Howler on Ravitch

The Daily Howler, who taught in Baltimore for many more years than Michelle Rhee, did a 4 part series on Ravitch which is very critical from a certain point of view. He posits the question: if Ravitch was wrong once, who is to say she isn't wrong again? Lots to digest here and I don't necessarily agree, but I'm making it available all in one place for people to peruse and criticize. His final conclusion is certainly worth pondering:

Long ago, we liberals quit on this topic. We left the field to conservatives, to business types, to “educational experts.” (We left the field to Wendy Kopp!) Those people actually seem to care. Your side is AWOL, uninvolved.

I've been pondering this idea about the UFT/AFT. Shanker abandoned "this topic" when he supported the Nation at Risk in '82, backed the Clinton Goals 2000 in the 90's and after his death when the Feldman/Weingarten team supported NCLB. In other words, fighting for full funding for public education instead of looking towards market-based low-cost gimmicks like incentives. Looking at outcomes rather than incomes for solutions. Take a look at Rolan Fryer's mea culpa at John Thompson's post at TWIE where Fryer says, " "’To my surprise, incentive programs that rewarded process seemed to be more effective than those that rewarded outcomes." DUHHH!

The battle for real ed reform from teacher unions ended almost 30 years ago, leading them down the path of trailing the ed deformers. And yes, there was a Ravitch/Shanker alliance through much of this standards/accountability process.

Norm

Special report: Ravished by Ravitch!

PART 1—THE ALLURE OF THE SWITCHER (permalink): Diane Ravitch isn’t a household name; for that reason, we’ll start by identifying her. Rather, we’ll let her ID herself. This is the start of Ravitch’s interesting op-ed column in Friday’s Washington Post:

RAVITCH (4//10): I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working.

Ravitch is hot these days. For one thing, she has a new book—a book we look forward to reading, though our expectations for this particular author will be in the mid-level range. And Ravitch is hot because she’s a convert, an apostate, a switcher of tribes. For years, Ravitch was “a strong supporter of school accountability and choice”—a high-level advocate of the policies enshrined in the No Child Left Behind law. Now, Ravitch has switched her views—and she’s very hot.

Let’s say it again—we look forward to reading Ravitch’s book. Ravitch is experienced and knowledgeable, and we’re sure she’s totally well-intentioned, as she has always been. But as we look forward, we remember one point—Ravitch says she was wrong in the past, that her judgments over the past many years have turned out to be largely wrong. (In her own words, it has become clear that the strategies she favored haven’t been working.) In our view, the limitations of some of these strategies always seemed fairly clear in real time. In our view, a sensible person might look forward to reading Ravitch’s book. But he might wonder, at the same time, why Ravitch wasn’t a bit more savvy in the past.

Question: If Ravitch was largely wrong all those years, why should we assume that she’ll be largely right now? For ourselves, we would keep her history of (partial) error in mind as we approach her new work. But for many others, the switcher inevitably carries an allure—especially if the switcher switches over to your tribal side. Example: In Salon, this is the way Mary Elizabeth Williams introduced her recent interview with Ravitch:

WILLIAMS (3/25/10): Diane Ravitch has spent a lifetime in school. She was the assistant secretary of education under George H. W. Bush and an early advocate of No Child Left Behind. Today, she's a research professor of education at New York University, a passionate critic of the system and an articulate, outspoken advocate for saving our public schools. Her new book has the provocative title, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.”

She's certainly got my attention. As a public school parent in New York City, where on Thursday, chancellor Joel Klein threatened to cut 8,500 teaching jobs—20 percent of which would come from the impoverished South Bronx—I've been watching the ongoing fiasco in education reform with a mixture of fear, anger and outright disgust.

The Williams-Ravitch interview is well worth reading. But if Williams has been watching the “ongoing fiasco” with “outright disgust,” we’re not sure why she’s so eager to hear from Ravitch! Ravitch was one of the influential people who stood behind the movement which has long filled Williams with loathing. What makes Williams so eager to hear from Ravitch now?

