[lbo-talk] ravitch talks to jon stewart

[Jeffrey Fisher]

Yeah, I think I am thinking of the same moment you are. And I'm pretty sure
as she was blaming deep pockets like Gates he cut her off in what seemed to
me like a really odd move, given what also seemed like palpable anger on his
part for the scapegoating of teachers. As someone else noted, he does
mention in this interview that his mother was a long-time teacher, and he
seemed very much to be on her side even as he had some other angle that I
couldn't quite put my finger on. And maybe it just is guilt about sending
his kids to some charter or private school. *shrug*.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 10:04 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:


> The thing that really set me off - and I'm working from memory here - was
> when Ravitch pointed out that our upper middle class kids do very well but
> that our 33% (again, memory...) childhood poverty rate is infinitely more
> to
> blame for low test scores than teachers, Stewart nevertheless responded by
> saying that giving poor parents a choice between (large,) scary, chaotic
> and
> lousy urban schools and smaller, more regimented and nicer charters
> couldn't
> be a bad thing.  I think she then missed a chance to say 1) that charter's
> don't on average get better results from equivalent groups of kids and 2)
> "choice" means busting unions, cutting salaries, privatizing services and
> perpetual 3-5 year burn out ratios... though I'd have preferred it if she'd
> just said that schools are being scapegoated for the consequences of
> neoliberalim's exacerbation of social inequality and that no "education"
> program is going to solve the problems with education if education's
> problems aren't primiarly rooted in education.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > The only thing I remember along these lines is his saying that charter
> > schools "aren't the problem," so he did seem to want to argue that while
> > they aren't the solution, they aren't the problem, whereas I get the
> > impression from Ravitch that she thinks they are very much a part of the
> > problem, insofar as they distract us from solving the genuine problems.
> >
> > But in general I got the feeling that he is actually pretty solid on (a)
> > teachers getting a bad rap, and (b) teacher unions getting a bad rap. I
> may
> > watch it again later, though, and see if I think differently.
> >
> > And here's the link, for anyone intereted:
> > http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/diane-ravitch
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:24 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > it seemed to me Stewart was more resistant than I expected... made me
> > > wonder
> > > if he's sending his kids to a charter school.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:40 PM, Jeffrey Fisher <
> jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
> > > >wrote:
> > >
> > > > I would link, but it's just aired and I think they wait until it airs
> > on
> > > > the
> > > > west coast to post it?
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, nothing earth-shattering to this crowd, but still a good
> > > interview.
> > > > ___________________________________
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> > > >
> >
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