A Broad Street in Nevada City they'll be cooking up pancakes with maple syrup fruit juice and coffee then given gluten free options will be available the if that helps to support the students field work and service learning projects 913-9037 a local Bill Raspberry and Boston ravine will play our concert of the bluegrass gospel music Saturday 7 pm at the manual Episcopal Church in Grass Valley the concert is a benefit for the interfaith Food Food Ministry tickets information available at Boston a ravine dot com and the 2nd annual Top temples and trivia scholarship fundraiser will be held Saturday from 4 to 7 pm at the Peterson church in Grass Valley you can complete compete on a 4 person team or participate as a spectator munchies and wine will be available this is a fundraiser sponsored by the American Association of University Women in Nevada County Nevada County dash. A new w. Dot anybody and the Auburn wins big band and presents a musical soul to the Greatest Generation on Sunday 3 pm at the Auburn State Theatre this is a Veterans Day concert featuring the music of Glenn Miller Benny Goodman the Andrews Sisters and more and local singers songwriters cupcake rodeo perform their mix of course you originally an upbeat cover Saturday at court $49.00 on Mill Street in downtown Grass Valley and is a theater in Auburn is hosting a live music on Friday and Saturday evenings with both shows beginning at 7 30 pm Friday it's country folk artist we don't have king and the crooked Jade's and Saturday jazz performer Anton Schwartz heads up his sixty's ensemble and a medley of Live From Auburn dot com a medley of young musicians will play and sing in a recital Sunday 3 pm at St Joseph's Cultural Tour center for terrorist outrage street in Grass Valley the program teachers students performing on piano violin cello harp French horn and voice in concert Sierra or. Polyamory offers to make up shows. Shows rescheduled due to the power outage. And one of them has left its tonight Wednesday evening at the Nevada theater poet Molly this good musician George Schroeder brings songs poems and conversation also beginning at 730 and then closing out the doors as we live series there is live music on both Friday and Saturday evenings Friday at 8 pm performer just unfair and opens for singer. A performer Justin parent performs and. As does Paul Emery and Eli Roth opening for Justin and Saturday 8 pm. Composer pianist vocalist Terry rightly performing in a rare solo show that was a benefit for the camp until community center and the Ponderosa pines holiday art and craft fair which is held on Timberland drive in Grass Valley features handcrafted items as well as music by members of the new and you high school choir and fund raising activities a benefit children advocates of the right a county that takes place Saturday 9 am to 3 pm and a broadcast of national theater live Hansard will be shown Thursday 6 30 pm at the 0 cinemas in Grass Valley at Encore takes place the following Friday the 11th. The following Wednesday the 11th at 3 30 pm. And. Local music in events at the This Week at the wild eyed pub in Grass Valley Wednesday it's George cutter and Robert trice. 6 pm Thursday chat Selwood Torelli playing lounge classics on request and. Thursday at 6 pm lucky Mulligan hosted new jam and Thursday 6 also on stage vocal visuals presenter jazz singers showcase Friday Buffalo Gals Saturday Tommy Miles and the milestones and Sunday 2nd Sunday jazz. And we get support from. Mentor Grass Valley offering local designers and women's apparel and the jewelry carrying Mendelson brands obey and more sustaining to the illegality the local economy by keeping the bills on the hill next to good times Millstreet Mint Grass Valley dot com and Mama drones equal importing I'm on Broad Street Nevada City offering earth friendly sustainably made collection of natural fiber drool clothing for the whole family fair trade guest and jewelry also local organic bedding and body care on Facebook mama drones and now we're going to go to a 2nd edition of Your call today this one was from this morning and it's on about the impact of genetically Chicago teachers strike and public education funding in that country. This is your call public education was a big winner in Kentucky last night after Democrat Andy Bashir claimed a narrow victory over Republican governor Matt Bevan who has not yet conceded throughout his tenure Matt Bevin work to undermine public education cut teachers' pensions and he also ridiculed them in December he said teachers strikes left fielder and vulnerable to sexual assault Democrat and Aebischer campaigned on major changes for public education he says he will end Kentucky's teacher shortage increased mental health services for children fund teachers pensions and call for smaller class sizes and fewer standardized tests he says he will not sign a budget and less that sufficiently fund education and they claim victory was just over 5000 votes out of 1400000 cast and we should say that Kentucky is a state that Donald Trump won by a whopping 30 points and then last month the Chicago Teachers Union held their longest strike in more than 3 decades after 11 days on the picket line the teachers agreed to suspend their strike and accept a tentative agreement the union did not get everything they asked for but they did win a big victory including an extra $30000000.00 in their education budget the $24000.00 members of the Chicago Teachers Union had many requests including caps on class sizes and a requirement to put a nurse and social worker and every school this is actually a demand that we're hearing from teachers across the country they want nurses and they want social workers on staff for the 1st. Time ever in Chicago they won caps on class size and even received a commitment to put a nurse and a social worker in every school although the hiring process could take up to 5 years funding equity remains a very big issue according to education trust in the United States today