Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools

by Diane Ravitch

  7. Paul Krugman, “Degrees and Dollars,” New York Times, March 7, 2011.

  8. Hope Yen, “In Weak Job Market, One in Two College Graduates Are Jobless or Underemployed,” Huffington Post, April 22, 2012.

  9. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/11/art5full.pdf, 88, 93.

  10. Andrew Martin and Andrew W. Lehren, “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College,” New York Times, May 12, 2012.

  CHAPTER 10 How Poverty Affects Academic Achievement

  1. Joel I. Klein, “Urban Schools Need Better Teachers, Not Excuses, to Close the Education Gap,” U.S. News, May 4, 2009.

  2. Http://www.billgateswindows.com/ms/817/bill-gates-improving-education-is-the-best-way-to-solve-poverty/.

  3. Wendy Kopp with Steven Farr, A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), 5, 8.

  4. UNICEF, Measuring Child Poverty: New League Tables of Child Poverty in the World’s Rich Countries (Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2012), p. 3. The league tables did not include Asian nations.

  5. John L. Kiely and Michael D. Kogan, “Prenatal Care,” in Reproductive Health of Women: From Data to Action: CDC’s Public Health Surveillance for Women, Infants, and Children, http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/ProductsPubs/DatatoAction/pdf/rhow8.pdf.

  6. James N. Martin, “Facts Are Important: Prenatal Care Is Important to Healthy Pregnancies,” American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, February 21, 2012, http://www.acog.org/~/media/Departments/Government%20Relations%20and%20Outreach/20120221FactsareImportant.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20120701T1119268833.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Richard Rothstein, Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 16.

  9. Ibid., 19–32; U.S. Department of Education, Condition of Education, 2012, 18.

  10. Rothstein, Class and Schools, 37–47.

  11. R. Balfanz and V. Byrnes, Chronic Absenteeism: Summarizing What We Know from Nationally Available Data (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools, 2012).

  12. Helen F. Ladd, “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 31, no. 2 (2012): 203–27.

  CHAPTER 11 The Facts About Teachers and Test Scores

  1. Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert, “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers,” Newsweek, March 5, 2010.

  2. William L. Sanders and June C. Rivers, “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement” (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center, 1996); William L. Sanders et al., “The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System: A Quantitative, Outcomes-Based Approach to Educational Assessment,” in Grading Teachers, Grading Schools: Is Student Achievement a Valid Evaluation Measure?, ed. Jason Millman (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 1997). Matthew Di Carlo debunked the “three great teachers in a row” claim in “How Many Teachers Does It Take to Close an Achievement Gap?,” Shanker Blog, March 17, 2011, http://shankerblog.org/?p=2156.

  3. Http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/05/06/michelle-rhee-how-nations-gone-soft-great-teachers-and-politics-education.

  4. Http://blog.thedaily.com/post/3233869778/three-great-teachers-in-a-row-and-the-average.

  5. Eric A. Hanushek, “The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality” (NBER working paper 16606, December 2010).

  6. Eric A. Hanushek, “The Tradeoff Between Child Quantity and Quality,” Journal of Political Economy 100, no. 1 (February 1992): 84–117; http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/06/09/do-effective-teachers-teach-three-times-as-much-as-ineffective-teachers/.

  7. Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, et al., “How to Fix Our Schools: A Manifesto,” Washington Post, October 10, 2010.

  8. Http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-arnold-missouri-town-hall.

  9. Richard Rothstein, “How to Fix Our Schools,” Economic Policy Institute, October 14, 2010.

  10. Eric A. Hanushek, John F. Kain, and Steven G. Rifkin, “Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement” (NBER working paper 6691, August 1998); Matthew Di Carlo, “Teachers Matter, but So Do Words,” Shanker Blog, July 14, 2010, http://shankerblog.org/?p=74; Matthew Di Carlo, “Teacher Quality on the Red Carpet; Accuracy Swept Under the Rug,” Shanker Blog, September 16, 2010, http://shankerblog.org/?p=799.

  11. Http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/last-in-first-out-a-policy-that-hurts-students-teachers-and-communities. The source of this claim was Eric Hanushek: http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/why-an-effective-teacher-matters-a-q-a-with-eric-hanushek/.

