Ravitch: How, and How NOT, to Improve Schools

[YvonneCa]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/how-and-how-not-improve-schools/







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[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Once again, I'll say we need to launch a war on poverty.

The Duke University economist Helen F. Ladd recently delivered a major address titled “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence,” in which she demonstrated that poverty drags down academic performance, not only in the US, but in other nations as well.2 To argue, as so many of the corporate reformers blithely do, that poverty is used as “an excuse” for bad teachers is either naive or ignorant. Or it may be a way of avoiding the politically difficult subjects of poverty and income inequality, both of which are rising and threaten the well-being of our society.

[mbperrin]

2. Yes, we need a war on poverty.

It is very difficult for the 80% of my seniors who have never been out of this county in their lives to grasp national issues, much less global. If you can bring it down to Aunt and Uncle Jones, they can get it. This hugely narrowed and pinched focus is killing the chance these kids have for an active life of the mind. (At our school, 85% are eligible for free and reduced lunches, and 97% are at-risk academically. And this is NOT a special needs school - it is one of two public high schools here.)