school districts serving the largest population of black Latino or Native American students receive roughly $1800.00 or 13 percent less per student in state and local funding than those serving the fewest students of color and this really does add up so what are these teacher strikes reveal about how little funding public education received today and how can we make public education more equitable for teachers and students today we're joined by Diane Ravitch a historian of education and research professor of education at New York University Diane is founder and president of the network for public education from 1991 to 1993 Diane was assistant secretary of education during the George h.w. Bush administration she was actually a proponent of No Child Left Behind and then she became opposed she was actually a supporter of it and then she became an opponent responsible for the office of educational research and improvement and the u.s. Department of Education from 1997 to 2004 Diane Ravitch was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board which oversees the federal testing program she is the author of 12 books Her latest is the wisdom and wit of Diane Ravitch and her forthcoming book is called slain Goliath it's about the resistance to the privatization of schools and Diane Ravitch joins us from Brooklyn New York hi Diane welcome to the show. Here on the screen Brooklyn New York well Diane it's always so good to have you and it's been a while so thank you so much I want to 1st get your thoughts about what happened in Kentucky last night. Democrat and Aebischer claimed a narrow victory Republican governor Matt Bevin has not conceded yet but this is a victory for public education because these 2 could not be more different when it comes to so many issues but definitely public education Well this is I think the defining issue format that than it is to see to. Kentucky is a state that trump won by 30 points in 2016 and that Evan was an elected by 9 points and I think he has been defeated because he has insulted the teachers of Kentucky he has tried to destroy their pensions to take away turn them into 4041 cases of teachers who are outraged and he's also promoted charters and basters he had Betsy's of us there last spring and that didn't help them and then he had that on from there Monday night and that didn't help them either so he thanked teachers and I think teachers made the difference right because teachers really came out in droves for Andy Bashir and they were so well organized in Kentucky absolutely they had 2 major protests at the capital protesting against 7 separate to a private has public education they haven't has with simple majority in the legislature of Republicans he was able to pass legislation for charters but even though Republicans control the legislature they never funded the charters So Kentucky has a charter law and no charters. And talk to us about. So much has changed Diane with all of the teacher strikes across the country this is now at the top of so many people's minds and lists in terms of what's important some somewhere like Kentucky for example where you've got Republicans who openly criticize teachers who say that they're going to cut pensions who cut budgets who take out social workers and nurses were I mean it's not just Kentucky even in California a very wealthy state teachers are working 2 jobs to make ends meet but in a place like Kentucky I mean this is this is that when you talk about budget cuts it really hurts the teachers and the kids and I mean the entire staff. Well you know what's happened over the last 2 years not quite 2 years has started in March of 2018 is a rolling wave of teacher strike. California most recently a few t.l.i. . And then last week the Chicago teachers ended their strike but I think what happened to the teachers has changed the national conversation because we have had 10 solid years of billionaires and 1st the Bush administration and the Arnie Duncan and then that's each of us bashing teachers in public schools and creating and there it says it says the reason the scores aren't going up is because of teachers and so teachers hurt this again and again in the main result of this narrative has been who are manically reduce the number of people who are willing to become teachers increase the retirement rate of experienced teachers and you know you can have schools that teachers and teacher America which is a very. Short timeline of 5 weeks of training cannot produce enough teachers to replace the millions of experienced teachers who are working. So instead of taking it the teacher said starting the West Virginia February 28th. We're not going to take it anymore and they every single school in the state of West Virginia closed in February of 2018 and it was 55 counties it's illegal to strike in West Virginia and they struck in a way as a one. Time we've seen say that your state follow the lead of the West Virginia Teachers right state after state including California and Diane you have such an interesting background and just to let people know about where you're coming from. Give us a sense of the I guess the awakening that you've had when it comes to public education because you've really changed your opinions on many issues. Well absolutely and I think it's one of the reasons why my feuds got more attention is because I used to be on the other side during the 198990 s. And even after the passage of No Child Left Behind I was on board with the idea of I think testing charter schools I get one point wrote an article in favor of fathers' and I recanted all of that I did it in the story in about 90 starting that 2007 I realized that none of the stuff was working I was on a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford with the Crandell a crown of conservative intelligentsia and I was one other conservative think tanks but you know I never stopped thinking I kept thinking doesn't this stuff isn't working all the things that we're advocating doesn't