Radio: Showdown Between Ravitch & Alter

Ever wonder what would happen if Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Alter were on the same stage or in the same studio?  Who would interrupt whom?  Would apologies and FOIA requests be required to get access to the tape?  Thanks to a Denver progressive radio show, it's happened (here), and nothing untoward seems to have taken place.  However, it may not have been enlightening or definitive.  Grumpy Educators describes it as a "must listen" (and tells us that Ravitch will be debating Rhee on C-SPAN later this summer).  Mike Klonsky says Alter received a "spanking" from Ravitch.  EdNews Colorado describes the debate as a dual filibuster.  Take a listen -- what with the heat and my general grumpiness I can't bear the thought -- and let us know what you think about who won, what was revealed.  Win extra points by conceding that the person you generally disagree with might have said something interesting.  Image via.

Comments

[CarolineSF]

OK! I'm on. Alter, vicious and personal in print, was reasonably civil on the radio and refrained from personal attacks.

And for someone who has absolutely no qualifications to comment on education -- no experience, no personal contact, no expertise -- he managed to not sound like a total idiot.

That said, Ravitch knows about 100,000 times as much as he does, and Alter's efforts didn't make even the tiniest dent in her questions about how a school with such a very, very sad academic record could win praise as a success. On the other hand, no one could make that case; there isn't a case to be made.

The best Alter and his peeps can do is to whine: "We never called it a miracle and Ravitch says we did." Well, that's hooey. They PORTRAYED it as a miracle, even if they never used the actual word -- and I would bet that a little Googling will find it called a miracle, too.

[CarolineSF]

By the way, Alexander, this question is in your field of expertise. Hadn't Locke High School made some improvements in achievement in the years just before Green Dot took it over? Yet it was universally viewed by the reformistas as a failing school. We know that McKinley Elementary in Compton, CA -- nationally reviled as a failure following the phony Parent Trigger assault against it -- had made a significant gain in achievement before the attack.

So the question is why do the reformistas blast pre-takeover Locke and McKinley as a failures despite their gains, yet hail Bruce Randolph as a success for infinitesimal improvements when its achievement is still abysmal? Direct question, please.

[CarolineSF]

And no, you can't flip it, because critics of corporate reform were not blasting Bruce Randolph in the slightest before Obama and the rest of the reformy crowd started hailing it as a fabulous success.

[Bruce]

I think this radio debate vividly shows the limitations of radio debates. I think both sides are being political and rhetorical (even the moderator cannot refrain from jumping into the partisanship), when cooler heads might look more objectively at the available evidence and draw tentative conclusions about what is likely to produce the best outcomes for our students and would proceed to test those reasonable conclusions, based on the best available research, on balanced, volunteering cross-sections of our young people. Andrew Rotherham in Time yesterday made the important point, "The education marketplace is not an economic one, with the best ideas winning out. Rather, it's a political marketplace, with the loudest or most organized voices usually carrying the day and the most compelling examples winning the public debate" (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2076488,00.html#ixzz1OtHOOuUJ). No one won this Alter/Ravitch debate, and such formats may make losers of us all.

[CarolineSF]

But Bruce, what's your view on my question, since obviously you are closely familiar? To recap: Locke HS in Watts was very low-performing and raised its achievement slightly, but was still low-performing. Reformers branded it a failure and launched a hostile takeover.

Bruce Randolph HS in Denver was very low-performing. After corporate-reform-approved changes, it raised its achievement slightly, but is still low-performing. Reformers, including the president, showered it with acclaim as a success.

There was really no way to have a winner in that radio debate, as Ravitch points out that the school doesn't warrant being hailed as a success and Alter claims yes it does. I'd like to see Alter address the question about Locke too, but he undoubtedly lacks the knowledge and understanding of education issues, so he'd have to respond in the manner of Sarah Palin explaining the Paul Revere. But Bruce and Alexander, what are YOUR responses?

[Stuart Buck]

"After corporate-reform-approved changes, it raised its achievement slightly, but is still low-performing."

Ravitch and her followers are usually the first to say that schools should be judged by improvement in their own context and circumstances, not by absolute levels. So if a school in an impoverished neighborhood manages to make substantial improvements, that's a great thing even if its absolute level of performance is still far lower than out in the wealthiest suburbs. Right? Are y'all now saying that it's really the absolute level that matters, regardless of poverty, etc.?

[CarolineSF]

I'm asking you all the same thing, Stuart Buck.

Why is Bruce Randolph showered with acclaim as a huge success, including by POTUS, when its scores are rock-bottom -- just slightly less than rock-bottom than previously -- while McKinley Elementary and pre-Green Dot Locke were blasted as failures despite notable improvements?

But you can't flip this. Ravitch was RESPONDING to the hyping of Bruce Randolph as a huge success -- which echoes the frequent hyping of other corporate-reform-approved schools as huge successes -- when the achievement is actually rock bottom.

Ravitch was responding. Now I'm asking Stuart, Bruce AND Alexander -- and for that matter asking the same thing on Joanne Jacobs' blog: Why do the reformers hype one school as a huge success after an infintesimal improvement, and blast others as failures after larger improvements?

