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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding:

There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding



Twitter wars are stupid, and I'm stupid for engaging in them:


Diane Ravitch cares about school segregation now? That's new.
 

If you read "Reign of Error," you will find a chapter on the importance of desegregation. How can you judge without reading?


It's true: Diane did write an entire chapter in Reign of Error about the effects of segregation on schooling. I know because I pointed that chapter out in my review of the book, and included an excerpt:

But the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination cannot be healed by testing, standards, accountability, merit pay, and choice. Even if test scores go up in a public or charter school, the structural inequity of society and systematic inequities in our schools remain undisturbed. For every “miracle” school celebrated by the media, there are scores of “Dumpster schools,” where the low-performing students are unceremoniously hidden away. This is not school reform, nor is it social reform. It is social neglect. It is a purposeful abandonment of public responsibility to address deep-seated problems that only public policy can overcome.
So, from my perspective, Russo is just dead wrong about Ravitch's views. He disagrees:


Over-testing & under-funding are fine but they're not cops out of schools, classroom bias training, etc.

There's really no point in continuing to debate whether Diane Ravitch has adequately addressed segregation -- and other issues related to education, race, and class -- or not. Russo has his opinion and I have mine (not that Diane needs me defending her). I do, however, find it odd that a guy who has publicly admitted he doesn't follow Ravitch's workthinks he has a grasp on her world view:

As you already know, I don't think that's very constructive for CPS over all for Ravitch or anyone else to keep bashing at failed or imperfect reform Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding: