Reign of Error. Diane Ravitch’s documentation of bad education policy.

A group of us went to hear Dr. Diane Ravitch last night. She gave a lecture to a filled Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel at Elmhurst College.

Her lecture, like her latest book Reign of Error, is a dagger in the heart of current corporate reform policies.

The popularity of her previous work, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, the crowds she draws and the millions of blog hits she receives – all testify to the influence and aid she has provided to those of us engaged in the battle against privatization, the growth of the testing-industrial complex, NCLB and Race to the Top.

When Death and Life first came out I was the President of our union local in Park Ridge. I remember wrapping it up and giving it as a gift to our newly elected school board president.

If I was still teaching, I would give him Reign of Error as well. The shame of it is that he is no longer the school board president and the guy who is represents all that Ravitch rails against.

Ravitch’s new book is about education policy – bad policies and good.

Driving out to Elmhurst at rush hour I had the car radio turned to the public radio station. There was a discussion going on about the state test scores that had just been released. The scores had dropped to record lows.

Illinois State Superintendent of Education Christopher Koch said this was a good thing.

“The new expectations do not mean that our students know less or are less capable than they were in previous years,” Koch said.

Huh?

If the lower scores are a good thing, than should we be even more pleased if they drop more next year?

Not a chance. The expectation will be that teachers must teach to the new tests and get those scores up. It demonstrates the problem when education leaders, both in our unions and in administrative offices, try to separate the tests from the curriculum, as in the Common Core Standards.

It is a vivid example of what Ravitch describes in her book.

In spite of sniping at her from corporate attack dogs and the Obama administration monitoring her activities, she effectively exposes bad education policy.

Back when I was a grad student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, my advisor and mentor, Professor Bill Schubert, gave me (or maybe loaned it to me and I didn’t give it back) an old beat up copy of the Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet.

Highet, a British educator, defined what he thought makes a good teacher.

It was someone who knew his or her students. Liked them. Knew their subject matter well. And had a passion for what they taught.

To that, I would add this.

Teachers are more than the beneficiaries of good education policies. We are more than the victims of bad education policies.

It is true about students and parents too.

We are not passive recipients of policies. We are not empty vessels.

Good teachers are engaged in their classroom, their schools, their districts, their unions and in their world.

Books like Ravitch’s focus on the policies.

I remember Highet because he focused on the art of teaching.

Both are important.

I hope Ravitch would agree.