  12. Http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/melindagates_06-04.html.

  13. Eric A. Hanushek, “Valuing Teachers: How Much Is a Good Teacher Worth?,” Education Next 11, no. 3 (Summer 2011).

  14. Annie Lowry, “Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain,” New York Times, January 6, 2012.

  15. Bruce D. Baker, “Fire First, Ask Questions Later? Comments on Recent Teacher Effectiveness Studies,” School Finance 101 (blog), January 7, 2012, http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/fire-first-ask-questions-later-comments-on-recent-teacher-effectiveness-studies/. In the next post on Baker’s blog (January 19, 2012), John Friedman wrote to Baker that his comment about firing teachers was taken out of context. He also said that Baker had not adjusted for discounting, and that the study actually projected a lifetime gain per person of about $1,000 per year, or $20 per week; http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/follow-up-on-fire-first-ask-questions-later/. Another reviewer, Moshe Adler of Columbia University, maintained that the Chetty study contradicted itself about future earnings and proved nothing, except that big studies should be peer-reviewed before they are released to the media. Moshe Adler, “Findings Vs. Interpretations in ‘The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers,’ ” Education Policy Analysis Archives 21, no. 10 (February 1, 2013).

  16. Matthew Di Carlo, “How Many Teachers Does It Take to Close an Achievement Gap?,” Shanker Blog, March 17, 2011, http://shankerblog.org/?p=2156.

  17. American Educational Research Association and National Academy of Education, “Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: A Brief for Policymakers” (2011).

  18. Linda Darling-Hammond, “Value-Added Evaluation Hurts Teaching,” Education Week, March 20, 2012.

  19. John Ewing, “Mathematical Intimidation: Driven by the Data,” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 58, no. 5 (May 2011): 671.

  20. Fernanda Santos and Robert Gebeloff, “Teacher Quality Widely Diffused, Ratings Indicate,” New York Times, February 24, 2012; Georgett Roberts, “Queens Parents Demand Answers Following Teacher’s Low Grades,” New York Post, February 26, 2012; Diane Ravitch, “How to Demoralize Teachers,” Bridging Differences (blog), Education Week, February 28, 2012.

  21. Leo Casey, “The True Story of Pascale Mauclair,” Edwize, February 28, 2012.

  CHAPTER 12 Why Merit Pay Fails

  1. Richard J. Murnane and David K. Cohen, “Merit Pay and the Evaluation Problem: Understanding Why Most Merit Pay Plans Fail and a Few Survive,” Harvard Educational Review (Spring 1986).

  2. M. G. Springer, D. Ballou, L. Hamilton, V. Le, J. R. Lockwood, D. McCaffrey, M. Pepper, and B. Stecher, Teacher Pay for Performance: Experimental Evidence from the Project on Incentives in Teaching (Nashville, Tenn.: National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, 2010).

  3. Sarah D. Sparks, “Study Leads to End of New York City Merit-Pay Program,” Education Week, July 20, 2011.

  4. David W. Chen and Anna M. Phillips, “Mayor Takes On Teachers’ Union in School Plans,” New York Times, January 12, 2012.

  5. Steven Glazerman and Allison Seifullah, “An Evaluation of the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program (Chicago TAP) After Four Years” (Washington, D.C.: Mathematica Policy Research, March 7, 2012); Nora Fleming, “Some Efforts on M
erit Pay Scaled Back,” Education Week, September 21, 2011.

  6. Debra Viadero, “Texas Merit-Pay Pilot Failed to Boost Student Scores, Study Says,” Education Week, November 4, 2009; “Texas Takes Another Stab at Teacher Merit Pay,” Education News, August 22, 2009.

  7. Andrea Gabor, The Man Who Discovered Quality: How W. Edwards Deming Brought the Quality Revolution to America—the Stories of Ford, Xerox, and GM (New York: Times Books, 1990), 250–53.

  CHAPTER 13 Do Teachers Need Tenure and Seniority?

  1. Sam Dillon, “Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls,” New York Times, November 19, 2010.

  2. Bruce D. Baker, Revisiting the Age-Old Question: Does Money Matter in Education? (Washington, D.C.: Albert Shanker Institute, 2012).

  3. Richard M. Ingersoll, “Beginning Teacher Induction: What the Data Tell Us,” Education Week, May 16, 2012; Ken Futernick, “Incompetent Teachers or Dysfunctional Systems?: Re-framing the Debate on Teacher Quality and Accountability” (San Francisco: WestEd, 2010), http://www.wested.org/tippingpoint/downloads/incompetence_systems.pdf.

