Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)

Outrages

9486 in the collection

PDK Now Advocates National Standards

by Susan Ohanian

I post this with great sadness. It feels like a death in the family.

Back in April, I was part of a small group that signed a letter to the new Phi Delta Kappan editor Joan Richardson decrying the lack of transparency of an author's connection to the subject of four articles in the April issue of Phi Delta Kappan, articles that amounted to love letters to the Broad Prize in Urban Education. We made no attempt to address the troubling content of the articles, only asked that PDK be clear about who the author is and why he might be interested in writing a love letter to the Broad Foundation.

I don't know about the other signers, but I received no acknowledgment of the letter.

Now I see the February issue in which PDK editor Joan Richardson devotes a page to explaining why we need national standards. Here is David Marshak's considered response to Joan's pronouncement:

Joan,

I appreciate your honesty in finally admitting your ideological bias in this month’s "Editor's Note." Of course this has been pretty obvious since you took over the Kappan, but it's good of you to make your bias explicit, though a little belated.

Your simplistic argument is ripped to shreds by Nel Noddings and Alfie Kohn in the recent edition of Quality Counts, and even pro-standards flagbearers Ravitch and Hirsch cite many potential problems with the current national standards campaign. PDK board member Yong Zhao has also offered a powerful critique both of the standards process and of its intended outcome. This elitist effort has almost entirely excluded classroom teachers and has been conducted with significant secrecy. It's also been conducted by members of the academy who are critical of the secrecy involved but who are too cowardly to speak out against it. (I contacted all the academics involved in July and August. 90% responded to my email query. 71% of them criticized the process in private. Not one has spoken out publicly.)

I also appreciate that you have included articles in this issue from Dr. Smith and Dr. Hess.

Smith founded and runs TestPrep Experts and makes money selling test prep services. It's good of you to offer him a national platform through which he can argue for more testing--and thus, more business for his company. I hope that the Kappan received something in return for this advertising.

Rick Hess is a knowledgeable, thoughtful man who has many interesting things to offer. I've corresponded with Rick for more than 15 years. Nonetheless Rick is employed by the American Enterprise Institute, a political entity funded primarily by wealthy, right-wing Republicans who have sought for decades to privatize public education. Rick has not been a scholar or a researcher or an educator for many years. His job is to further the interests and values of AEI, which, I assume, are also his own personal values and interests. He is essentially a propagandist, a political operative.

Rick is certainly entitled to his views and values, as is AEI. But I do wonder why the Phi Delta Kappa Professional Education Association--a "professional association for educators. Promotes professional learning, leadership, research, and service"--wants to use its limited journal space to promote the ideas of the American Enterprise Institute--which no doubt promotes values contrary to those held by most PDK members--or to shill for the values of the test prep industry?

In any case, Joan, your editorial will save me the $68 I won’t spend renewing my subscription.

Best wishes,

David Marshak

Biography for Joan Richardson

Joan Richardson is editor-in-chief of Phi Delta Kappan magazine, a publication of PDK International. She joined Kappan in July 2008 and has led the efforts to transform the magazine’s appearance, content, and internal operations.

Before joining Kappan, she spent 12 years as director of communications for the National Staff Development Council. In that position, she managed the organization's strategic communication plan. She was executive editor of JSD where she wrote the column "Results," editor and writer for the NSDC newsletters—The Learning Principal, The Learning System, Tools for Schools, and Teachers Teaching Teachers (T3)—and manager of the organization’s extensive web site (www.nsdc.org). She also directed NSDC’s book publishing operations and its media outreach efforts.

Before joining NSDC in 1996, she was an award-winning education reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

Richardson is the author of From the Inside Out: Learning from the Positive Deviance in Your Organization (NSDC, 2004), co-author of What is Staff Development Anyway? (NSDC, 1997), and co-author of On Your Marks (Detroit Free Press, 1993).
She was a Michigan Journalism Fellow (1988-89) and recipient of a German Marshal Fund travel scholarship to study education in Germany and Denmark. She is a former board member of the Education Writers Association. She served on the Grosse Pointe (Michigan) Board of Education for six years, including one term as president.
She received her bachelor's degree in journalism and history from Indiana University.
She lives in suburban Detroit, Mich., and telecommutes to her work at PDK. She is married to Bob Rossbach, a media and public relations consultant, and the mother of three adult children.

Kappan

Nation at Risk

listened.

that.

Kappan.

— Susan Ohanian

2010-02-15

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380
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