Diane Ravitch

Articles

Recent Articles by Diane Ravitch

Selected Entries from Bridging Differences, a conversation in blog form between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch

Additional Selected Articles by Diane Ravitch

Recent Articles

“Diane Ravitch Has Questions for the Cuomo Commission,” School Book (blog), New York Times and WNYC, January 6, 2012.

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In the one tested area that looked promising — fourth-grade mathematics — New York was the only state in the nation in which scores declined in 2011.

The commission needs to ask some tough questions.

First, where is the money going?

“Response to Eric Hanushek,” Eduwonk (blog), November 1, 2011.

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I would like to disagree as to the larger idea that firing teachers is the key to fixing U.S. public education.

The problem, Rick believes, is that we are not firing enough teachers. The problem, as I see it, is that we are not doing enough to recruit those who are well prepared and then supporting them once they are in the classroom.

“Achievement Gap Starts Before School Starts,” San Antonio Express-News, October 13, 2011.

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We are now at a fork in the road. If we continue on our present path of privatization and unproven reforms, we will witness the explosive growth of a for-profit education industry and of education entrepreneurs receiving high salaries to manage nonprofit enterprises.

The free market loves competition, but competition produces winners and losers, not equality of educational opportunity. We will turn teachers into “at will” employees who can be fired at the whim of a principal based on little more than test scores. Their pay and benefits will also depend on the scores. Who will want to teach? Most new teachers already leave the job within five years.

“School ‘Reform’: A Failing Grade,” New York Review of Books, September 29, 2011.

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In these two books, we have two versions of school reform. One is devised by Wall Street financiers and politicians who believe in rigidly defined numerical goals and return on investment; they blame lazy teachers and self-interested unions when test scores are low. The other draws on the deep experience of a compassionate teacher who finds fault not with teachers, unions, or students, but with a society that refuses to take responsibility for the conditions in which its children live and learn — and who has demonstrated through her own efforts how one dedicated teacher has improved the education of poor young people.

“Reflections on a Visit to Germany,” Huffington Post, September 30, 2011.

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History presses in, and yet the lesson of Berlin for me was that even the worst of times comes to an end. Hitler was defeated, the Third Reich was destroyed, the division of the city of Berlin eventually ended, the Communist regime fell. None of this happened accidentally or naturally. It happened because of resistance, persistence, belief in a better life and a readiness to fight for it, even to die for it.

By the end of my ten days in Germany, I reassessed my emotions. Being in Germany made me keenly aware of my Jewish ancestry. Yet I felt no anger towards the Germans I met. I will never forget or forgive the perpetrators or even comprehend what happened in this nation, on that soil. But I think today of the many decent, kind Germans I met and of the candor with which the nation has acknowledged and repudiated the crimes of the past.

“American Schools in Crisis,” The Saturday Evening Post, August 16, 2011.

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Again, not one of these policies — not one — has any consistent body of evidence behind it. The fundamental belief that carrots and sticks will improve education is a leap of faith, an ideology to which its adherents cling despite evidence to the contrary.

“Invitation to a Dialogue: Fixing the Schools,” New York Times (Letter to the Editor), July 6, 2011.

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Mr. Brooks has misrepresented my views. While I have criticized charter schools, I am always careful to point out that they vary widely. The overwhelming majority of high-quality research studies on charters shows that some are excellent, some are abysmal and most are no better than regular public schools.

“Waiting for a School Miracle,” The New York Times (op-ed), May 31, 2011.

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If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.

“Bill Gates: Selling Bad Advice to the Public Schools,” The Daily Beast (blog), May 23, 2011.

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So far, the main effect of Gates’ policy has been to demoralize millions of teachers, who don’t understand how they went from being respected members of the community to Public Enemy No. 1.

As a nation we now have a toxic combination of a failed federal policy — No Child Left Behind — which made testing the be-all and end-all of schooling, and Bill Gates’ misguided belief that teacher quality can be determined by student test scores.

“Teachers Furious at Duncan,” The Daily Beast (blog), May 10, 2011.

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Many teachers hold Duncan’s policies accountable for the public disrespect now directed at teachers in the media. Consequently they can’t find it in their hearts to trust Arne Duncan when he thanks them for their service. They’ve learned to respond to what he does, not what he says.

“‘Failing schools’ Fallacy,” The Daily, April 30, 2011.

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Using the logic of today’s reformers, American education has “failed” consistently for the past 50 years. But wait — Obama said in his State of the Union address this year that we should ignore the “naysayers” because “America still has the largest, most prosperous economy in the world. No workers are more productive than ours. No country has more successful companies, or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs. We’re the home to the world’s best colleges and universities, where more students come to study than any place on earth.”

As the China-born, China-educated scholar Yong Zhao, now at the University of Oregon, has pointed out, there is no logical connection between international test scores and the success of our economy. Our scores have been poor to middling for 50 years, yet we have the greatest economy in the world.