In our view, Ravitch didn’t judge all that well in the past. This tends to lower our expectations for the judgments we’ll find in her book. In our years of rambling, we’ve noticed one key point: People who were wrong in the past will sometimes be wrong in the future.

That said, Ravitch is a leading voice in the education world. She has studied education policy for decades; we feel quite certain that she’s looking for the best ways to proceed, and that she always has been. Her new book is stirring a lot of interest—and the topics she discusses are, of course, quite important. For that reason, we thought we’d spend a few days this week looking at Ravitch’s op-ed column, in which she sketches the basic ideas driving her new approach.

We the people love a switcher—especially when the switcher crosses over to join our own tribe. For those who have watched the ongoing fiasco with outright disgust, Ravitch once stood with the devils; today, she stands aligned with the angels. But are her judgments any more sound? Tomorrow, we’ll return to her opening paragraph in the Post—and we’ll check a statistical claim.

PART 2—BEING HERE (permalink): It’s natural to turn to “experts” for sources of illumination. This is especially natural in areas which matter deeply, like the operation of our schools. Indisputably, Diane Ravitch is an educational expert—a person who has played a leading role in the educational debates of the past several decades. Rather plainly, she’s a decent, caring person—a person who would like to find ways to serve the children well.

For these reasons, it’s understandable when people like Mary Elizabeth Williams give their attention to Ravitch and her new book (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/5/10). But uh-oh! Ravitch now says that her judgments were largely wrong in the past several decades. “I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice,” she writes at the start of Friday’s op-ed column in the Washington Post. “But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working.”

By her own account, Ravitch’s judgments have turned out to be (largely) wrong. Should we assume that her expert judgment has suddenly gotten better? Given this recent history, we’d be inclined to trust but verify—to rein in any high expectations. And nothing we saw in Ravitch’s op-ed column would make us rethink that stance.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a statistical claim which anchored Ravitch’s column. Today, let’s look at the list of basic proposals which anchors her new approach. “It is time to change course,” Ravitch says in her column. She then offers a list of approaches. Below, we list the first five:

RAVITCH (4/2/10): To begin with, let's agree that a good education encompasses far more than just basic skills. A good education involves learning history, geography, civics, the arts, science, literature and foreign language. Schools should be expected to teach these subjects even if students are not tested on them.

Everyone agrees that good education requires good teachers. To get good teachers, states should insist—and the federal government should demand—that all new teachers have a major in the subject they expect to teach or preferably a strong educational background in two subjects, such as mathematics and music or history and literature. Every state should expect teachers to pass a rigorous examination in the subjects they will teach, as well as a general examination to demonstrate their literacy and numeracy.

We need principals who are master teachers, not inexperienced teachers who took a course called "How to Be a Leader." The principal is expected to evaluate teachers, to decide who deserves tenure and to help those who are struggling and trying to improve. If the principal is not a master teacher, he or she will not be able to perform the most crucial functions of the job.

We need superintendents who are experienced educators because their decisions about personnel, curriculum and instruction affect the entire school system. If they lack experience, they will not be qualified to select the best principals or the best curricula for their districts.

We need assessments that gauge students' understanding and require them to demonstrate what they know, not tests that allow students to rely solely on guessing and picking one among four canned answers.

By simple word-count, this represents about one-third of Ravitch’s column. In this chunk of her column, we are told that we need good teachers; we need experienced principals; and we need experienced superintendents. And not only that! Those good teachers should teach such subjects as history and science. We should avoid using assessments (tests) which allow students to rely solely on guessing.

Did Chance the Gardner write this column? (Chance was the Peter Sellers character in the film, Being There.) If one chose to be argumentative, he might even say something like this: Only in a fallen press corps would a major newspaper put such piffle in print.

(By the way: When did anyone ever use a test which “allowed students to rely solely on guessing?” Presumably, the answer is obvious—never. What does it mean when such a proffer escapes the editing process?)

We need to hire good teachers! They should teach history and science! For our money, Ravitch’s proposals only get a bit less underwhelming as she proceeds, although we tend to agree with the thrust of the things she says here:

RAVITCH (continuing directly): We should stop using the term "failing schools" to describe schools where test scores are low. Usually, a school has low test scores because it enrolls a disproportionately large number of low-performing students. Among its students may be many who do not speak or read English, who live in poverty, who miss school frequently because they must baby-sit while their parents look for work, or who have disabilities that interfere with their learning. These are not excuses for their low scores but facts about their lives.

Instead of closing such schools and firing their staffs, every state should have inspection teams that spend time in every low-performing school and diagnose its problems. Some may be mitigated with extra teachers, extra bilingual staff, an after-school program or other resources. The inspection team may find that the school was turned into a dumping ground by district officials to make other schools look better. It may find a heroic staff that is doing well under adverse circumstances and needs help. Whatever the cause of low performance, the inspection team should create a plan to improve the school.

Only in rare circumstances should a school be closed. In many poor communities, schools are the most stable institution. Closing them destroys the fabric of the community.

We must break free of the NCLB mind-set that makes accountability synonymous with punishment. As we seek to rebuild our education system, we must improve the schools where performance is poor, not punish them.

We agree with the general thrust of this passage, and yet the scent of Chance lingers. After explaining the blindingly obvious—many low-scoring schools serve populations of low-income kids—Ravitch offers more Gardnerisms. “We must improve the schools where performance is poor,” she advises. But not before offering this prime nonsense: “Usually, a school has low test scores because it enrolls a disproportionately large number of low-performing students.”

Is this the face of educational expertise? Let’s consider what Ravitch says in this passage in a bit more detail.

First, we agree with one basic point from this passage: “Only in rare circumstances should a [low-scoring] school be closed.” That said, how often have any public schools been closed due to low test scores? This is a type of threat which has sometimes been offered by “strong supporters of school accountability.” But how often has this threat been executed? As far as we know, quite rarely.

More significantly, consider what Ravitch says about the way we should help “schools where test scores are low.” Once again, this is what she says we should do with such schools:

RAVITCH: Instead of closing such schools and firing their staffs, every state should have inspection teams that spend time in every low-performing school and diagnose its problems. Some may be mitigated with extra teachers, extra bilingual staff, an after-school program or other resources. The inspection team may find that the school was turned into a dumping ground by district officials to make other schools look better. It may find a heroic staff that is doing well under adverse circumstances and needs help. Whatever the cause of low performance, the inspection team should create a plan to improve the school.

According to Ravitch, “every state should have inspection teams [which] diagnose what is wrong in these schools.” (As she ends, another Gardnerism: “Whatever the cause of low performance, the inspection team should create a plan to improve the school.”) But please note: As Ravitch has explained in her previous paragraph, the thing that is “wrong” with these schools will routinely involve matters of demographics: Often, the children in these schools will come from low-income, low-literacy, non-English speaking backgrounds. Question: When those “inspection teams” survey these types of schools, what type of “plan” should they create? In more than 800 words, Ravitch makes only the most Gardeneristic attempts to answer this question. (Extra bilingual staff! An after-school program! And even this: “Other resources!”)

Surely, no one but an expert would think of solutions like those. What should teachers of delightful, deserving low-income kids do to address their academic problems? In a familiar bit of evasion, Ravitch doesn’t say.

With apologies to Williams, who has given Ravitch her full attention: After all these years—after all these decades—we find this type of column repellent. We’ve been reading columns like this for forty years—columns in which “educational experts” play the Gardner role, pretending that they have ideas for ways to help low-income kids. How should we help low-income kids? Under the previous Ravitch regime—the regime built around accountability and standards—the answer to this was fairly simple: We should threaten teachers with getting fired, and they will somehow magically figure how to get test scores up. In this new regime by Ravitch, the solution is no less magical. We’re now supposed to send “inspections teams” into these schools, and they will come up with a plan! But what sorts of proposals will be in their plans? Like “educational experts” of time immemorial, Ravitch doesn’t much say. And by the way: The various states simply don’t have such “inspections teams”—teams can somehow magically say how a low-income school can get right. These teams of savants simply don’t exist—except as a novelistic devise to let Ravitch continue to pose as an expert.