work so I wrote a book in 201012 of death and life was a Great American School System how testing and choice are Undermining Education and probably declare that I was a loner on that team so I could come around full circle. I don't know the full circle or half circle but made a complete reversal of my views and became very outspoken in opposition to privatization and outspoken opposition to this or I should have high stakes standardized tests. My new book shows that the evidence is. That none of this works this not produce better schools that does not produce better educated students and the testing in particular has been very very damaging to students and the schools. What was it that made you take such a dramatic shift. Evidence that when you see that what you're recommending doesn't work then you either become a complete ideologue with a closed mind as so many people are on the other side are you say it doesn't work I have to reconsider what I'm thinking. And so this is what happened when I was a group institution I was with the best of the fair and it came a time where. Even back then in the early 2000 we realize charter schools were opening and closing and it didn't make sense to continue to support them but we could. Drop. The group that dropped out from continued to be very strong supporters of charters and also high stakes testing and I think by now the evidence is very clear the high stakes testing is that's what has got a result. Today we're speaking with Diane Ravitch a historian of education and research professor of education at New York University her forthcoming book is called playing Goliath it's about the resistance to the privatization of schools and Diane really did a $180.00 when it comes to public education and she said she supported No Child Left Behind charters high stakes testing and now she opposes those policies and is a big proponent of funding public education and we will also talk about equity if you like to join us the toll free number is 86679882558667988255 you can also e-mail your call a.l.w. Dot org If you are part of any teachers strike if you've seen changes in education over the years we'd love to hear from you what changes would you like to see you can also tweet us at your call Radio Day And let's also just quickly talk about how far public education has come because remember what was it 4 years ago public education was just being Phalange you know that the fame was you can't fire bad teachers public education is not working and we need more charters and you need to fire bad teachers and that was a media conversation that did not include the voices of teachers and then we saw this wave of teachers strikes and they used social media to show us how books were completely you know the pages were missing how chairs were broken how mold was in the classroom how kids did not have what they needed it was cold in the classroom how teachers were working 2 or 3 jobs the teachers were able to tell their own stories and students also came out to support their teachers and the bus drivers and the janitors and the staff So let's talk about that I mean that was a dramatic shift. What happened this week as a result of the teacher's strike was that people stopped complaining about dad teachers I think that what teachers understand and I think what public school educators understand is that bad teachers really don't last long and if kids are not learning it's not because they had bad teachers but because they usually because they're in poverty or because they don't speak English that's a real barrier to succeeding I stand I said if you don't speak or read English children with extreme disabilities do very poorly on standardized tests so what see the so called her for a time I don't in my new book out of call them were farmers I call them disruptors because this is what they have aimed to do is disrupt public education because coming from the business world particularly so many of them made their decisions in Silicon Valley they believe in destruction and that anything that isn't disrupted has to be reinvented so they they want to reinvent it so you have billionaires like Lorraine Ela job Steve Jobs That's why it's a Reed Hastings who owns Netflix Eli pros who is a Los Angeles billionaire and there I have a chapter in my new book Flying glass called. Who is a who is a leader is that this destruction movement and it's page after page of 30 years and you think none of them have ever taught in a school probably very few of them ever went to a public school they don't send their own children to public schools how do they suddenly become experts in education and why do they think they have the right to reinvent other people's schools most people in America love their local public school they have been inundated with negative propaganda now for 25 years or so and so when they're asked well how do you feel that American Educational say oh it's in bad shape Well how do you feel about your local public school all my local public schools great I love the teachers I love the school my kids are very happy there so there is then. Repeated differences of opinion between how people feel about the school they know best and what they think about American education which has been the target for all of this Koch brothers De Vos. Family funded propaganda for decades. John and we've had you on to talk about these billionaires who are trying to change the face of public education given that you wrote this new book called slang Goliath. Did you learn anything new about their endgame Well when you're looking at the folks brothers bet you divide the in getting this to completely privatized public education what they see is parents getting a voucher This is what they aim for in Arizona where there was a referendum I just earlier this year and they want all shrill children all families have a voucher which is which they can use anywhere they can pay and not only to tutor them they can go to a business school they can go buy a new