[Stuart Buck]

I have no idea what McKinley and Locke are or what their improvements were. If I think school improvement is a good thing, and that's somehow inconsistent with what persons unknown to me have said about schools unknown to me, then I'm not guilty of any inconsistency. But Ravitch and the like ARE guilty of inconsistency if they say both that it's important to look at school improvement (not absolute levels) yet denigrate an improved school just because its absolute levels aren't high enough.

[CarolineSF]

How convenient that when you can't defend the hypocrisy, you "don't know" anything about it, Stuart Buck.

Ravitch did not denigrate Bruce Randolph -- it's flat-out false to accuse her of doing so.

She questioned hailing it as a success story when its achievement was so low. That is not the same as denigrating it.

I am further questioning the hypocrisy of hailing Randolph as a success story while blasting pre-Green Dot Locke High School (Watts) and McKinley Elementary (Compton) as failures when they had improved far more than Randolph. Still waiting for that explanation.

[Stuart Buck]

Caroline, if you want to accuse anyone of hypocrisy, you have to find the SAME PERSON saying two opposite things. It doesn't count as hypocrisy for Person A to say something that is inconsistent with what Person B says, especially when you can't name who Person A and Person B even are in the first place.

As for Ravitch, yes, the precise point is that she questioned hailing it as a success (due to improvement) when its achievement (absolute levels) are so low. If absolute levels are more important than improvement, that contradicts Ravitch's oft-stated complaint that NCLB should NOT be measuring a school's worth by looking for a 100% level of proficiency while ignoring the school's very difficult circumstances?

[Stuart Buck]

when its achievement is so low . . .

[CarolineSF]

She is questioning the inconsistency of those hailing it, Stuart Buck, for the reason that they are claiming success for corporate-reformy principles with a school that doesn't show the hallmarks of success. We could go around and around all day, but it's the corporate reformers who placed the success and failure labels on the schools.

[Stuart Buck]

So you're defining "hallmarks of success" not as "doing very well under the circumstances," but as "having kids that score better than kids elsewhere, regardless of who is poor and who is rich"?

[Stuart Buck]

If Ravitch had made this argument, she would have been more consistent and respectable:

"Reformers praise schools X, Y, and Z for being successful. But these schools are successful only because they have made improvements under difficult circumstances, even while their absolute levels of proficiency are still rather low. Thus, even reformers must concede that we should get rid of NCLB's demand for 100% proficiency, and that we shouldn't be penalizing schools whose only fault is that their absolute levels of proficiency are supposedly too low at a given point in time."

[Bruce]

Caroline, I'm happy to answer your question; you have noted an inconsistency that I too have thought about. The key point is that there is no single group who go around calling or thinking of themselves as "reformistas". Locke was very low-performing and raised its performance significantly--from an API of 370, last in the state, to 511 in the eight years prior to our rebellion, but there were plenty of us on the inside who felt that it wasn't improving fast enough, and wouldn't as long as it remained inside LAUSD. We reached out to Green Dot, who finally showed up after a couple of years and an attempt at another school, Jefferson High School. We began with an intention of partnership, but it morphed into a takeover, a topic about which I will have more to say soon. Reform efforts at McKinley and Randolph, to my understanding, were launched by outside groups, which is different, but I think you are asking two questions: (1) why is incremental improvement okay in some cases and not in others, and (2) should we judge schools by comparison with their previous efforts or with other schools? To these I answer (1) that while all improvement is good by definition, the key question is how to improve schools as rapidly and deeply as possible, and I'm not sure there is any single strategy to achieve that in every case; and (2)both, but I don't really care, because my main concern is how students leaving such schools are judged by powers like colleges and employers when they leave the evanescent institutions we call schools. Judgements of people like students and teachers matter; abstract entities like "Locke High School" have no feelings.

[CarolineSF]

Thank you for the response, Bruce.

It's the messaging piece, which is such a huge element of the reform movement, that I'm referring to.

Of course I know the movement isn't completely monolithic, but a lot of pieces make up a massive force.

[Bruce]

Caroline, the Andy Rotherham article I linked to above, and in particular the paragraph I quoted, affected me deeply. Andy is right, approving charters is deeply political, and proposals get approved for the wrong reasons (sometimes). In my more despairing moments, I come to believe that the bad are the ones who inherit the earth; but then usually something good happens, and I snap out of it. Perhaps a more useful generalization is that things move cyclically, as the Chinese and Hindus have traditionally believed; or that reality is more nearly described as chaotic, as some modern scientists propound, and as the Locke transformation well exemplifies. The Arab historian ibn Khaldun came to a theory of history that luck, more than anything else, rules events, and events at least sometimes support his theory, too.

[CarolineSF]

Can't stand Andy Rotherham, but he certainly was right about that. Of course we know who the loudest voices are -- you notice that Time gives him a column just in case it wasn't ALREADY a one-sided forum for the corporate education reform movement. We've already seen just how balanced Education Nation and so many other forums are. Don't get me started. Anyway, I really like the rest of your thoughtful comment, Bruce. I want to hear more about this whole fiasco sometime.

[Bruce]

I expect to have more to say soon, if I can get published.

[Sandra]

June 29-30 Ravitch meets Founder of Teach for America, Wendy Kopp,
to be televised by C-SPAN

August 18 Ravitch meets Michelle Rhee at Martha's Vineyard, to be televised by C-SPAN