Hostage Taking

Another wonderful article by Diane Ravitch that clearly lays out today’s real threat to public education.

Under today’s deformed standards, Socrates would be label ineffective because he believed that in order to learn one must be allowed to explore and fail.

Today’s new standards mandate that failure is not an option, ever. Every student and teacher must lockstep in unison through a common set of arbitrary deadlines and any deviations are deemed ineffective.

Race to the Top is not a race, it’s a death march for public education. Evaluating teachers via high stakes testing, is akin to executing those who can not keep up on this march, towards our new prison.

Teacher’s are barely hanging on to their most effective defensive weapon, collective bargaining. Let’s not kid ourselves, Cuomo, Bloomberg, and King are attempting to seize it. Once they do, we’ll be on that march and there will be no returning.