Ravitch v. Rhee Fills Summer Lull
This from the
SchoolBook:
In the quiet days of August, after summer school ends and before
principals return to work, followers of education issues and news found
it a good time to re-hash ongoing debates, ourselves included.
WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show
re-aired interviews from leaders of different schools of thought
regarding education reform. First up, former Washington, D.C. schools
chancellor and the founder of Students First, Michelle Rhee, on the occasion of launching a New York chapter, studentsfirstNY. You can hear the interview here:
Next, the show aired a taped interview with Diane Ravitch, a research
professor of education at New York University and author. The
discussion focuses on school performance and the frustration some
teachers feel about standardized testing. You can hear it here:
The Rhee versus Ravitch showdown also appeared on CNN this week. In an interview,
Ms. Rhee decried the results of a study that ranked the U.S. 25th in
education internationally and said one of the most important fixes to
education is to improve teacher quality.
But, in an online rebuttal, Ms. Ravitch argued that the rankings do not take into account the most serious factor affecting performance.
Why are our international rankings low? Our test scores
are dragged down by poverty. On the latest international test, called
PISA, our schools with low poverty had scores higher than those of
Japan, Finland, and other high-scoring nations. American schools in
which as many as 25% of the students are poor had scores equivalent to
the top-scoring nations. As the poverty level in the school rises, the
scores fall.
Rhee ignores the one statistic where the United States is number one.
We have the highest child poverty rate of any advanced nation in the
world. Nearly 25% of our children live in poverty.
This is a scandal. Family poverty is the most reliable predictor of
low test scores. How can we compare ourselves to nations like Finland
where less than 5% of the children live in poverty?
1 comment:
Obviously this problem is due to ineffective teachers. Teachers need to be attracting new industries and employers to their communities. Equally, teachers need to be assisting parents in finding jobs, and not just low wage jobs but positions which raise their families standard of living. Each year the local employment rates, poveryt levels and per capita family incomes should be measured for each student in a teacher's class to determine if that teacher is doing their job based upon their pupils' family annual financial growth rate.
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