jonathan lovell's blog

This video was produced by an organization called The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, with managing director Ralph Smith. I heard Smith speak, and saw this video, at the NBPTS Conference on Teaching and Learning in Washington DC in mid-March of this year. I would recommend showing this very short video (which can be found on YouTube by entering “The Statisticks Lottery”) to any parent, school administrator, politician, or ed-tech entrepreneur who makes the absurd claim that three excellent teachers in a row will overcome the effects of poverty on student achievement. The best response to such nauseating assertions about ‘fixing’ public education, of course, is that most effective way to reverse the effects of poverty is to demand a living minimum wage and actively lobby for a reverse of the national tax policies that got us here in the first place.