History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
When school reform made teachers sick -- literally
- 04-16-2010
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Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post
There is a small story in education historian Diane Ravitch’s new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” that policymakers should be forced to read whenever they are imposing yet another school reform plan on a school district. It is about school reform implemented so forcefully that teachers got sick. Not sick and tired of being told what to do by people who had never been in front of a classroom, but actually, physically, sick. In the chapter called “Lessons From San Diego,” Ravitch, a New York University professor, tells the story of reform in that urban district from 1998 to 2005, when the school system was under the control of Superintendent Alan Bersin. Bersin had been a federal prosecutor and was President Clinton's border czar-- and now holds essentially the same job under President Obama-- but he was never an educator. (more...)
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