Sunday Reading — Education

There have been a few articles in various places over the week that might be of interest as we continue to debate the future of education here in Delaware:

1. Christina board rescinds vote on reform — this is a good article from the NJ documenting how the Christina school board walked back its decision to opt out of previously agreed to plans for two schools.   I’ll admit to not paying a ton of attention to this issue, so I won’t pretend to know how to judge this.  But it *would* help me to know exactly what the plans are for transforming these two schools.  The details of this transformation/reorganization would help me to contextualize these decisions.
2. Diane Ravitch interviewed on NPR notes that she has a new book — Ravitch is the former BushCo-era DOE executive who once thought that NCLB was the cure and who has now — and in a very detailed way — walked that back to note that NCLB isn’t about educating kids.  Her new book talks about how standardized testing (as it is currently worshiped in Education circles) and school *choice* undermines the business of teaching.
3. Good Education is a Right, Not A Crime — this writer looks at two recent incidents of black mothers being arrested for sending their kids to schools clearly not meant for people like them.  I wish I could tell you how appalling this is — I know of many families who played all kinds of games with addresses to make sure that their kids went to better schools.  How can maneuvering your kid into a better school be a crime?  One more point about this — what these women did on their own is exactly what the GOP promises with their school vouchers schemes.  And yet the system has made it very clear that there are real sanctions for getting pass the cordons surrounding better school systems.  Those cordons and barriers absolutely exist and they won’t be broken down by having a voucher in hand.  Which still leaves families who want better to either stay where they are OR send their money to the privatized schools — which aren’t better at educating, just better at picking their students and collecting money to pay themselves.
4. The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries — Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari write an op ed in the NYT noting that while we don’t blame soldiers (or their benefits packages!)  for failures in the field, we are trying to hold teachers accountable for everything — including those things they have the least control over.  They make the case for paying teachers on par with other professionals that require similar levels of education — a thing that would make the teaching business way more competitive and better able to attract and hire excellence, but also make it alot easier to weed out teachers who truly can’t make it.