  4. Richard Ingersoll and Lisa Merrill, “The Changing Face of the Teaching Force,” @PennGSE: A Review of Research (Fall 2010), http://www.gse.upenn.edu/review/feature/ingersoll.

  CHAPTER 14 The Problem with Teach for America

  1. “The Story of Teach for America,” Harvard Magazine, July–August 2012; Wendy Kopp, “In Defense of Optimism in Education,” Huffington Post, March 13, 2012.

  2. Teach for America Web site: http://www.teachforamerica.org/our-mission/a-solvable-problem.

  3. Teach for America, 990 tax forms: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2011/133/541/2011-133541913-08746967-9.pdf.

  4. Wendy Kopp, One Day, All Children …: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way (New York: Public Affairs: 2003), 185.

  5. Kopp, “In Defense of Optimism.”

  6. Http://www.fastcompany.com/social/2008/profiles/teach-for-america.html.

  7. Paul T. Decker, Daniel P. Mayer, and Steven Glazerman, “The Effects of Teach for America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation” (Washington, D.C.: Mathematica Policy Research, June 9, 2004), xiv.

  8. Julian Vasquez Heilig and Su Jin Jez, “Teach for America: A Review of the Evidence” (Boulder, Colo.: National Education Policy Center, June 2010).

  9. Http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/10/31/why-i-did-tfa-and-why-you-shouldnt/.

  10. Bruce D. Baker, “Ed Schools,” School Finance 101 (blog), December 3, 2010, http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/ed-schools/.

  11. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, “School Choice: Parent Opinions on School Selection in New Orleans” (New Orleans: Tulane University, January 2013), http://www.coweninstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Choice-Focus-Groups-FINAL-small.pdf, p. 7; Raynard Sanders, “Why the Education Reforms in New Orleans Failed and Will Never Work,” Research on Reforms, February 2012, http://www.researchonreforms.org/html/documents/RSWhyEducRefmsFail.pdf; Charles J. Hatfield, “Should the Educational Reforms in New Orleans Serve as a National Model for Other Cities?,” Research on Reforms, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2012, http://www.researchonreforms.org/html/documents/ResponsetoNSNO_001.pdf; Kari Dequine Harden, “Report Says New Orleans Parents Need Better Information for School Choice to Work,” The Advocate, February, 11, 2013.

  12. Barbara Miner, “Looking Past the Spin: Teach for America,” Rethinking Schools (Spring 2010); see also Andrew Hartman, “Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders,” Jacobin (Winter 2012); Rachel Levy, “Teach for America: From Service Group to Industry,” All Things Education, May 28, 2011.

  13. Barbara Torre Veltri, Learning on Other People’s Kids: Becoming a Teach for America Teacher (Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing, 2010), 190 and jacket copy.

  14. Matthew Ronfeldt, Susannah Loeb, and Jim Wyckoff, “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement,” http://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/TchTrnStAch%20AERJ%20RR%20not%20blind.pdf.

  15. Http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/04/deepening_the_debate_over_teac.html.

  16. William V. Healey, “Heal for America,” Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2009.

  CHAPTER 15 The Mystery of Michelle Rhee

  1. To learn more about Baltimore’s short-lived experiment in privatization, see http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/tesseract.

  2. Richard Whitmire, The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation’s Worst School District (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

  3. Bill Turque, “Rhee Deploys ‘Army of Believers,’ ” Washington Post, July 5, 2008.

  4. Clay Risen, “The Lightning Rod,” Atlantic, November 2008.

  5. Valerie Strauss, “Michelle Rhee’s Greatest Hits,” The Answer Sheet (blog), Washington Post, October 14, 2010, quoting a statement Rhee made at an Aspen Institute summit in Washington in September 2008.

  6. Bill Turque, “Many Teachers Pass on IMPACT Bonuses,” Washington Post, January 28, 2011.

  7. Bill Turque, “Michelle Rhee’s D.C. Schools Legacy Is in Sharper Focus One Year Later,” Washington Post, October 15, 2011.

  8. Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello, “When Standardized Test Scores Soared in D.C., Were the Gains Real?,” USA Today, March 30, 2011.

  9. Bill Turque, “Ex-Noyes Principal Wayne Ryan Resigns,” Washington Post, June 20, 2011.

  10. Jay Mathews, “D.C. Keeps Ignoring Its Test Erasure Scandal,” Washington Post, June 22, 2012; Emma Brown, “Investigators Find Test Security Problems at a D.C. School,” Washington Post, August 8, 2012; Jay Mathews, “D.C. Schools’ Test-Score Fantasyland,” Washington Post, September 23, 2012; Michael Winerip, “Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Testing Scandal,” New York Times, March 29, 2013.

