Showing posts with label commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commentary. Show all posts

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Krashen on Diane Ravitch and School Miracles

A comment on Ravitch's NY Times article: School Miracles, Slow Learners and Access to Books- by Steven Krashen
First-class investigative reporting by Diane Ravitch revealed that when schools seem to have overcome poverty and have achieved "stunning results," it is usually "the result of statistical legerdemain," and that "the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations." (Waiting for a School Miracle,http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01ravitch.html).
The media and politicians are slow learners (see eg Jonathan Alter's remarks on Ravitch's column. Alter focuses on two small details but ignores the other cases, past and present;http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/don-t-believe-critics-education-reform-works-jonathan-alter.html).  Gerald Bracey regularly reported cases like this years ago, and I contributed an analysis as well.  We both concluded that there were very very few cases in which schools in high-poverty areas achieved high scores on tests. 
 
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