computer and do homeschooling their idea is do you want think as a funny thing is this is not for thinking this is pretty much the way education worked and about $1800.00 so it goes back over to 2 centuries to a time when there was no there were no public schools and families were on their own and the difference is that they want to transfer public funds to families to do their own thing and Arizona has found that families they do have a better program but it only can covers a few 1000 kids and families are using the money to buy a closing and to do things that are totally not educational to go to amusement parks to do things that have nothing whatever to do with learning so. The Koch brothers the boss and right wing orientation is to demolish to use public funding to demolish public schooling. And is it safe to assume Diane that these people if they have kids send their kids to very expensive private schools I've even read that some of them send their kids to schools that do not have standardized tests and do not rely on technology to learn Absolutely I mean I don't know where the Koch brothers are the one remaining Coke Weather Center children but I feel I'm willing to bet any amount of money that they never set foot in the public school Betsy The boss was educated in religious schools and her own children were educated more or less just schools and she thinks that's right for everyone and the trucks problem with that is that there are many religious schools there are some religious schools that do a good job but there are many many religious schools that teach racism homophobia that fire teachers at their they find they are not straight you know straight I mean exactly what they think their religious ideal is and they are using the Bible as a science textbook now no one can argue with any degree of integrity that the Bible source of science in the year 2019 it's very important source of ancient wisdom is not a source of science technology or history for that matter and yet there are religious schools in Florida and elsewhere that are teaching from textbooks that say that dinosaurs lived with human beings and people actually wrote that source this is insane. Today we're speaking with Diane Ravitch a historian of education and research professor of education at New York University she is out with a new book it's coming out called Playing Goliath it's about the resistance to the privatization of schools and she writes about the billionaire issues end game is to privatized public education. But as we've seen over the last couple of years teachers students parents and communities are really stepping up and fighting the effort to privatize school by saying no we want our public schools to be fully funded we want basic things like nurses social workers and I and that's the one thing that's been so interesting is. When the West Virginia strike happened I feel like a lot of people especially living in more Democratic states said Oh yeah look at what's going on in that red state well then you've got strikes in blue states like California in Oakland I mean we've had teachers on in San Francisco who say that they don't have what they need and they also have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet and a lot of people are learning that in schools with have very high poverty. We do not have full time nurses full time social workers and full time librarians. Well to me this is quite amazing because I went to public school in Houston Texas many many years ago and we had arts every day we had a nurse from the school if you know since your name and needed a Band-Aid that sent you to the nurse's office there was a social worker to help kids who have problems and the schools are not alone funded but I don't understand why with the growing wealth in our society we continue to have schools where teachers have to go out on strike to get a nurse in their school and to show you how important this is Philadelphia was stripped bare by the chart in the last couple of years and it takes it goes it's a little bit of the time but over time Philadelphia schools didn't have nurses anymore and 2 children had died in Philadelphia schools because there was no nervous and they died of ailments and has been it could have been. They couldn't save their lives could have been saved but there was no medical professional in the building that that's outrageous. So how did we get to this place Diane where are we do not have nurses and public schools RINGBACK. It's a simple matter of underfunding and so you get 1st of all the propaganda campaign and when you ask well who is funding the propaganda most of the funders are coming from the far right and where I have to hold the Obama and Duncan and demonstration accountable is that their own program which was called Race to the top was simply the George w. Bush program but made more punitive and their idea was that the schools were filled with bad teachers that the teachers weren't doing their job and the teachers were threatened. Or offered bonuses merit pay they were offered punishments and rewards they would work harder on the students we get higher grades. We now know that that's totally not true and we've been doing merit pay millions of dollars and we said America is not produce better test scores I mean if you think about it why would children work harder so that their teacher can get a bonus or why would they be slackers because they're teachers not going to get honest this is like no relationship between the means and the end the merit pay has been a disaster and all the testing. It was No Child Left Behind it began with me they had George w. Bush mythology and that was George took the Bush ran in 2000 saying that there had been America on Texas and that if you just can't every child every year from grades 3 through 8 the test scores magically go up the gap between the white and black and Hispanic and Asian students will close and everything turns good just by testing kids every year well we've been