  11. Whitmire, Bee Eater, 222.

  12. Http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/i-got-scooped-by-more-than-three-years/.

  13. Http://gfbrandenburg.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/cohort-effects-at-harlem-park-jpg.jpg; Jay Mathews, “Michelle Rhee’s Early Test Scores Challenged,” Washington Post, February 8, 2011.

  14. “Rhee’s Response to Blogger’s Allegations,” Washington Post, February 9, 2011.

  15. Http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/an-interview-with-dr-lois-c-williams-principal-investigator-for-the-umbc-tesseract-report/#comments.

  16. Bill Turque, “ ‘Creative … Motivating’ and Fired,” Washington Post, March 6, 2012.

  17. Emma Brown, “Study Chides D.C. Teacher Turnover,” Washington Post, November 8, 2012; New Teacher Project, “Keeping Irreplaceables in D.C. Public Schools: Lessons in Smart Teacher Retention,” http://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_DCIrreplaceables_2012.pdf; Bill Turque, “D.C. Principals: ‘Class of ’08’ Continues to Dwindle,” Washington Post, June 5, 2012. Personal communication from Mary Levy to author, December 3, 2012.

  18. Daniel Denvir, “Michelle Rhee’s Right Turn,” Salon, November 17, 2012. On Rhee’s role in Tennessee, see http://blogs.knoxnews.com/humphrey/2013/01/michelle-rhee-on-tn-spending-t.html.

  19. Http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/about-michelle-rhee/.

  20. Alan Ginsburg, “The Rhee DC Record: Math and Reading Gains No Better Than Her Predecessors Vance and Janey,” January 2011, http://therheedcrecord.wikispaces.com/file/view/The+Rhee+DC+Math+And+Reading+Record+.pdf; see the response to Ginsburg by Paul E. Peterson, “The Case Against Michelle Rhee,” Education Next 11, no. 3 (Summer 2011); and Ginsburg’s response to Peterson: “Michelle Rhee vs. Her Critics,” April 2011, http://therheedcrecord.wikispaces.com/file/view/Final+Peterson+Educationnext+Michelle+Rhee+v.+Her+Critics.pdf.

  21. National Center for Education Statistics, The Nation’s Report Card: Trial Urban District Assessment: Reading 2011 (NCES 2012-455) (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2011).

  22. National Center for Education Statistics, The Nation’s Report Card: Trial Urban District Assessment: Mathematics 2011
(NCES 2012-452) (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2011).

  23. John Merrow, “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error,” Taking Note: Thoughts on Education from John Merrow, April 11, 2013, http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6232.

  CHAPTER 16 The Contradictions of Charters

  1. National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, “Unionized Charter Schools: Data from 2009–2010,” http://www.publiccharters.org/data/files/Publication_docs/NAPCS%20Unionized%20Charter%20Schools%20Dashboard%20Details_20111103T104815.pdf.

  2. Albert Shanker, “Students Paid the Price When Private Firm Took Over School” (paid advertisement), New York Times, February 22, 1996.

  3. Albert Shanker, “Goals, Not Gimmicks” (paid advertisement), New York Times, November 7, 1993; “Noah Webster Academy” (paid advertisement), New York Times, July 3, 1994; “Beyond Magic Bullets” (paid advertisement), New York Times, March 19, 1995.

  4. Chris Cerf, “Charter Schools: A Single Strand in the Tapestry of New Jersey’s Great Public Schools,” NJSpotlight, July 16, 2012.

  5. The states that had not passed legislation authorizing charter schools by the end of 2012 were Alabama, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia. Voters in Washington State narrowly passed a charter referendum in 2012, after having rejected it three times earlier; the fourth time was a charm, facilitated by a multimillion-dollar campaign fund.

  6. National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, “A Growing Movement: America’s Largest Charter School Communities,” 6th ed., October 2011, 1.

  7. Julian Vasquez Heilig, “Why Do Hedge Fund Managers Adore Charters?,” http://cloakinginequity.com/2012/12/07/why-do-hedge-funds-adore-charters-pt-ii-39-return/.

  8. Juan Gonzalez, “Albany Cash Cow: Big Banks Making a Bundle on New Construction as Schools Bear the Cost,” New York Daily News, May 7, 2010.