Since I'm trying to enjoy my vacation, I'm not going to take the time to rebut Ravitch's latest attack on Obama and Duncan in the latest Newsweek, entitled "Obama's War on Schools", but it's not really necessary because she simply repeats the same lies and distortions she's been spreading for quite some time. But I am surprised that Newsweek's fact checkers would allow such obvious nonsense like this to be published:

Race to the Top went even beyond NCLB in its reliance on test scores as the ultimate measure of educational quality. It asserts that teachers alone—not students or families or economic status—are wholly responsible for whether test scores go up or down. Now teachers rightly feel scape-goated for conditions that are often beyond their control. They know that if students don't come to school regularly, if they are chronically ill, if they are homeless or hungry, their test scores will suffer. But teachers alone are accountable.

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