doing that now for 20 years almost 20 years it started in 2000 to 2003 sources all most 20 years and what we've seen is no progress whatsoever. We're going to take a quick break we're speaking with Diane Ravitch joining of education and research professor of education at New York University and we should say that Chicago has more than 600 public schools and Chicago teachers went on an 11 day strike it was their longest strike and more than 3 decades and according to the 74 this is a nonprofit nonpartisan news site covering education the Chicago Teachers Union 1209 additional social workers and $250.00 additional nurses over the duration of the contract in the short term this means an additional $44.00 social workers and $55.00 nurses next year above what the district had already budgeted and we're hearing about the last nurses social workers and librarians across the country Diane used to be a proponent of things like charters high stakes testing but now she is a full supporter of funding public education and making it more equitable this is your call and we'll be back after this. If your call here on t.v. M.r.s. Him to that is city and k c p c Camino as well as the bridge 105.7. Which has returned to the airwaves today after. Being sort of knocked out during the let's probably utility mandated blackout. We get support here from Robert w. Baird and Company the leader and done group John Lee and Janice Dunn providing comprehensive financial advice and services to individuals families businesses and foundations on Syria college dry Grass Valley Baird Financial Advisor dot com slash the leader and group and living waters are encouraging overall health and wellness through functional medicine and through nutrition offering colon Tiger a therapy infrared sauna and micro biome analysis reminding listeners got health establishes overall well as East to Main Street rush Valley love living waters Dr. Coming up to this afternoon Michael Stone will be our Michael Michael Young will be and with vintage music for you and trying to call n.z. . Music Magazine coming your way at 4. Performance art they also do incredible political modern dance so I hope you can join us for that if you have a show idea or a guest idea you can send us an e-mail your call at Kate a.l.w. Dot org And on Friday we will go over election results today we are talking about what it will take to fully fund public education and make it more equitable with Diane Ravitch a historian of education and research professor of education at New York University her forthcoming book is called playing Goliath it's about the resistance to the privatization of schools and the billionaires who are working to privatized schools and teachers community students so many people are standing up against that and if you have a question or a comment for Diane about the current state of public education in the changes that we've seen over the last couple years we'd love to hear from you 866-798-8255 you can also e-mail your call at k l w dot org Or tweet us at your car radio day and before we talk more about the Chicago strike let's talk about funding there's a new report out from the Education Law Center called Making the grade and they point out that this is really important state and local revenue on average account for 92 percent of total funding for public education state and local revenues about 92 percent of total funding and then the federal government primarily through programs targeted targeted for low income students and students with disabilities contributes the remaining 8 percent and they found that over the last many years. Funding for schools especially in high poverty districts has been chronically underfunded and they look at Arizona for example they provide just $8569.00 per pupil funding that is the lowest among all states they prefer. But almost $6000.00 less per pupil than the national average so let's just talk about what has really changed when it comes to funding public schools and this is a really important report and I'll just read a little bit from it I just mentioned Arizona and in the introduction we meet Elizabeth Millet she teaches elementary school and Phoenix Arizona and 2018 her salary was $35000.00 a year like 94 percent of public school teachers nationwide funding for her school was so tight that she had to dip into her own savings to pay for classroom supplies and she's not alone we've seen so many stories about this in 20182019 chronic and severe underfunding of k. Through 12 education lead educators in Arizona and at least 8 other states to publicly protest the lack of funding resources and low wages in schools and so a lot of people are working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs we've spoken to a lot of teachers who drive for robbery or lift at night or work in warehouses during the holidays so they teach at school and then they drive at night and these are people who have families so this is incredibly very difficult and not sustainable Diane are you back with us I am back with you thank you Ok so I was talking about this making a great report that looked at. Various states that specially have schools where a lot of poor kids go to school and they have just seen something drastically decrease what can we do to change that well you know you asked me before how did this begin that begins by saying let's hold schools accountable let's have lots of testing where the scores are low let's punish the schools now if you understand that the reason that scores are low is because of high poverty closing the school doesn't help the kids and it does. Help the teachers and just punish them so we've had almost 20 years of nonstop testing punishment money being taken away from the schools that were educating the poorest kids and it doesn't make any sense this is kind of upside down backwards and insane I should also warn you that when you quote the 74 this is an anti public school website that was created by former c.n.n. Anchor Campbell Brown. Has