Can School Reform Actually Improve Our Schools?

president obama's race to the top to president bush's no child left behind just two of the many recent attempts to reform our nation's education system but what will it take to actually improve our schools i'm kate mcintyre and today and kbr presents education analyst and historian diane ravitch one of the most vocal supporters and critics of public education today ravitch is currently a research professor at new york university and a non resident scholar at the brookings institute in nineteen ninety one she was selected by president george h w bush to serve as assistant secretary of education she's edited fourteen books and published eight others including her latest the death and life of the great american school system how testing and choice are undermining education ravitch spoke out with her father torian at the university of kansas and october eighteenth two thousand eleven as part of the hall center for the humanities lecture series i'm here tonight to talk about

the crisis in american education there is a crisis but it's not the one you've read about stop when you see on television it's not a crisis of low test scores for bad teachers the real crisis was caused by bad federal education policies the real crisis is caused by mean spirited senseless attacks on dedicated teachers and principals the real crisis is caused by a massive disinvestment and education the real crisis is caused by billionaires who won a privatized their public schools the real crisis is close by governors and legislatures or lowering standards for entry into education and who are slashing their budgets for essential services the real crisis it's caused outrage in yours look at the public schools and see not a vital public resource that a business opportunity less than before you tonight as they chase is an unrepentant reformer

and i know for myself and over how to reform last year published books which just came out this week in paperback i think it's you see it outside and i added in the last chapter summing up the last two years but last year this book came out in which i explained why i change my mind about testing accountability and choice and i did something you don't hear too often these days i said that i was wrong some people found it refreshing to hear an admission of error and others thought i had disgraced myself because i changed my mind christie meant that i changed my mind from where they were people whose forces i joined with those really great i believe the best thing we can do for ourselves and for our society it's to keep thinking keep listening to different points of view and be open to new ideas that's what education is all about the willingness to listen here to larry

internet era tonight i'm going to explain why i change my mind about these issues and my explanation starts with understanding the frame through which we view the world we live our lives by the stories that we tell ourselves we construct narratives to explain events we make sense of the world through those narratives today we have a national school reform narrative based on the stories of what i call the bad news industry i know this industry well where they used to be part of that i too was one of those people who scrutinize every senator scores every indicator and every new study to show how terrible our schools were and i was part of that large chorus warren every day that the sky was falling it's been falling since nineteen eighty three when we learned that the nation was at risk because of what was then called a rising tide of mediocrity that is cora's is louder than ever

today and bigger than ever today it's very loud very powerful but i'm in oregon's night that they're wrong and explain why i don't sing their song anymore but there is industry is no longer on the ends on the outside looking in and in fact if in control as leaders of those who call themselves reformers their story is wrecking public education american public education has always had critics but the critics wanted to make public schools better it more privatized never before in our history has been such a powerful well funded well coordinated movement determined to dismantle public education these reformers so called billy's record made a strategy of testing accountability and choices the very best way to fix the schools now i prefer told these people corporate reformers because they want the schools operate along the lines of the free market they want parents to become consumer is making choices children to the product's

shape of the demands of the schools and test scores become the prophets and losses the determine the condition of the business teachers are supposed to be employees who have no rights no seniority and they get a bonus if they get higher scores they get fired if they have low scores are they may be fired for any reason at all because they will be at will employees the reformers want to transform public education as we've noted they want to change it from a community institution with doors opened all serving democratic purposes into a privately managed deregulated private sector activity funded with government dollars the corporate reformers believe and their story they believe it's such a perfect remedy that they will alison anyone who disagrees with them and they refuse to consider evidence rather powerful evidence i believe that their story may in fact be wrong the more their story fails them or its discredited by research and experience them or they just come and they

become to press forward with the reforms what i had served in the first bush administration i was an active participant and two very prominent conservative think tanks and for a decade i supported the free market reforms but as these ideas went from theory to practice i began to realize that these strategies are not working that the claims made for testing accountability inch waist were not in fact handing out that the evidence was we were with each new report was getting weaker and i stopped believing i got off the train as it left the station that train that downturn sound has become bipartisan it has the support of our biggest billionaire philanthropist including the gates foundation the library foundation of los angeles long family foundation of arkansas and many many others the moment consist of very wealthy and powerful alliance of both republicans and democrats and wall street hedge fund managers the wall street hedge fund managers are clustered around a

group called democrats for education reform here is a group called republicans for education reform because they already believe in these strategies of testing accountability and choice democrats for education reform supplies millions of dollars for local state national election campaigns which is an immense influence with democratic politicians de fer <unk> democrats' traditional form does not need to give money to republican politicians because they already have the agenda the gates foundation grants tens of millions of dollars every year close to a hundred million dollars a year now the average or c groups such as think tanks and other nonprofits which not surprisingly advances of the gates foundation in some states they're independent billionaires like the koch brothers and warm family and many others whose names would not be known to you and they're funding politicians both democrats and republicans to advance privatization policies last week i was at duke university and was told about billionaires were funneling these policies in that

state and then went to get lectured fermin universe in south carolina same story different set of billionaires what is the line supports really is testing accountability choice charters very often vouchers many of them are anti union want to remove all job protections for teachers they'll tell you that our schools spend too much a recital that does more statistics about international test scores and they'll say that art schools or failing for kids there failings middle class kids are also failing gifted kids say doesn't seem to be anyone there not failing one mustn't reform leaders as it turns out when to elite private schools and they don't know very much about public education but they do seem to know what to do to fix that they believe so passionately in texas and testing that they want teachers to be judged by their students' test scores of course that's not what happens in private schools for the children of the wealthy wealthy but they never mention that they want schools of education to be judged by the test scores of the students taught by the graduates of the education schools it's a

four reach and mailings in that chain that the us supported education just from the recommended that this is a way to improve teacher education to measure in that fashion the card reform has not only thing that's sociology her child psychology or cognitive development that they can fight for the conservative economists from places like the hoover institution where i was affiliated for ten years and these conservative a promising the only thing that matters is performance their definition of performances test scores the court reformers never heard of the economists who don't agree with those conclusions they trust only the economists who sure then the teachers don't the master's degrees don't need small classes and don't need experience or they need to be considered a great teacher is to produce higher test scores year after year the corporate reformers believe that the teacher is solely responsible for the scores go up or down they don't care about class size they believe it will reach world class achievement by closing low performing schools firing

teachers firing principals and ruthlessly weeding out those teachers who fail to produce higher scores they never explain how an annual firing ritual will affect workplace morale or where we will find a steady stream of great new teachers to replace the five to ten percent that they think should be fired every year or this narrative i believe it's a false narrative that it has no evidence to support it just ideology it's remedies are a threat to the future of teaching profession as well as to public education the free market works very well and providing goods and services for the private sector but it's not the right way to operate basic public services the free market has many virtues but it does not produce a quality that produces winners and losers as we learned in the forty thousand eight market collapse as we continue to learn again and again the free market experiences cycles

experiences major downturns in which there are very few winners and quite a lot of losers and free markets frankly is not kind to losers but the goal of our schools this race that every child not big winners losers we're supposed to treat every single trial is unique and precious individual we do this not with a global competition not to be economically competitive the book was we would like to be or should like to be a decent society where everyone has an equal chance to reach his or her full potential education is not the competition education is not a race it's a long and slow and criminal process of development there is no finish line until you die education should prepare each of us to make our way in the world and to do the best we can the eye ideas of the pro reform movement come mainly from non educators

especially from leaders in a high tech sector and these hedge fund managers they believe in creative destruction and innovation they love the idea of tearing things happen starting over they enjoy rest it works for the works for them they can place and that they can have a new idea and they can strike it rich overnight but disruption and chaos are not good for children children need stability they don't need disruption and chaos they don't need roads they need caring adults were there for them everyday year in and year out is a steady and reliable presence good public education should be a basic human rights and fundamental public service not a consumer good his availability is determined by market forces that's a lot about the two major political parties had a serious difference of opinion about education policy and democrats believed in equality of educational opportunity and resources for the disadvantaged and strengthening the teaching profession and republicans believe that accountability

competition and choice that are even is over it's been over since the passage of no child left behind a decade ago in the current climate both parties police accountability competition and choice republicans won that one inch any voices on the national scene are arguing for equity desegregation resources targeted to the neediest improving the standards of the teaching profession no child left behind are major federal education legislation mark a major sea change in the education policy in our history for anyone with isis the no child left behind has turned out to be the worst federal education legislation ever passed by congress if no talent behind nclb is a failed federal policy it's raining education the pressured to raise test scores every year is promoting cheating gaming the system teachings of the test and

narrowing the curriculum because of the nclb many schools and districts have had to cut back on the arts and physical education history and civics foreign languages and other subjects because they don't count only really in that counts many schools have eliminated libraries librarians guidance counselor social workers and other services because they've had to direct our limited funding into testing and test taking materials after all the test scores will determine whether the school lives or dies and they matter most we can now see that the nclb federalize control of public education the most significant decisions about what happens in the public schools are now made in washington not a state capitals and local school districts washington could save ten percent of the money the washington post the reins of power nclb mandates that all children in grades three through eight must be proficiency and reenact the twenty fourteen sounded good in two thousand won but it's an

impossible goal it's one that has never been that any nation in the world and it will not be met by any state in this country last spring secretary duncan said that more than eighty percent of the schools would be labeled failing schools this year by twenty fourteen if the law has not been changed virtually hundred percent of our schools will be failing schools now i ask you can you think of any national legislative body in the world that has ever passed a law that was guaranteed to stigmatize every public school in the nation this is literally insane certainly irresponsible the secretary duncan has offered waivers to states that was geithner's see obese timetable of distraction that doesn't apply for waivers and most states are applying for waivers have to agree to accept his mandate says that ivins hillbillies in some ways they're not much better nclb

was based on a campaign slogan of george w bush which he claimed that their hidden america and texas well as i said at the outset we live our lives by the stories we tell in this one was a whopper ah the theory was this if you test every one that you close the scores if you were the school to get chest were gains in versus the do not then good things happen graduation rates go up test scores go up in each even get nervous and the only problem was that none of that was true that didn't happen in texas there was a texas miracle but congress want the idea by overwhelming majorities and pass this terrible law so the philosophy of the law that i could find three words measure and punished when a school can medium possible targets of nclb the sanctions get progressively worse every year with the

ultimate sanction being too far the principal fire half the staff are all the staff close the school and virtue a charter turned over to the state turn over private management there is little or nothing in the law to support encourages years there's nothing to inspire what there is is fear intimidation humiliation sanctions and punishments ending and foreign closure of course congress shouldn't tinker with no drama to repeal what it should be replaced by federal policy that supports equity and equitable resources for the students who need the most and promote a sound education for all countries should not tell districts are schools how to reform because congress is not competent to do it if i watch every day the stories about the legislation being shaped now that how congress wants to evaluate teachers how they want to change this and change that and i think they don't

know what they're doing it's frightening to see these men and women shaking law that will affect the lives of students and schools had no knowledge of the implications as they did not in years ago congress endorsed policies to help schools that row but enroll larger numbers of low performing students not the current policies that used test scores to punish schools many of the schools are for failing schools or schools that had disproportionately large numbers of low performing students were low performing because there were because they don't speak english but roseman even had disabilities and some places like the city where i live schools are turning to be closed by overloading them were disproportionate numbers of low performing students and then they're labeled failing and closed with a corporate reformers do love testing and accountability for other people's children that they would not want their own children in a school that had no war it's no time for play and it spent

weeks preparing for tests and basic skills i got a tweet the other day from a superintendent upstate new york and he said he has told his staff that dared to devoted following week without passing a test prep and i said why don't you try and want to see where they take you build gates told the nation's governors last spring the children should have larger classes but he wouldn't want that for his children said the districts should not pay teachers more for master's degrees our experience and because that's what the conservative economists have told them that i would like to understand the logic of this how our schools improve their teachers have less education less experience a larger classes doesn't make any sense or race to the top is no improvement over no child left behind it to promote privatization for states to open more privately managed charter schools to establish merit pay programs to evaluate teachers vet student test scores in to agree to transform low performing schools transformation sounds

like a really good idea will like the idea of being transformed i would like to be transformed myself but it turns out that the options for transformation are no different from the sanctions and no solid behind transformation means this it means that corner for all the staff would be fired and the school might be turned into a charter school are closed and replaced behind all of these strategies is the same turtle farm law of testing accountability and choice which is now getting a bit long in the tooth why denton applied all these same supposedly transformative policies when he was superintendent schools and chicago and every then you asian of his program which he called renaissance twenty ten he's concluded that it made very little difference i was in chicago in the spring of twenty ten and again earlier this year and i asked audiences it's twenty ten i said or twenty eleven had you had a renaissance yet no one knew of any renaissance in chicago

scores of schools have been closed scores of schools have been opened few of the new ones are better than the old ones most of the children who transferred from an old low performing school to a new school transfer to a new low performing school and the latest valuation shows that the achievement gap widen because african american students fell even further behind in your city we're now closing new schools are open to replace all schools it's a game of musical chairs and responsive know tell us behind race of the top public schools across the nation but beginning to close some of them have closed because your scores were too low as schools close their doors communities are destabilized and fragmented sometimes in this call succeed in urban districts because they exclude low performing students that works every time it's for seventy keep out the low performing kids but closing schools doesn't help the races read english and it doesn't herald the achievement gap closing schools

does nothing to address the educational needs of students public schools are not chain stores to be closed and opened it will they should be iowa community institutions now transient agencies that come and go as to scores rise or fall in one sense race to the top funds even worse than no talent behind no child left behind hold schools accountable racer the top holes teachers accountable its demand to judge teachers by their students' test scores will lead even more narrow the curriculum and even more teaching to the test this practice violates a basic rule sell cycle metrics which i learned about when i served on the national testing board test should be used only for the purpose for which they are designed the test to fifth grade reading is a test a fifth grade reading not a test of the teacher test measure student performance and not teacher quality a few weeks ago i returned from a visit to fend on

which is one of the world's best school systems not only has no support of the top of international test the past decade and reading and math and science but the variation quality among its schools if the smallest of any nation tested in the international assessments other words no one has achieved something very much like equality of educational opportunity citizens them on never take stand has multiple choice test until apply to higher education the students do take teacher may test the national curriculum consist of dried guidelines assuring that every child has a full program in the arts and sciences and not eat your prescriptions to tell teachers how to teach what to teach then his teachers or four part to have five years preparation including a master's degree in michigan teacher education programs is highly competitive only one in ten who want to teach or accepted teachers have assisted

five years of education and they all learn how to help all children learn including children with disabilities and children lying which means teachers are highly respected professionals and they were trusted to act as professionals i remember in one school that i visited the principal was asked what's the secret he said the first part of the sequence for trust we trust our teachers there was one other great advantage only three or four percent is children and poverty here it's nearly twenty five percent there's one great school system and they pay for it why were all the difference for us education where we test everything and everyone that moves because we trust no one and the more we trust the test because for so many incentives to game the system to avoid the kids who might get low scores to teach test taking trips even the cheeky officials in washington dc in atlanta posted there to score gains that their claims been undermined by allegations of widespread cheating officials in your city

boasted of the miracle of protest were against the nets and my city but they're both turned follow clinton ended in an investigation last year revealed that the state education department have maybe tennis easier year after year to inflate the scores and overnight they are sitting there all collapsed and i'm not suggesting that testing in itself is bad the problem is the test today or over emphasize their misused they should be is for diagnostics the hope teachers help students they should be its reformation not for handing out bonuses were fine people closing schools when high stakes are attached to test scores people inside what matters most an education they focus on the wrong roles as more time is devoted to test preparation the test themselves lose their value is a measure on the test become corrupted his mission bear in mind that the test we use are not scientific instruments are not barometers of the raw parameters they are social instruments created by

humans in their subject of measurement error ryan and her sources of other statistical errors as was forwarding were scoring in my years on the national assessment governing board i frequently so the test questions struck down simply because they were worded the wrong way or the answers our questions were ambiguous i also worry about what it will mean to the future of our nation if we have young people taking year after year after year multiple choice standardized test whether we will squeeze out every last drop of creativity innovation critical thinking originality very attributes needed for success in this century ce the multiple choice approach is really associating with the beginning of the twentieth century and during the industrial era when we needed good factory workers to follow orders that sour we need

today and yet our testing is designed for the early twentieth century so the corporate reform agenda which is now the status quo and education and has been policed last ten years rest on the claim that our schools are great fifty years ago but they have fallen into decline now honestly just you as an investor in educational reformers are wrong because they have another history three big changes occurred in the last fifty years and they had a big impact on our public schools first or the courts in the federal government entered legally mandated racial segregation in our society continues to deal with the consequences of generations of racial discrimination and poverty african american families continue to suffer from the legacy of segregation and the lack of economic opportunity secondly our society end the practice of excluding children with disabilities from public schools this has been extensive and

challenging when reformers complain about rising cost literally do not know special education has been the single biggest recipient of new funding over the past forty years when congress passed the legislation for special education it pledged to pay forty percent of the cost and what it has never feel that promise third because of changes in federal law our society has experienced an enormous wave of immigration in non english speaking countries many of our schools now have significant numbers of students who can't read or speak english so if we look back fifty years ago back when i was graduating high school many of our schools were racially segregated had few if any student with disabilities and had very few non english speaking students are schools today have to deal with the challenges they have and not long for a time when such challenges were ignored or did not exist as far as progress goes we have only one national measure and that's the national assessment of

educational progress which is a federal testing program it's been operating since the early nineteen seventies and country to the reform narrative there has been substantial academic progress and made these past four decades that she that has not declined in fact blacks it has made the greatest gains especially in the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties no one knows exactly why paul born in the educational testing service wrote a paper about this last year the stalling of the reach even can't progress he said maybe was desegregation made you a smaller class sizes maybe was the added resources for federal programs like title one maybe was increased economic opportunities for black families and it was all of the above or something that he couldn't think of the climb when she even get to exist in the nineteen seventies was dramatically reduced and some grapes in some subjects it was going to have to make new primaries we may need to do more what were doing in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties but what

about those awful international task force isn't it terrible that our status rank only in the metal wire remember one when the latest set of international scores were released last december from a program called pisa the permanent international student assessment secretary duncan reacted with alarm he said it was a wakeup call to the nation as snow was that was our generation's sputnik moment now what you need to know is that the first international test was given in the mid nineteen sixties and our city's ranked twelfth out of twelve we came in dead last in over this past half century we usually ranked in the middle or the bottom or trial never the type of corporate reformers don't know this now last january when the president gave his state union address he said that we should listen to the naysayers secretary duncan he said we should listen

to the naysayers because our nation has the world's greatest economy the most productive workers the most inventors the most patents most dynamic businesses and the best colleges and universities in the world so one might wonder how is it possible that a generation it ranked in the bottom quartile on those international test produced all these wonderful achievements maybe those international test don't predict the future of our upcoming non old enough to remember that the real sputnik in nineteen fifty seven when the soviet union launched the first base satellite and at that time the media said we were doomed it was a little bar lousy schools notice they don't win anything but the schools they said this always ruin of the disclose their science and math education was better than ours but you know there are still here because we believe in freedom and opportunity on individual creativity and ingenuity and not in compliance and five year plans we certainly need to improve our math and

science programs that we achieved our economic successes without investing billions on billions and testing and test prep one other thing you should know about the international test and the last one one cannot last december american schools which have less than ten percent of their students and poverty had test scores that were significantly higher than those of students in finland korea and japan were leaders our schools which twenty four percent of the children were in poverty are tied with the world's top nations is the level of poverty rises in the schools the test scores for if we could reduce poverty we would have higher test scores across the board if our corporate reformers don't want to talk about poverty they say it's just an excuse they say that schools alone can solve the problems social

inequality but they're wrong we're demoralizing are educators wreaking havoc on our schools or teachers or principals or students in our communities last year the corridor for is heavily promoted a propaganda film called waiting for superman that film had a simple but by now familiar story line american public education is failing the international sports in town on the national discourse or terrible or schools or disgrace we're failing because we have some incompetent teachers who could never be fired because of their greed unions that offer solutions there's solutions offered were privately managed charter schools will switch have no unions testing and accountability merit pay deregulation competition for teachers whose students get low scores and of course the us or the poverty was not a problem and resources didn't matter century spanning more than enough as a thong thought when i saw in my head started spending because i'd heard the

same ideas for years within the conservative think tanks that i had abandoned and that movie in various books and articles had fallen or repeat the same storyline bbc and nbc syndication nation we heard are from oprah we heard time magazine cover a time cover of newsweek on one of course there aren't many problems american education act of course our school that must be improved but i believe the corporate reformers have identified the wrong problems and they offer cures the single most reliable predictor of test scores is family income poverty is the problem that drags down academic performance not good teachers it's the elephant in the room that the reformers don't wanna talk about the more poverty below are the scores this is true on the s at the azt the national assessment educational progress or state scores or affect reflect first and foremost family and tom this is of course in the test scores are a reflection of differences in family literacy family education books in the home access to health

care to get housing to basic nutrition all these things matter if you haven't of course maybe they don't matter but if you don't have them they matter a lot they affect children's motivation and their readiness to learn the reform movement promotes strategies that have failed again and again but says it destroyed evidence and they will not listen to critics they continue to promote these failed ideas charters can be good actors to need that they are not the answer to the problems of american education they're now more than five thousand jurors rolling well over one a half million students that's about three percent of our nation's public school students there were some excellent charter schools there are some dreadful charter schools on the whole there's no difference in performance between charters regular public schools because there are excellent public schools and there are some very bad public schools some charters run by responsible organizations some are run by the norse one made money some are run by incompetence who shouldn't have public money on the injured or children some of them get high

test scores by spinning top performing students by excluding low performing students are by high rates of attrition the studies that we have a charter schools the most significant being one out of this out of stanford university economist their name margaret rain man who is associate the hoover institution the study was funded by the very concerned the walton family foundation it was anticipated that it would be i'm cheerleading for trailers are quite to the contrary i am marc rayman looked at have to charter schools in the nation some almost twenty five hundred of them and what he found during tour schools with similar regular public schools seventeen percent of the jurors were better than the traditional public school thirty seven percent of the jurors were worse than a traditional public school among forty first six percent it was no difference so a three percent of the cases the charter was you know better worse than regular public school and it was a study of charter middle school set and compared them to regular

public middle schools mathematica policy research last summer no difference in perfect either and test scores are in behavior i guess first incident compared to regular public school students on the national assessment since two thousand three this comes out every year so all three or five or seven of nine no difference between charter students are your public school students whether looking at the test scores on the national assessment of african american students hispanic students are urban students and low income students so the next thing that comes up current reform agenda for some some but not all pro reformers busy jew vouchers and batteries for a long time seem to be a dead issue because everytime vouchers recruit presented at for a popular referendum they were voted down so they're not been submitted to popular for in anymore and say they're going right to the legislature and people want answers are biologist leaders that jews don't work nonetheless voucher programs are now being passed in

indiana just recently passed a statewide voucher program that are advocates are are on the move in pennsylvania in several other states but we now have the evidence of milwaukee milwaukee is the district that's had doubters publicly funded vouchers for twenty one years that's a good long run in here's what we know that twenty one years of doubters the claim was made that they would be a dramatic improve academic achievement and that competition would cause all boats to rise and the public schools would get better because they had to compete with the better schools for students so now we have the walking into gaza nine for the first time for dissipating in the national system of educational progress or about eighteen cities that your bridges of hated and they compare performance to other cities like stooges in milwaukee perform on a par with black students in mississippi alabama louisiana and georgia named their test scores are amongst the lowest for black students in the country so there was no improvement for the black students and the public

schools but then the state's course came out just this past spring and what the state's four showed was that there was no difference and performance for low income students in the voucher schools as compared to public schools me the performance is bad across the board whether students are in the public schools the charter schools have the better schools so the state of wisconsin has a billion dollars into the outreach firm in over twenty one years and has lifted no votes there has been a rising tide but the state of wisconsin governor walker decided that that is such a great idea that the legislature is going to expand the voucher program leslie income women so that more people can participate in an extended not just be an extended and more kids in milwaukee will be eligible now it's been extended to race in wisconsin but the interesting thing here is about tragic its are no longer claiming they'll be a big legal and academic achievement because

it hasn't happened in twenty one years or just say it'll save money is not about helping kids that saving money so then comes the sequester law what about this claim that the teachers unions are the ones that are holding us back well we don't have too much evidence of that because the highest performing states in the country or massachusetts connecticut new jersey all of which have very strong teachers unions if we look to the uk the states that have very weak teachers unions they are the lowest performing states in the country so they're there's much much support there in terms of evidence i mention i'm just back from finland so it's being one of the highest performing nations in the world consistently over the past decade ive course ask about whether the teacher is really union and they said well yes about a hundred five percent are and they said actually the teachers and the principals belong to the same union doesn't seem to be a problem so now we have this new obsession from the reform side and it's been made into obsession and leave largely by the gates foundation and that is that our

problem is teacher evaluation if we don't evaluate more teachers and we would be a libyan offenders their teachers get rid of them and then everything would be much better in the scores rise the problem is that again the research doesn't support this we now have a huge body of research that says that all the methods were currently using about who gets higher test scores and who doesn't or inaccurate and unstable i think teachers who are considered highly effective one year will not be highly effective next year depending on which tests he is and depending on who ends up in their class teachers and students are not randomly assigned and teachers have no control over who is in their class so the state the composition class that's a huge difference and when you're the teacher may have a very we engaged in one class in the same teacher the next year they have some troublemakers that make it difficult for up for the other kids to learn these measures are not stable so one of my colleagues in your university i can't say sean

corcoran did a study of teacher evaluation based on growth models in how much he says words what your career and we're sitting used and what he found was that these ratings are highly inaccurate citizens huge margin of her that a teacher in new york who is ranked at the forty three percent now may actually be the fiftieth percentile or could be the seventy first percentile so you'd be quite accurate you said that this teacher was average above average or below average of all the safety training you know one of the things that never gets mentioned that the concerns me is that by using student test scores to evaluate teachers or shift the balance of power in the classroom the state has now given permission to fire their teacher they can withhold effort i think this is very problematic critically because we had probably been waiting for and undermining the authority of the adults in the classroom no a friend of mine who's a principal and a highly rated prince who's won all kinds of awards of a large public school anymore

said to me she which she envisions for litigation had when the state evaluation system gets into high gear and she labels these teachers affected these teachers and effective and all along the spectrum she anticipates that the losses there would be parents who say i will not have my child and as johnson's clash isn't an effective teacher who will want their child and those classes even though the measures are inaccurate she says that she will have lawsuits from karen sang my johnny didn't get into harvard because he didn't have three effective teachers in a row the reformers say they want quality teachers and every classroom but so many excellent teachers are so demoralize or leaving the profession of possible this constant criticism of teaching given the current national attacks on the teaching profession we must wonder whose when we're teaching the future which is why these attacks should stop now many people that they asked me what bad teacher

america i admire that young people who join teacher american i have often said that they're debating wendy kopp question in aspen and so far young person graduating college i probably the appointees for americans sounds like a wonderful problem is like a teepee score but when the young people joined the peace corps they're not sent off to another country to be the ambassador and yet we take these young people in tfa they get five weeks of training and there in front of one of the toughest classrooms in the country and then they're going to have three years later this is no way to build a profession this reliance on teach for america is the answer is actually been very harmful to any discussion of how we improve the teaching profession now another the favorite performers or a day is merit pay you when you need to know about that is that it's been tried since the nineteen twenties and it's never worked the most recent study of merit

pay was done in nashville tennessee vanderbilt university national center on performance incentives and economists to design studies said well the reason that america is never worked in the past is that the incentives were never big enough to motivate lazy teachers after all if you only offer them three or four five thousand dollars that doesn't move them so they offered a bonus for higher test scores a fifteen thousand dollars that's great advice for people who are making twenty five to fifty thousand nine hundred and the end of three years they found that there was no difference between those who are eligible for the bonus those who are not my guess is that the teachers and both experimental group in control who were teaching as far as they know how and the bonus didn't make a difference now we also have the testimony from the great business bureau edwards deming he's considered one of the people responsible for the economic renaissance in japan years ago he he has written about performance pay and a corporation he'd never said anything about

education we said that performance playing when you said colleagues and competition with one another for money is that it's a very bad thing because industry steam or the streets collaboration it's a bad idea and business it's also a bad idea to school schools are communities they're not they should not be people competing with low another for dollars it's not prudent use of dollars plus a dozen among its debt and the organization also doesn't have results in your city just extend over three years with merry clayton to school this entire schools would get a big bonus if they get the test scores and they wasted fifty six million dollars on that one before they get an evaluation segment say made no difference alaska may be our most prestigious research organization the country the national research council the national academy of sciences police a nine year study in which they concluded the tying incentives to test doesn't

work it doesn't raise achievement as we had seen in a cello behind really cheap again something very small and they said more poorly it incentivizes band behaviors before behaviors have been discussing tonight it incentivizes grade inflation cheating and gaming the system there's now a growing body of research showing that when you give performance bonuses you actually reduce motivation oddly enough people don't work harder they work as one thousand dollars a year when you take dance away they lose their motivation to work all on tuesday's ratings and being a plank in his book drives is a behavioral economist at indiana ariely ruble called predictably irrational many edward dempsey a psychologist why we do what we do and what came her yelling get she will say is that people work harder and better they're motivated by idealism by a sense of purpose by having

autonomy in their work not by the promise of more money and a control and command structure yes we do have a crisis in education today will we allow this reform movement to decimate public education one of her most cherished democratic institutions will we permit them to transform a public good into a free market commodity will we lose precious community resource impoverish our democracy will we exchange your ideal of equal opportunity for the goal of a race to some unknown top what should we do offer so we should remind ourselves that would that education is not accept fail models that i've been describing higher test scores are not the goal of education some districts will get higher test scores by investing time and money and test prep but that's not the same as good education the kids learn the tricks of test taking they don't learn to love learning the goal of education is to

develop a well educated citizens to sustain our democracy that's been its goal now for well over a hundred and fifty years this means that every child should get a full and dallas education but education includes the court's history civics foreign languages the sciences mathematics and physical education physical education out once a week now twice week to everyday your its meaning the arts music music response to something primal in ourselves we need music and we're losing across this country education happens when cheap teachers are treated with respect as professionals not controlled bureaucratic mechanisms and finding targets that education is one that recognizes the children are not widgets that human beings to grow and develop in different ways we can improve our schools and strengthening the education profession teachers should be better educated in better prepared for the challenges of today's classrooms and today's

children we need to pay much more attention to the recruitment the support of the development here attention of teachers when they tell you the teachers can't be fired bear in mind that fifty percent of people who start teaching are gone within five years that is only getting humans now and people that we should not tolerate teaching should be a commitment to a career not just an interesting experience we need better instruction that uses all the technology in our commands and it relies on the wisdom of skilled professionals we assess nurse anesthetist demonstrate what they've learned not to pick one of four boxes at the gap again long before the first day of school one third of the children born to women who don't receive medical care during her pregnancy will happen will be born with disabilities these are preventable disability commissioner everyone should have prenatal care to narrow the achievement gap we should provide a high quality early childhood education we must make sure that every child rights and school healthy

and ready to learn school in society are not different worlds they are intertwined to the extent we improve our schools and improve our society that we cannot improve our schools without removing a possible for poverty imposes i nearly twenty five percent of our children only mexico turkey and poland have more child poverty and we do this is a national disgrace it's an incomprehensible that the richest nation in the world with more than four hundred billionaires cannot supply that school for every child that's additionally our best efforts history will judge us or what we do today to make additional real for every child in this nation thank you you've just heard education historian diane ravitch speaking at the university of kansas on october eighteenth two thousand eleven ravitch is the author of ten books on education her latest is that death and life of the great american school system how testing and choice are undermining

education she served as an assistant secretary of education under president george h w bush she is currently research professor at new york university and a non resident scholar at the brookings institute reddit spoke at to use woodruff auditorium as part of the whole center for the humanities lecture series for more information on upcoming events check out their website debuted debbie debbie you die call center di che you die edu and while you're at it head over to kansas public radio's new website that you did you did you back at our back at you that at you while you're there you can listen to archive programs shop for keep your items signed up for our e newsletter and donate online that that a pr back hey you guys leave the eu audio for today's katie our prisons was provided like a new media

services and kinect entire tv our prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas one of the co founders bill was passed in the early interview what would the products search engine be like and he said it would be like the mind of god how many times a day do you use good well once twice ten times next time on k pr present the globalization of everything and why we should worry i'm kate mcintyre join me eight o'clock sunday evening for i'll look at one of the most popular search engines in the world with fever by high enough and it's coming at us so fasten offering has such amazing returns on what seem to be very small investments that we just billy free which is so happy on and graced by technology and i started thinking you know that

this is getting a little bit too close for comfort kbr presents the globalization of everything and why we should worry if it was sunday evening on kansas public radio ad now mary todd at at home dad

it's been nice but it's been