We’re certain that Ravitch is well-intentioned. But at some point in time, work like this becomes repellent. Unhelpful too are the liberal saps who line up to drink this Gardneresque stew. Also unhelpful: The familiar data-spinning found at the start of Ravitch’s piece. But when the lives of low-income kids are at stake, work like this—cheered on by liberals—has been the norm for years.

PART 3—DATA DUMPED (permalink): Diane Ravitch is an (educational) party-switcher (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/5/10). For that reason, she’s currently hot. “I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice,” Ravitch writes, at the start of an op-ed column in last Friday’s Washington Post. “But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working.”

These are very important matters. For that reason, it’s important to know if Ravitch’s foundational claim here is accurate. Is it true that “these strategies” haven’t been working? In the opening paragraph of her column, Ravitch offered a statistic designed to support this stance:

RAVITCH (4/2/10): I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program enacted in 2002 did not produce large gains in reading and math. The gains in math were larger before the law was implemented, and the most recent national tests showed that eighth-grade students have made no improvement in reading since 1998. By mandating a utopian goal of 100 percent proficiency, the law encouraged states to lower their standards and make false claims of progress. Worse, the law stigmatized schools that could not meet its unrealistic expectation.

Ravitch paints a gloomy picture in the highlighted passage, though her meaning needs to be teased out a bit. From what she writes, it’s fairly clear that there have been gains in math since No Child Left Behind took effect; Ravitch complains that the gains in math were larger before that date. When she discusses reading, she goes back to 1998 to make a gloomy claim—eighth-graders “have made no improvement in reading” since that date.

On the surface, it isn’t clear why we’d go back to 1998 to assess a program (NCLB) which started in 2002. That said, the movement for “school accountability and choice” was in wide effect, at the state-by-state level, long before No Child Left Behind. If there has been no progress since 1998, that would suggest that the foundations of this movement must be severely flawed.

Those statistical claims are very important—but are they actually accurate? First, let’s consider the claim Ravitch made about reading. For our money, this claim is grossly misleading, like other statistical claims we have seen in Ravitch’s work.

Ravitch’s claim helps drive us toward the latest educational fad, just as her work tended to do when she was serving the previous fad. But her claim also misleads the public. When it comes to the lives of low-income children, will this sort of thing ever stop?

Have American kids made progress in reading since 1998? Ravitch refers to the recently-released, 2009 reading scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). On-line, her column offers this link, and so we offer it too. But while Ravitch’s claim is technically accurate in the narrow sense, it is also grossly misleading. In fact, American kids have shown significant progress on the NAEP reading tests since 1998. And they’ve shown massive gains in math during that same period. (The NAEP tests fourth- and eighth-graders, in reading and math.)

Since 1998, what sort of progress have fourth- and eighth-graders shown in reading and math on the NAEP? Let’s start with reading, the subject from which Ravitch cherry-picked that statistic. And let’s review the “disaggregated” data, which lets us examine the progress of our big demographic blocks (white kids, black kids, Hispanic kids) separately.

In fourth-grade reading, American kids seem to have shown good progress since 1998. (Click here, then move ahead to page 9, Figure 4.) Since 1998, white kids have gained five points on the NAEP scale; by the rough rule of thumb which is often used, this would be equivalent to roughly one-half year of growth. And things only get better from there. Black fourth-graders have gained twelve points in reading during that period, roughly 1.2 years. Hispanic kids have made the same gain—twelve points, 1.2 years. Warning! This “rough rule of thumb” is very rough; we long for the day when some major newspaper asks NAEP officials to discuss the meaning of these score gains in some serious detail. (Along with other true experts.) But this rough rule of thumb has been widely used; its surface logic is apparent. (Don’t ask.) If we do apply that rough rule of thumb, those score gains seem quite consequential.

By the way: Children scoring at the tenth percentile have also gained twelve points in reading during that period (move back to page 8, Figure 2). This suggests that our current lowest-achieving fourth-graders are more than a year ahead of their counterparts from 1998. If that’s true, it’s remarkable progress.