been leading a campaign or she used to read a campaign and so she went to work for Facebook she was leading a campaign to take away to tenure and seniority from teachers because she believes the teachers are there and they need to be there so many sexual predators she had all this whole negative thing about teachers she so she created $74.00 with the support of a half a dozen or so billionaires who gave her tons of money to open the $74.00 and she ran that she's very close friend of Betsy device and then she was invited to take charge of media relations for Facebook so she's not there anymore but the 74 continues to be a Web site that is very hostile to unions very pro charter school and it's just something you need to know as background when you read their stuff now I appreciate that I mean you really never know what by just looking at their headlines about the 1619 project or the New York Times decent story about the Chicago union strike back of a they are not friendly to unions and don't like so much of this disruption movement they would like to get rid of unions and they would like to get rid of tenure and they would like to get rid of all job rights teachers and one thing I think it's important to mention in relationships especially the Kentucky and other states where teachers pensions have been under attack there are about 15 or 16 states where teachers are not eligible to get Social Security so when their pensions come under attack and they're not eligible for Social Security you're basically saying as an under. Be a teacher and you'll have you'll have nothing left when you when you retire you like you'll have no social security and no pension you only have your savings and sense each years are dressing like a underpaid as it is this is not much of an inducement for anyone to become a teacher well so if you're an For example let's say you even make 50 grand a year you cannot get Social Security. I don't have a list of the 15 states but it's easy enough to go go on and regardless of what your salary is if you're a teacher in those 15 or 16 states you're not eligible for Social Security because the assumption is you have a you have a pension you work for a public employee but that's not the case in 35 states but when you attack teacher's pension she you're basically taking away a right they assume they had when they signed on to be a teacher. Well what about funding Diane just to go back to that I mean you often hear politicians a lot of people say more money is not the answer well more money is the answer certainly parents who live in affluent suburbs spend a lot of money on their children not only what they spend on their schools because they are schools get much better funded than schools in the inner city but they spend more on their kids in terms of giving them lessons taking them on trips making sure that they had access to books and to whatever they need in terms of their own computer so affluent parents then a lot of money affluent communities spend a lot of money but when it comes to poor kids. I'm just afraid that there is something of a for want of better words a racist reaction and saying these are not white kids or like an Hispanic kids are not my problem I am somebody else will take care of it and so in schools like in Texas for instance. The student population of public schools is majority Hispanic and black largely Hispanic and the legislature is overwhelmingly white and white men and they just don't want to pay for the education of non white children so it's been every year every whenever the school funding comes up it becomes an issue of are you going to pay for the education of children who don't look like you right and I mean if you look at just the funding from the government and local governments according to education trust school districts serving the largest populations of students of color receive about $1800.00 or 13 percent less per student in state and local funding. I think that's true and it's large it's in large part not sure if this is true in California although California itself is is under funding education but in schools in states that rely on property taxes clearly there's going to be less local funding and unless the state steps up and equalize is the funding. There's going to be less funding in the districts that have lower property values California is a whole by the way I understand the rest of the country California somewhere it's a median and it's one of the richest states in the country probably has more billionaires than any other state in the country and they should be paying higher taxes and unfortunately the billionaires in California have thrown their lot in with the California Charter Schools Association which is very well funded and instead of creating charter schools they should be fighting to get a higher taxes on themselves so that they get paid more to educate the the the largely Hispanic population that's in inner city schools and California right according to the Sacramento Bee California is ranked 41st in education spending nationwide and according to this making the grade report 17 percent of school aged children in California are living in poverty California got a d. Grade for funding level and then asked for funding effort well you know that requires political will for the legislators to say we have to raise taxes obviously they shouldn't be raising the taxes on the people with the least they should be raising the taxes on the people with the most other kind of personal be for that people who are billionaires and I noticed that Forbes magazine put out their list of the world's billionaires an American billionaires there were so many billionaires It usually have a list of 400 there were many more billionaires and 400 and there were many people who were billionaires who didn't even make a. Because the list was so long I don't believe people should have a B5B and just these those cases 150000000000 and Bill Gates's case it's over 100000000000 and the gauge of