Leading Education Scholar Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind Has Left US Schools with Legacy of “Institutionalized Fraud”

By Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
March 15, 2010

As the Obama administration touts No Child Left Behind and the “Race to the Top” competition for school grants, we speak to leading education scholar and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. She’s long been known as an advocate of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and using the free market to improve schools. But she’s had a radical change of heart, as chronicled in her latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch says, “The evidence says No Child Left Behind was a failure, and charter schools aren’t going to be any better.”
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26dems Editorial Comment:

Teachers and public schools are under siege in Arizona as the Republican legislature brutally cuts education while preserving tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.

A 1% temporary sales tax will be on the ballot May 18. The Pima County Democratic Party passed a resolution in support of the sales tax because the Executive Committee was persuaded by the arguments of school board members that if the sales tax measure does not pass, Arizona's children will be harmed by a doubling of the cuts to already devastated budgets. Refusing to make the children pawns in a political game controlled by the majority Republicans, Democrats decided to put kids first, believing that several conditions make it decidedly unlikely that the legislature and the Governor will go back on a promise that money earmarked for education will fund school budgets.

The leading Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal touts his accomplishments that form the basis for a privatization education agenda in Arizona. Dave Safier writing in Blog for Arizona demonstrates that the package does not serve 80% of Arizona's children.

Here are the accomplishments he lists:

1. "Removing the caps on charter school enrollment" (Republicans love charter schools almost as much as they love private schools. The more the better.)
2. "Creating Arizona's Tuition Tax Credit, helping our Christian & Catholic schools" (Yes, they love their private schools, especially the religious ones -- if you're the right religion. Did you know tuition tax credits don't help Jewish or Muslim private schools? Or secular ones? At least they don't merit a mention. And did you know Catholics aren't Christians, so they need a separate religious category?)
3. "Supporting English Language Immersion for students who can't speak English" (It's cheap the way we do it in Arizona, and recent research show it's not very effective, but according to Republicans, it's all they deserve. Why should we let them talk all that Spanish-talk in schools anyway?)
4. "Developing and passing the best home school laws in the nation" (Did I forget to mention Republicans love home schooling as much as private schooling? And that Hupp thinks home schools are public schools too?)
5. "Providing the very best computer technology for our deaf and blind students" (But if you can hear and see, you don't get the best of anything. Sorry, can't afford it.)
6. "Establishing a model summer school for children with autism" (But if you aren't autistic, good luck finding a "model summer school" to attend)

Show unenthusiastic voters this agenda and tell them if they don't support the destruction of public education in Arizona they should come out and vote for the sales tax increase and LD 26 education defenders, Cheryl Cage for Senate and Rep Nancy Young-Wright for the House of Representatives--and against candidates who have voted for massive, draconian cuts to education that will deprive our children of educational opportunity.