The picture in eighth-grade reading is worse. (Move ahead to page 26, Figure 15.) In fact, this is the worst of the four possible measures, which presumably explains why Ravitch featured it. Since 1998, white eighth-graders have only advanced three points on the NAEP scale in reading—perhaps three-tenths of a year. Black eighth-graders have advanced only two points. That said, Hispanic kids have advanced six points—theoretically, more than half a year. Kids at the tenth percentile have also advanced by only three points (page 25, Figure 13). This is the gloomiest of the NAEP’s four subject categories. But do these figures represent “no improvement in reading since 1998?” Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of “no” is.

This brings us to math. In math, fourth- and eighth-graders seem to have shown strong progress on the NAEP just since the year 2000. (The NAEP didn’t test math in 1998.) Black fourth-graders gained a full nineteen points on the NAEP scale from 2000 to 2009. (Click here, move ahead to page 9, Figure 4.) Hispanic kids also gained nineteen points, white kids a mere fourteen. Fourth-graders who scored at the tenth percentile gained eighteen points. And when it comes to math, this pattern obtains among eighth-graders too (move ahead to page 24, Figure 15). Black eighth-graders gained seventeen points on the NAEP scale from 2000 to 2009. Hispanic kids gained thirteen points; white kids gained twelve. Eighth-graders scoring at the tenth percentile gained thirteen points during that period (move back to page 23, Figure 13).

Let’s say it again: We dream of the day when some major newspaper shakes the cobwebs out of its head and asks true experts to offer their take on what these score gains actually mean. But the New York Times has routinely applied that “ten points equals one year” rule of thumb; if that rule of thumb is close to accurate, some rather large achievement gains were indicated in reading and math between 1998/2000 and 2009. What was the cause of these score gains? Did these score gains possibly stem from some worthwhile aspects of the testing/standards/accountability movement? Surely, we might want to find out—or at least ask—before we launch the next fad.

Granted, Ravitch’s newest proposal—We should teach science and history!—doesn’t count as much of a fad, although we whole-heartedly agree with that prescription. (For one thing, deserving children learn how to read by immersing themselves in those subject areas.) For our money, Ravitch doesn’t seem to have a lot of suggestions about where we should go from here—but that has frequently been the case among our “educational experts.” Tomorrow, we’ll offer our own modest thoughts about changes we might engineer in the classroom, although we have no way of knowing what sorts of gains these changes might cause. But we’ll leave you with a couple of questions as we close this morning’s musing:

Was Ravitch conveying an accurate picture when she authored that gloomy claim? (“No improvement in reading since 1998.”) Did her opening paragraph present an accurate picture of the way these NAEP scores actually look? The NAEP tests kids in fourth and eighth grades; it tests these kids in reading and math. Based on the data to which we have linked you, are you sure it’s time for a smokin’ new fad? Time to dump all past procedures?

We ask these questions because they matter—because the lives of those children matter. The lives of our “educational experts” more often seem tied to hot fads.

Tomorrow: Where are the “liberals?”

Since 2002: How about Ravitch’s other claim—the claim that gains in math have slowed in the years since NCLB? This looks like a highly feathered claim. Black eighth-graders gained twelve points in math from 1996 through 2003; that’s 1.7 points per year. They gained nine points from 2003 through 2009; that’s only 1.5 points per year. (On the other hand, Hispanic eighth-graders have gained marginally more in math, on a per-annum basis, since 2003.) But this seems to be an extremely feathered claim—the type of claim which may be technically accurate, but actually tends to mislead.

Remember: The standards-and-accountability movement was in full swing long before No Child Left Behind. Are you as sure as Ravitch seems to be that she was bad wrong the first time?

PART 4—HAVING BEEN THERE (permalink): At the end of last Friday’s op-ed column, Diane Ravitch sketched her vision of where we should take things from here. As a full-fledged educational expert, she continued to write in the style perfected by Chance the Gardner (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/6/10):

RAVITCH (4/2/10): We must break free of the NCLB mind-set that makes accountability synonymous with punishment. As we seek to rebuild our education system, we must improve the schools where performance is poor, not punish them.

