The truly dopey Letters to the Editor in response to the NYT article:

Diane Ravitch's views are finally coming into line with the views of most of those who work in public education. No Child Left Behind fails to address the structural problems in our educational system, and its harsh penalties for underperforming schools only push them further to the bottom.

Charter schools drain the more successful students from their neighborhood schools, which then see their scores plummet further. The emphasis on "teaching to the test" erodes the importance of subjects other than English, math and science, and has undercut a broader education in exchange for a focus on rote problem solving and correct sentence structure.

We need broad-based reform that focuses on student motivation and improving the conditions that lead to low achievement. I hope that Dr. Ravitch's turnaround will lead more scholars to question their support for surface-level improvements and to work toward real solutions to the fundamental problems in education.

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March 8, 2010

Letters

www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/opinion/l08ravitch.html