In this episode, EconTalk host Russ Roberts talks with historian Diane Ravitch about her new book, Slaying Goliath.
Ravitch, a former proponent of charter schools, now bemoans what she sees as their broken promise to American students. Charters promised to be R&D centers for best educational practices, which they would then share with the traditional public schools. Instead, argues Ravitch, they have become part of a billionaires’ plan to defund public education. Charters and traditional publics, Ravitch says, compete for funds and for the best students, leaving traditional public schools in an impossible position.
So what do you think? There are a plethora of questions that arise from this contentious episode. Now it’s your turn to share your reactions and experiences.
1- What makes Ravitch so critical of the billionaires’ motivation? To what extent do you find her criticism persuasive? What does she think they ought to focus on instead? Roberts counters with the question, why should I be in favor of higher expenditures for public schools that don’t seem to spend the money well? How does she respond, and again, to what extent are you convinced?
2- Ravitch says, “I think policy makers, whether it’s the Secretary of Education or the State Superintendent, have an obligation to strengthen and improve the public school system which enrolls anywhere from 80-90% of the children.” How does this include charter schools? What sort of measures does Ravitch suggest, and how effective do you think they might be?
3- What do you think principals could do to do a better job? Do you think America’s schools are well-run? And, if not, what might be done that would be different?
4- What is Ravitch’s fundamental argument as to why charters should not receive public funds? To what extent do you agree, and why?
5- The conversation ends on the topic of teacher education. Would you agree with Roberts that we’ve got to get rid of certification as a requirement? Do you think it’s useful that teachers get a degree in education to be able to teach in a public school? How do Roberts’s and Ravitch’s perspectives on this issue compare?
READER COMMENTS
Steve S
Jun 29 2020 at 2:49pm
5) On the one hand, Ravitch made a complete non sequitur that Russ didn’t follow up on. She said something to the effect that there is a shortage of teachers and they can’t fill spots fast enough, as if removing a barrier to entry (Master’s in Education) wouldn’t increase teacher supply. Maybe I mis-heard that part.
I was sympathetic to her view that some very intelligent people could teach one-on-one but have no inherent ability to manage a classroom. But she didn’t do a good job convincing me that this required a 2-3 year cirriculum. I bet a 1-2 month long course teaching the most evidence based tactics would be sufficient (prove me wrong please, I have no background here).
Amy Willis
Jun 30 2020 at 2:50pm
I’m afraid I can’t help you, Steve. I taught for 10 years in a public high school AND I have a Masters in Education (which I am generally loathe to admit).
I received my teaching certification through a 1.5 year post-bac program. (I already had a BA in subject areas.) BY FAR the most valuable part of that program was the student teaching experience, which was one (university) semester. I found that sufficient, though I still had a lot to learn. In my opinion, rather than university study, I believe mentorship of new teachers is the most effective means to learn classroom management, which, as Russ notes, is indeed a very important skill. I’m a firm believer in teachers holding subject area degrees.
I also believe that to the extent there is a “shortage” of teachers, reducing barriers to entry is critical. I know many folks who would love to teach as a second career, and I think their perspectives and experience could be a terrific classroom contribution. It’s another sign that we don’t seem to value intellectual acumen and experience in (public school) teachers. Note also, I am VERY much with Russ in asserting that there are LOTS of AMAZING public school classroom teachers our there… This is not a knock on them.
Marie Zangs
Jun 29 2020 at 11:17pm
While I appreciated Ravitch’s work years ago, little of what she said in this interview makes sense to me. My twenty years at a public high school informs me quite differently. Teaching is my second career; my undergraduate degree is in business and I returned to school for the requisite Master’s in Education and began teaching at 40. The licensure program took 18 months and several thousand dollars. I teach civics and economics. Removal of a barrier to entry (teacher licensure) does increase supply. Nearly every “round table on education” over the last twenty years declared we need more teachers of color to close the achievement gap. I wonder if that licensure thing gets in the way. How many times did she say teachers don’t make enough money? Another economics lesson; labor unions negotiate teacher pay, creating a price ceiling for some (science & math teacher shortage) and a price floor for others (elementary and gym teacher surplus). Her articulation of challenges students face are accurate but, beyond more money and eliminating charter schools, I didn’t hear solutions. It seems to me Success Academy’s insistence on parental involvement might be a model to work toward. How might we modify that for public schools? Ravitch insists teachers are professionals and deserve respect. Referring to young people in our classrooms as our students rather than our kids or our children would go a long way in respecting teaching as a profession. I’m not their mom; I’m an educator.
Amy Willis
Jun 30 2020 at 2:54pm
Marie, I agree with you! And thank you for all your work in the classroom.
And for the record, Ravitch’s book “Left Back” is the best history of American public education out there. And now…
Aaron Zaslow
Jul 16 2020 at 7:25am
Personally, I thought that Ravitch was a dominating presence in the program and almost utterly dismantled nearly every single argument Russ made in favor of charters and against tradational public school education.
Of course that’s to be expected: she’s heard the arguments he made for the better part of a decade and has specialized in refuting them. One should have expected he to outdo him in this respect, although I will aggree that her resistance to admitting that education barriers to entry reduce the quantity of teachers.
Possibly that is the only weak point in her presentation. Besides that, I thought it was a slame dunk on her part.
Virginia Stanek
Jul 19 2020 at 10:40pm
While Ravitch made some interesting points about differing oversight between Charter and Public Schools, she might have found oversight to be THE problem. She does address testing being a predictor of nothing except income level of the family. She says these standardized tests produce useless information, have no diagnostic value, and rank and rate schools that then stigmatize them. Yet she uses test scores when she talks about the failure of our public schools! Which is it?
Is there just too much oversight? In an ideal world all students would be high achievers. Given differences in people, this is not the case. If we believe there is a strong correlation between the economic freedom ranking of a country and the income their citizens enjoy, then the societal problems Ravitch points to might be best correlated to the amount of regulation, oversight, and spending at the Department of Education, money not reaching the classroom! Charter schools are perhaps the symptom and not the cause.
Jim Kelly
Aug 17 2020 at 4:02pm
Russ mustered more patience with Ravitch than I could have. She was constantly dogmatic and evasive, uninterested in a meeting of the minds and untroubled by defending the indefensible. A teacher’s union in heels.
The double standard she put forward was staggering. Charter schools are failures because they haven’t ended poverty. But ending poverty is her *precondition* for any public school improvement.
Meanwhile, teachers are saints who do a fantastic job. But somehow schools are failing because we don’t pay them enough.
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