National education expert Diane Ravitch issues scathing indictment of Kasich & Cleveland mayor Jackson

Nationally noted education writer Diane Ravitch, a former supporter of charter schools who was open-minded enough to change her mind when she saw the real-life results, wrote a column this week for the Education Week website titled "Desperate Times in Cleveland and Ohio."

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/02/desperate_ti...

In it she sums up how the education policies of the state, exacerbated by Governor Kasich and eagerly supported by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, are shortchanging the state's and city's poorest kids. She talks about a recent trip she made to Cleveland to speak at the City Club, as well as to teacher and adminstrator groups.

She says,

After I spoke to the teachers, one came up and introduced herself as a 4th grade teacher. She said: "Thank you for giving me hope. I wish I could give some to my students. They have no hope for the future." That was the saddest thing I heard on my visit.

Cleveland has a level of urban decay that is alarming. Yet its municipal leaders have decided that their chief problem is bad teachers. Surely, I thought, the teachers didn't cause the flight of employers from the city, the collapse of its manufacturing base, and the massive loss of home mortgages.

Yes, surely. She mentions that Cleveland leaders think the solution is making it easier to fire teachers, to remove seniority and to somehow produce out of thin are "merit pay" for teachers who raise test scores, never mind that they want to shrink the available pool of money, so this "merit pay" is likely to be unaffordable.

And oh, yes, expanding charter schools. It's worth clicking through to see what Ravitch has to say about David Brennan and his ineffective, unaccountable, but self-enriching chain of White Hat charter schools with their education on the cheap.

She concludes,

And about those children in the 4th grade in Cleveland who have no hope for the future, who probably live in one of those desolate neighborhoods surrounded by boarded-up homes and empty lots. There is nothing in the mayor or governor's plans to offer them hope. ...

But they aren't thinking about those children. They are thinking about how to cut costs. They will keep hiring private firms to run schools. The private firms will fire those expensive teachers who earn a living wage and hire newcomers willing to work long hours for $30,000 a year. Some of the private firms will replace teachers with virtual academies, so those expensive buildings can be shuttered while children sit at a computer, with one teacher monitoring 50-100 or more screens. The "teachers" may not be certified, may be hourly workers with no benefits, may turn over with frequency. All that cuts costs, too.

There's lots in these plans to give hope to political allies of the electeds. But not much to give hope to the children.