Ravitch's Words on the Sandy Hook Shooting

In jarring contrast, there are apparently no depths to which Ravitch will not stoop. Her blatant lying to defame RI Superintendent Deb Gist was probably her prior low (Examaples 1, 2, 3, 4 ), but she’s now outdone herself and hit a new low yesterday by using the Newtown tragedy to advance her agenda and attack Gov. Malloy (a Democrat!), Superintendent Stefan Pryor (another Democrat!), “ConnCAN, StudentsFirst, and hedge fund managers”. As Andy Rotherham correctly tweeted: “The first part of this is lovely - the second half is obscene and embarrassing.” This is what she wrote (and I am NOT making this up!):

 

Every one of the teachers was a career educator. Every one was doing exactly what she wanted to do. They’ve worked in a school that was not obsessed with testing but with the needs of children. This we know: the staff at Sandy Hook loved their students. They put their students first, even before their own lives.

Oh, and be other thing, all these dedicated teachers belonged to a union. The senior teachers had tenure, despite the fact that “reformers” (led by ConnCAN, StudentsFirst, and hedge fund managers) did their best last spring to diminish their tenure and to tie their evaluations to test scores. Governor Malloy said, memorably, to his shame, that teachers get tenure just for showing up. No one at Sandy Hook was just “showing up.”

Governor Dannell Malloy has led the effort in his state to expand charter schools and high-stakes testing. He appointed a state commissioner of education who co-founded a charter chain. He said, memorably, that he didn’t care how much test prep there was so long as scores go up. Sandy Hook is not that kind of school.

Let us hope Governor Malloy learned something these past few days about the role of public schools in their communities.

Newtown does not need a charter school. What it needs now is healing. Not competition, not division, but a community coming together to help one another. Together. Not competing.

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