“The Education of Lord Bloomberg,” NYR Blog, New York Review of Books, April 11, 2011.

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Mayor Bloomberg ... selected someone he liked and admired but who was not in the least qualified for the job, neither by experience nor by temperament. Mayoral control of the schools — one of Bloomberg’s early accomplishments in City Hall — has brought out some of the mayor’s worst traits, and he tends to act as though the schools belong to him as an extension of his personal household and that he rules as lord of the manor, a lord whose decisions are never to be questioned.

“Shame on Michelle Rhee,” The Daily Beast (blog), March 29, 2011.

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[Michelle Rhee’s] celebrity results from the fact that she has emerged as the national spokesman for the effort to subject public education to free-market forces, including competition, decision by data, and consumer choice. All of this sounds very appealing when your goal is to buy a pound of butter or a pair of shoes, but it is not a sensible or wise approach to creating good education. What it produces, predictably, is cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum.

“Obama’s War on Schools,” Newsweek, March 20, 2011.

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The Obama agenda for testing, accountability, and choice bears an uncanny resemblance to the Republican agenda of the past 30 years, but with one significant difference. Republicans have traditionally been wary of federal control of the schools. Duncan, however, relishes the opportunity to promote his policies with the financial heft of the federal government.

Selected Entries from Bridging Differences (blog with Deborah Meier)

“NCLB: The Death Star of American Education” Bridging Differences, Education Week, January 10, 2012.

“The Odd Couple: Dennis and Wendy” Bridging Differences, Education Week, January 3, 2012.

“Scrooge and School Reform,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, December 13, 2011.

“Should Schools Be Run for Profit?,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 29, 2011.

“Billionaires for Education Reform,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 15, 2011.

“Hooray for the Long Island Principals!,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 8, 2011.

“Will San Diego’s Public Schools Survive?” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 1, 2011.

“NCLB: End It, Don’t Mend It,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 25, 2011.

“If You Believe in Miracles, Don’t Read This,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 18, 2011.

“What Can We Learn From Finland?,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 11, 2011.

“The Trouble With the Parent Trigger,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 4, 2011.

“Reflections on the March on Washington, July 30, 2011,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, September 6, 2011.

“Reasons for Hope,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, June 28, 2011.

“Why I Am Marching on July 30,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, June 21, 2011.

“An Interesting Few Days,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, June 7, 2011.

“What Works Best: Help or Punishment?,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 17, 2011.

“What Did We Learn From the Cathie Black Debacle?,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, April 19, 2011.

“Lessons From Wisconsin,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, March 15, 2011.

“Signs of Hope?,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, March 8, 2011.

“Huckleberry Finn and The Wire,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, January 11, 2011.

“The Real Lessons of PISA,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, December 14, 2010.

“Bill Gates Listens to the Wrong People,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 30, 2010.

“That Was the Week That Was,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 16, 2010.

“A Manifesto by the Powerful,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 19, 2010.

“The Problems With Value-Added Assessment,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, October 5, 2010.

“Merit Pay Fails Another Test,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, September 28, 2010.

“Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, September 21, 2010.

“Why Civil Rights Groups Oppose the Obama Agenda,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, September 14, 2010.

“Welcome Back to School ‘Reform,’” Bridging Differences, Education Week, September 7, 2010.

“The Great Accountability Hoax,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, June 15, 2010.

“Just Say No to the Race to the Top,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 25, 2010.

“Schools 4 $Sale: Inquire at U.S. DOE,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 18, 2010.

“A Double Standard on Test Scores,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 11, 2010.

“Letter to the Honorable Members of the Florida Legislature,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, April 6, 2010.

“What I Did Not Recant or Abandon,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, March 9, 2010.

“Closing Schools Solves Nothing,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, February 2, 2010.

“Arne Duncan at ED: Year One,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, January 26, 2010.

“The New Era of Greed,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, January 5, 2010.

“The Race to Nowhere,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, December 15, 2009.

“Obama and Duncan Are Wrong About Charters,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, November 16, 2009.

“Why Education Is Not the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 26, 2009.

“Data-Driven Nonsense,” Bridging Differences, Education Week, May 19, 2009.

“What ‘The Harlem Miracle’ Really Teaches,” Bridging Differences,Education Week, May 12, 2009.

“Bridging Differences: A Dialogue Between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch,” with Deborah Meier, Education Week (introduction to the series, subscription required), May 24, 2006.

Selected Articles by Diane Ravitch

“The NCLB Saga Continues (Response),” National Journal Online, October 24, 2011.

“Richard Whitmire’s Account of Michelle Rhee’s Schools Tenure,” Washington Post, April 8, 2011.

“Eight Civics Lessons from Governor Walker,” The Huffington Post (blog), March 14, 2011.

“Why America’s Teachers Are Enraged,” CNN.com, February 21, 2011.

“Testing Remains the Problem,” New York Times, January 26, 2011.

“Ravitch Answers Gates,” with Valerie Strauss, The Answer Sheet (blog), