Sorry, Nicholas Kristof, There’s Still No Proof Corporate School Reform Helps

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/13-0


Scores go up, scores go down--but whatever the results the pushers of profit-driven corporate education reform models can be counted on to declare: 'More reforms are needed'.' (File)

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry when an “All-Purpose-Pundit” at The New York Times takes it upon him/herself to write a commentary about education.

“Thomas Friedman is infamous for his uninformed pieces on education,” Larry Ferlazzo, a full-time schoolteacher and ubiquitous education commentator on the Internet recently observed. And there’s “David Brooks, who is equally off-base.”

Diane Ravitch, lamenting a recent column by Times editorialist Bill Keller, who lazily blamed widespread problems with education performance on university teacher preparation programs (without mustering a shred of evidence to support his claim), concluded, “It would be wonderful if the New York Times elevated someone to the op-ed page as a columnist who actually knew something about education.”

Staying true to form last week was Times opinionator Nicholas Kritsof. Prompted by the latest results of the National Assessment of Education Progress, aka “the Nation’s Report Card,” Kristof observed on Twitter, “Latest NAEP school test scores suggest that school reform helps. Big improvements in DC & Tennessee, both centers of reform.”