your reality may not be the true reality.

Providing links to research supporting one’s claims does add a certain weight to one’s arguments.

On the issue of Shanker going “neo-con” that doesn’t mean much, unless one sees “neo-con” as simply being a bad thing.  That’s hardly a convincing argument he was unworthy making a case.

Sorta like wanting brownie points simply by claiming to be a “progressive”.