course chooses to live in the state of Washington which has no state taxes or no state income taxes and no corporate taxes so I think we have a problem in our society about people of low income being hoaxed into voting for candidates who don't want to tax the very rich and it creates huge inequality and the other thing I think that ties into the growing inequality is the decades long assault on unions and I don't belong to a union I've never belonged to a union but what I do believe is that unions create a middle class and we're losing our middle class and that's very scary to your point about taxes and then this is so important San Francisco per capita has more billionaires than any other city in the world and we just did a show last week with u.c. Berkeley professor Gabriels at a man about his new book about how the rich the taxes and in 1970 the richest Americans paid more than 50 percent of their income in taxes but today because of all of the Republican tax cuts which some of them were supported by Democrats billionaires now pay less taxes and schoolteachers Yeah it's amazing isn't during the Eisenhower years back in the 1950 s. The marginal tax rate was something like 90 percent so there was for less of a wealth gap for less of an end come gap than there is a day and what's happened is that the people who have the most money have invested in organizations like our like which is the American Legislative Exchange Council and if you don't know Al like you should definitely go to it that's where the corporations and very wealthy people. Right state was. In favor of deregulation of everything. They write laws to deregulate gun control to oppose them control they write laws to deregulate environmental efforts and so so many of the Southern and Midwestern and even Western states have simply adopted our Like legislation one state it is time to take away any kind of protection of the environment our our public education a lot of the charter and voucher legislation also comes from our like and audience hacks on teachers control Alec and all of this been supported by the device family the Koch brothers and on and on and major American corporations. Today was all about lowering taxes and making sure. I don't know for sure I wish I had a $1000000000.00 but if I had a $1000000000.00 I wouldn't object to taxes because a person with a $1000000000.00 going to avoid paying more taxes why should they Templi say let's cut public services to keep my taxes low because it makes for more unequal society more and just society and it ends up hurting the neediest. Today we're speaking with Diane Ravitch a research professor of education at New York University her forthcoming book is called slaying Goliath it's about the resistance to the privatisation of school she's actually the author of 12 books she used to support things like charters and high stakes testing now she opposes them and fully supports public education and you can join us an 866-798-8255 you can also e-mail your call it k l w dot org or Tweet your call radio let's go to. Great Craig in Palo Alto Hi Greg welcome to the show. You know I don't think I have much to add to this but I would say this I've lived here long enough in California to watch this the Klein happening over decades I mean I get one point California was one of the outstanding States was regarded educated and look out for we've sunk I mean it's just it's criminal to watch what both Republicans and Democrats have done in the legislatures to underfund schools particularly schools for minorities or people of color in this state and so I you know it's it's unbelievable that we had people like Jerry Brown the governor voting it was a supporter of charter schools I don't even know how that happened in the. 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You know didn't fail law and then he became a big supporter of charters then when Obama was a senator Obama was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Democrats for education reform which was held in a hedge fund managers penthouse apartment and the York City and he won the support of all these incredibly wealthy guys from Wall Street which he needed for his race this was 2005 he needed it for his race in 2008 so when he ran for president he had all the Wall Street people and hedge fund people solidly in his camp and they gave him a list soon as he was elected and they said this is our number one choice for secretary of Education Arnie Duncan Well any Duncan failed in Chicago and he his views have just been completely repeated by Mayor Laurie life in Chicago and I repeat it is that the teacher unions strike but the young can wreak havoc on American education for 7 to 7 years that he was a secretary of education and frankly there is very little difference between what Arnie Duncan did and what that's he device is trying to do but is being rebuffed and I said that in the future this version of testing and privatization will no longer be seen as a democratic movement for several reasons 1st of all that's each of us is the face of the so-called reform movement and no one considers a reformer they know that she's out to destroy public education and secondly the teacher strikes occur in states across the country both red and blue have really stripped the mask away from this phony idea that this is reform it has nothing to do with reform it has to do with shifting the cost of education and allowing people who don't want to pay for public schools to go to charter schools and 3rd the n.e.a. C.p. In 2016 came out against charter schools and said there should be a moratorium on them until they become accountable and stop kicking out the kids they don't want so there have been all these kind of sea changes going on and none of them came with one big bang but together they have made a huge difference and the other thing that's happened I have to add it. To the list of things that's made a huge difference is federal government gives a test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress every 2 years in reading and math and that has been reported since since the late 1960 s. And we saw the steady progress of 6 in the seventy's and the eighty's in the ninety's and then No Child Left Behind was passed and for a few years with all the test prep and testing testing testing scores went up but since 2007 from 2007 to $2900.00 the scores have been flat no progress whatever and with these so-called reformers these corporate reformers and charge at every level of the federal government and in most of the states they've seen no progress so these are the things that I think are beginning to really have an impact on how people see education which is that it's not over funded it's underfunded. Well thank you for the call Gregg and yes the Democrats do have a super majority in Sacramento they do not need a Republican vote to increase taxes we have a comment from Carol who can stand the line she's a retired teacher here in California and as you said Diane that's one of the states that does not give Social Security to teachers and she said that it's so difficult because gee teachers have to take money out of their own pocket and pay for school supplies to pay for things like special ed resources. Yeah. Yeah and that's a disgrace is it really is and the other states including last Connecticut Nevada Texas Massachusetts it's a mix of really Republican and Democratic states Diane before we let you go let's just talk on a more positive note about what's actually working because these teachers are out there I mean the 24000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union were out there for 11 days this is the longest strike in more than 3 decades and even before the strike they were already in negotiations with Chicago Merilahti Lightfoot and the original offer was for a 14 percent salary over 5 years the union asked for 15 percent over 3 years so let's talk about what actually is working on the street I think what's working is 1st of all the there is just a wealth of research that shows that the primary cause of low test scores as poverty and I think that that commonsense understanding is beginning to get through and I think that the other thing that's working is the realization that we have to deal with rational commonsense approaches to schooling that schools need to have well paid professionals they need to have stability not not having the schools closed and open and closed and open this is an insane policy that we've been following in this country for 20 years so I start by saying you can't do anything right until you stop doing what's wrong so stop the over testing stop the misuse of testing by the testing issue I'm sure know it's largely a reflection of family income and there are some variations but. On every standardized test results I've ever seen the wealthiest kids are at the top in the poorest kids at the bottom so I think that recognizing that means we have to do something about poverty which means we have to do something to make sure that people have jobs and income and we have to reduce poverty in terms. Schools we should make sure that every school has a nurse every school has a 4 arts program a schools have a reasonable class sizes teachers can't teach when they have 35 or 40 kids in a class and some of them don't speak English and some of them have disabilities so I think there is a common sense approach that is beginning to take hold and that the more people understand who is behind the attacks on public schools the less they will support it and that I'll just mention one other thing which I think is a sea change there was a referendum in the us a chooses and 2016 and the Walton family which is there with $150000000000.00 They own Walmart they poured millions of dollars into Massachusetts to pass a charter referendum raising the cap on charters and the teacher union there the Massachusetts teacher association went all out they they put in millions of dollars they didn't match the ones they were outspent $2.00 to $1.00 but the voters rejected the effort to lift a charter cap in Arizona just this past spring there was a huge cold weather natural referendum to say let's expand dancers it went down to the one so when the voters are asked to express their views they don't support privatization and I think that my advice based on having looked at these issues across the country is the more you can bring it to the voters the better off you'll be because voters support public education they don't support privatization. Well Diane thank you so much for joining us and we'd love to have you on when your new book slang Elias comes out our thank you it'll be a January 21st and I look forward to being in the various things to talk about how great we would love to have you and studio thank you so much for your work and thanks for joining us today Diane Ravitch is a historian of education and research professor of education at New York University she has a really interesting background because from 91 to 93 she was a physician Secretary of Education under the George h.w. Bush administration. And she was a big supporter of things like charters and high stakes testing and then she saw the outcome and she did a 180 and now she opposes those policies and fully supports public education and in the coming weeks we're going to talk about equity in schools and also poverty as Diane said it's pretty shocking to learn that more than 17000 Chicago public school students are homeless 17000 just in the Chicago public school system so we're definitely going to do a show about that thanks to Leah says rain for producing Today Show and Kevin Vance our studio engineer if you'd like to listen to past shows our sign up for our pod cast visit your called Radio dot org You can follow us on Twitter to find out what's coming up at your car radio thanks for joining us I'm sure a call. Placerville from. Planet. Michael Young I'll be here with you for the next. 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