If we are serious about school reform, we will look for long-term solutions, not quick fixes.

We wasted eight years with the "measure and punish" strategy of NCLB. Let's not waste the next eight years.

Let’s see if we have this straight. According to Ravitch, “we must improve the schools where performance is poor.” We should “look for long-term solutions.”

If we’re reading her correctly, we shouldn’t waste the next several years.

In fairness, we tend to agree with one suggestion, though it’s hopelessly vague—we shouldn’t build accountability efforts around punishment. On the other hand, if someone could propose a “quick fix” for our schools, we would be inclined to take it. If not, we’d be wasting years.

Does Ravitch know what she’s talking about? We’ve wasted the last eight years, she says—but the NAEP data to which she provided a link suggests that American kids have made great strides in math over that period. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/7/10. Fourth-graders also seem to have advanced in reading.) At the fourth-grade level, black kids gained nineteen points in math on the NAEP from 2000 to 2009; in eighth grade, black kids gained seventeen points. Given the rough rule of thumb which is often applied to scores on this test, those seem to be significant gains. Someday, some major newspaper will get off its *ss and ask real experts to comment.

When it comes to those frequently-cited NAEP data, we will keep begging for actual journalism. But given those apparent gains, does it really seem that recent years have been wasted? What would make an “educational expert” make such a claim? We’re not sure, but as we’ve long noted, our “educational experts” rarely seem to know their keisters from the key-holes at their foundations, universities, think-tanks. As a final illustration of this problem, let’s review something Ravitch said right in her opening paragraph.

In this passage, Ravitch describes the days when she herself was a leading player in the accountability movement:

RAVITCH (4/2/10): I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program enacted in 2002 did not produce large gains in reading and math. The gains in math were larger before the law was implemented, and the most recent national tests showed that eighth-grade students have made no improvement in reading since 1998. By mandating a utopian goal of 100 percent proficiency, the law encouraged states to lower their standards and make false claims of progress. Worse, the law stigmatized schools that could not meet its unrealistic expectation.

Gee! No one could have foreseen the potential problems involved in the drive to mandate super-high-stakes testing! More specifically:

No one could have foreseen the possibility that teachers and principals might start to cheat as increasing pressure was placed on these tests. (Note: We’re speaking here about state-run “proficiency” tests, not about the NAEP, which has never been used for accountability purposes—at least, not until recently.) No one could have foreseen the sheer nonsense involved when fifty different sets of tests all claimed to measure “proficiency,” in the absence of any requirement that states define how “proficient” a child had to be to pass its math/reading tests. And no one could have imagined that states would start to “dumb down” their tests—would make their tests easier over time, thereby creating artificial gains in “proficiency” rates. No one could have foreseen such problems—at least, no educational expert, pronouncing loftily from some Washington (or Manhattan) aerie.

(Again: No one has ever suggested that the NAEP, a federal program, has ever been “dumbed down.”)

In fact, anyone with an ounce of sense could have seen the potential problems involved in the drive to put more pressure on testing—or perhaps we should say, anyone who had actually Been There, anyone who had spent real time inside the nation’s schools. For ourselves, we started teaching in Baltimore in the fall of 1969; by 1971, we were aware of the outright cheating going on in certain schools as part of Baltimore’s testing program. (Duh. We wrote columns in the Baltimore Sun about these problems before the decade was done.) But educational experts often drifted through life. In Ravitch’s case, she threw off one set of prescriptions, failing to foresee the “false claims of progress.” Now, she does a near-180, throwing off a new set of suggestions derived from the film, Being There.

She tells us the last eight years have been wasted. But has she looked at those NAEP test scores? What do those score gains mean?

Ravitch says the last decade was wasted—the decade her own advice helped create. We would suggest that the very NAEP scores to which she linked suggest a less gloomy picture. That said, we ourselves would be embarrassed to throw off the vague new prescriptions Ravitch advances. We need better teachers, she says. They should teach history! And science!

Inspection teams should go into low-scoring schools! They should come up with plans!

Until experts explain those rising NAEP scores, we would suggest that something seems to be working inside our schools. Beyond that, because we’ve actually Been There, we would offer two specific suggestions about where we should go from here:

With regard to testing: We will continue to test each year; we can’t imagine doing otherwise. But: If we’re going to build accountability pressures around these annual tests, we have to create security measures to make sure that teachers and principals don’t cheat. (For the record, we’re speaking here about flat-out “cheating.” We don’t mean “teaching to the test.”) We favor annual testing ourselves. But teachers, principals, and entire school systems began to cheat on their annual tests long ago. Only a full-fledged “educational expert” could start to notice this now.

With regard to instruction: On last night’s NewsHour, New Orleans superintendent Paul Vallas described the challenges his school system faces (click here). The segment was hosted by John Merrow, who has been doing excellent work about public schools on the NewsHour:

MERROW (4/7/10): When school superintendent Paul Vallas arrived in New Orleans three years ago, he faced a tough challenge: how to educate students who are way behind academically or who have gotten in trouble with the law.

This school, Booker T. Washington, was designed for teenagers who are performing at an elementary school level. Although three-fourths of students in Vallas' district are at least one grade level behind, here, the problem is extreme.

VALLAS: I have got 16-year-old seventh-graders and 17-year-old eighth-graders and 18-year-old ninth-graders who are reading at the third- or fourth-grade reading level. Those are—those are tremendous challenges.

Moments later, Merrow played tape of this school’s principal, who seemed to be in a bit of denial. She said the school is trying to help students develop “a mind-set of...wanting to learn, even though they may be three and four grades below or behind their age level.” Are these kids eight to ten years behind, or just three or four? In either case, kids like this need, and deserve, special attention from their very first years in school.

Based on what we saw when we Were There, this is what we’d like to see: We’d like to see grade school kids who are several years “behind” get the chance to be immersed in the world of reading. When they’re taught history, we’d like to see them handed readable text books—but we’d also like to see them get the chance to read tons of readable biographies, and lots of readable historical novels, and specialized books about specialized historical topics. We’d like to see them swimming in maps. Every time they take a book from a crowded shelf, we’d like to see ten more fall on their heads.

Trust us: Grade school kids who are years behind will immerse themselves in reading, if they’re given the chance. They will sit on little chairs and gravely, politely read to each other, as their middle-class peers did many years before. But the society has to develop reading materials which are appropriate for these delightful, deserving children. We’d like to see these children in classrooms which swim with reading materials like that.

If we could wave a magic wand and make that situation exist, how would that affect future reading scores? We have no idea. But: Having Been There, we can at least make this fairly specific suggestion. By way of contrast, Ravitch’s suggestions read like out-take from the film, Being There.

Inspection teams should come up with plans! How does this crap get in print?

We think that column was quite instructive. For our money, it typifies the groaning discussion of public schools in this country. And by the way, where are the liberals? Tomorrow, our musing ends.

Tomorrow: Our tribe quit long ago.

Final question: What should we do in our schools to help deserving, low-income kids? You will never see that question addressed at deeply caring, deeply progressive sites like Walsh’s Salon. People like Walsh are very good at playing the “racial hero” card. But they quit on black kids a long time ago. They don’t give a flying frack about them. The truth is, they never will.

If you doubt us, go search your leading “liberal” sites. Go try to find a single “liberal” presenting a single idea! Go search all the years of KO and Rachel, looking for one single word.

Long ago, we liberals quit on this topic. We left the field to conservatives, to business types, to “educational experts.” (We left the field to Wendy Kopp!) Those people actually seem to care. Your side is AWOL, uninvolved.

How easy it would be to borrow the race-baiting language of Colbert King at this time! When I look in the face of Joan Walsh, I see the face of Louise Day Hicks!

It’s very easy to play these games. If you doubt how easy it is, just watch us liberals as we keep playing race. As we work around the clock, restoring conservative power.