Saturday, December 10, 2011

First, Let's Fire All The Teachers

Firstly, I want to thank Professor Cocozzelli for directing me towards Dr. Diane Ravitch. Her work is absolutely incredible and has helped my research immensely.

Dr. Ravitch is an historian of education and an educational policy analyst. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 1975. She was a U.S. assistant Secretary of Education under George H. Bush as well as Bill Clinton. Dr. Ravitch has published many books and has written nearly 500 scholarly articles.

The article that I am reviewing for this blog entry is called, “First, Let’s Fire All the Teachers!”. The article written by Dr. Ravitch is a response to the firing of an entire 93 person school staff due to extremely low academic performance and graduation rates. Central Falls High School, located in Rhode Island, is one of thepoorest schools in the entire state and is the only High School in the area. They have a graduation rate of 48 percent, 55 percent are proficient readers and only 7 percent of their students are proficient in math. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan both were pleased that the school was closed due to it’s poor performance and academic standards. However, Dr. Ravitch points out that a school called “The Met” in providence Rhode Island which has worse proficiency percentages (55 percent reading and 4 percent math), however has a higher graduation percentage of 76.5. Strangely enough, this school was saluted by the President Obama, yet the two schools have similar proficiency percentages. Dr. Ravitch points out that President Obama is more interested in glorifying schools with lower graduation standards rather than fixing the foundational issues.

Although teachers impact students a great deal, they are not the only variable when it comes to education students. Dr. Ravitch states, “It would be good if our nation's education leaders recognized that teachers are not solely responsible for student test scores. Other influences matter, including the students' effort, the family's encouragement, the effects of popular culture, and the influence of poverty.” I believe she is spot on with her analysis and that more in-depth research and development must be provided before we purge an entire school staff.

She closes the article by stating, “This strategy of closing schools and firing the teachers is mean and punitive. And it is ultimately pointless. It solves no problem. It opens up a host of new problems. It satisfies the urge to purge. But it does nothing at all for the students.” Once again, I believe Dr. Ravitch is correct. As I stated before, there needs to be more of an emphasis on research and development in our public school system.

http://www.rifthp.org/node/383 (The original article was published through the Huffington Post, however their direct link wasn't working)

1 comment:

  1. What do you think is a good evaluation for schools? Schools in new york are given report card grades every year by visitors (people come from Europe and evaluate a school in 2 days), do you think this is a fair way to evaluate?

    ReplyDelete