I had the opportunity last night to be in the room with Diane Ravitch while she interacted with bloggers on the web using an interesting technology from Shindig. For over an hour I stood behind her taping her off the screen. Now I could have taped her off the screen I guess at home but I have an idea for a possible small documentary by gathering footage from her book tours - I wish I were going with her but alas, we hope people all over the nation -- like in Pittsburgh the other night where a thousand people showed up (I hear they have a tape) - will take footage capturing the excitement and upload it to a site I set up (contact me if you have footage even if on a phone.).I'll put up the video in a few days. Diane was on NPR and will be on Brian Lehrer on Monday morning.
Gotham School linked to the blog list or reviews I've been keeping with this note: Dozens of bloggers and educators have published their sunny takes on Ravitch’s book. (Ed Notes)
I consider the use of "sunny takes" an editorial comment by Gotham and objected in a comment.
Isn't it nice to have the "sunny side" of Ravitch's book being presented by so many real teachers from the grassroots where no one is paid or looking for advancement? Can someone point me to a similar group putting out the "sunny side" of Michelle Rhee's or Joel Klein's or Wendy Kopp's writings? And by the way - if you are classifying these reviews as the "sunny side" how about pointing to legit crit (not personal invective) showing where Ravitch is mistaken? Call it the cloudy side. To me painting these reviews as one-sided when some are very thoughtful examinations with some balance -- ie. Debbie Meier makes some critical points. I too while agreeing with most of it also feel that the role of the unions in ed deform need to be addressed and Ravitch didn't -- yet. I hope she does.
Gotham is indeed a fun place. Today, on Rise and Shine they wrote:
ReplyDelete"The teachers union made its second attempt to endorse a winner."
I replied:
How charming that GothamSchools feels so free to ridicule the United Federation of Teachers endorsement in a headline. It's hard to portray tens of thousands of working teachers, a great number of whom did not support Thompson, as bumbling buffoons. Yet Gotham has pulled it off perfectly.
I can't help but notice there is no such editorial comment for Meryl Tisch. Perhaps she's less convenient a target than those of us who spend our lives teaching New York City's public school children. Or perhaps we're just more accustomed to being written about like that. Hard to say.