On Apr 14, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> I haven't yet listened to Doug's interview with Ravitch, but I seem to
> recall that her op-ed a few weeks ago (in the WSJ, I think) noted
> that the
> strongest factor in student success was not teachers but poverty.
Yes, she does say that.
She's got a chapter in her book on NYC's District 2, run by Anthony Alvarado back in the 1990s, whose alleged test improvements became a model for the test-obsessed. It was often described as poor, when in fact it was dominated by the East Side of Manhattan, which is anything but, and its poorer component was in Chinatown, which, while poor, is a long way from hardcore ghetto. And it got richer through the decade. But most of the people who studied the district paid no attention to its actual demographics, and focused instead on its rather odd techniques for teaching reading. Which comes to point 2:
> So,
> liberals think of good teachers saving education, which would "level
> the
> playing field," which then means that people really would be getting
> what
> they deserve when they're poor and un(der)employed. Right?
Good teachers can obviously help, but Ravitch cite research saying that their effects don't seem to last. But the "reformers" don't really pay much attention to serious research. Charter schools and school choice schemes have little or no effect on educational outcomes, but that hasn't stopped the reformers - including now the Obama gang - from embracing them.
Doug