America's education reform movement -- the most significant reform movement in the history of this planet -- is just concluding another amazing school year. Politicians of all stripes and parties have come together to say, "We will not accept inferior teachers destroying the lives of our children anymore".
With grim budget cuts necessitating layoffs, we are reminded once again that seniority based layoffs make as much sense as saying that U2 should have to keep Bono as their lead singer just because he's been with the band for 30 years and has tenure.
For the past 30 years, education reformers have had to fight the forces of the status quo, but in that time we have agreed that certain changes must be made to education:
These points are the hallmark of true education reform. They bind together Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Chris Cristie, Arne Duncan, and myself. Several forces of the status quo have naturally opposed these moves, but lately one of the worst critics has been Diane Ravitch.
- The business principles that have made our economy great should be applied to our schools as well.
- We need a common curriculum
- We need frequent standardized testing
- We need a longer day and school year to allow more time for increased test prep
- We need a rich curriculum focused like a laser on only math and reading
- We need an end to tenure and LIFO policies
- Younger perkier teachers are superior to the old saddle horses who too often dominate public education.
- The best teachers for poor inner city students are young, preferably Ivy League educated young people from well to do families.
- Charter schools are superior to public schools because they can council students into leaving and public schools must teach everybody.
- We should fire the bottom 1/3 of all teachers every year.
Written and edited by Norm Scott: EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
Ed Notes Extended
▼
Monday, July 4, 2011
Why Does Diane Ravitch Hate Children?
Just brilliant satire---
1 comment:
Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating). Or because your comment is irrelevant or idiotic.
Last stand for children is a a great parody site. At first I thought it was for real.
ReplyDelete