Similarly to who you present to comment on the collapse of the economy and the failed Iraq and Afgan ploicies, you choose as a commentator someone who has been consistently wrong on education issues for the last several decades. It isn’t so much that you have these failed analysts on your show as the fact that you very rarely have those were right, but ignored, for the last twenty years.

Dear Jonas,

I appreciate your comment but just wanted to
(gently!)say, we’ve had plenty of early on opponents of NCLB. But I guess I would also add, sometimes Nixon has to go to China.

Best
Robin

Enjoyed your discussion with Diane Ravitch. While I agree public education is one of the last level playing fields for pursuit of the American Dream, her offhand dismisal of dealing with teachers’ unions as a continuing problem is discouraging. In WI, teachers move up the pay scales by taking graduate credits that may or may not lead to graduate degrees. Many teachers look for the easiest and fastet ways to move up the salary scale with little or no regard to the content or career improvement. Add to that, a very robust benefit package designed at a time when teachers were underpaid, and you have a recipe for complacency, if not medocrity. None of Ms. Ravitch’s ideas (or Mr. Obama’s) unless the role of unions in schools is significantly reigned in.

“How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose.” ….so evolution is always one step behind? Hmmmm….

I’m a democrat (small d) but tend to lean towards Ms. Ravitch’s more conservative ideas about education, especially when it comes to preserving public schools. Effective teachers have found ways to improve test scores and still teach content. Unfortunately, we know that many teachers are not effective. Teachers out there may resent the onslaught of attacks on them and their profession and could easily divert attention to other causes such as ineffective parents and economic reasons, but they need to overcome those problems because THAT IS THEIR JOB! Step into a school and observe teachers like I am doing right now (I’m currently getting certified to teach art. Don’t get me started on how NCLB is succeeding in killing art education) and you will see many ineffective practices, teacher complacency, and a few cases of teachers who, for many reasons, detest the kids they are supposed to be teaching. Even good teachers are not honestly being reflective practitioners. Even my coop teacher, who I find to be highly effective in many ways, is not using the strategies for teaching that I’m learning about. Strategies that are based on the latest brain research about how kids learn best. Strategies that can help close the achievement gap by understanding and using differentiation. High stakes testing isn’t going to work because only differentiating teachers can creatively integrate “teaching to the test” and still reach content standards. It is all about the teachers and if unions prevent bad teachers from being weeded out then giving NCLB more time is like putting lipstick on a pig.

I just listened to your piece with Diane Ravitch and NCLB. As a Chicago teacher, I must say that she is right on the money. It breaks my heart to see wonderful and competent teachers being let go for for artificial and bureaucratic reasons. Mayor Daley has embraced the idea of the charter school primarily to break the teacher’s union. President Obama would do well to replace Arnie with Ms. Ravitch. He should seriously listen to her. At least she has dedicated her life to education, not to the bottom line.

Rarely, (NEVER?) have I agreed with a former Bush administration person against my hero Obama, but in this case I have to go with Ravitch and against his new NCLB proposal. People are not uncomfortable turning to the corporate world to “take over” education, “run it like a business and show those educators how it’s done”. I used to think that when I was in the corporate world. Now I’m a teacher, and I see it’s much more complicated. Why can’t we follow another time honored tradition of the corporate world to see what other successful countries are doing, and identify and model those best practices? Finland, Japan, and other countries have ideas about school that are very different from ours, and very successful! Things like continuous improvement, thorough and deliberate problem solving in real life contexts, critical thinking, using data and research to make decisions – as opposed to an excess of multiple choice teaching to the test and using instructional time to practice taking the test!

I used to be corporate person who took a pay cut to follow my calling and be of service to the world as a teacher, and I love it. Yes, there are some poor quality teachers, certainly some that can improve. And yes, poverty is the number one indicator of a students’ poor performance in school. And finally, no, there are no simple answers.

After listening to your discussion with psychologist Deidre Barrett, I was left with more questions than answers. I am uncertain whether her analogy between the behavior of animals holds for that of the human behaviors she discussed. When an animal tries to mate with a fake animal, it still believes it is doing something that will result in reproduction. When an animals sits on a fake egg, it is under the belief that it will produce a baby. Of course, the word belief here is problematic, because animals may be working by instinct. But when a person habitually seeks out fast food or pornography, I am unconvinced that what we are looking at is an evolutionary instinct gone awry. It is interesting that a healthy human being who eats food that is good for them often recoils from and has no strong desire for fastfood. In both the case of eating and sex, we are prone to act in hyper or exaggerated ways when we are emotionally or physically unwell (sad, angry, hungry, tired…). Would this suggest that the phenomena is more complicated than the fly choosing to mate with a fake fly or a bird trying to get offsring from a big shiny egg?

says that the instincts humans developed hundreds of years ago to survive still govern today. But nowadays those instincts cause overindulgence

On public sector retirement 3/16/10 . I don’t think 26 k per year is a lot to retire on . As for the 1 mil of healthcare for life and retiring at 42 ; always pick the most flagrant one in a zillion situation to make a point.If people public sector or private don’t have some sort of retirement , who takes care of them when they can’t work any more ? Which government ? Federal , state ,city ? because someone will , one way or another .
This kind of reasoning is short sighted and a product of this depression . I for one am sick and tired of cities,counties and states trying to balance budgets on the backs of working people .
Pay some now or much more later . Kick the can down the road . Glenn Carson Love the show

Thanks so much for interviewing my great uncle John! It was quite a shock to hear about my hometown, Butte, America on NPR!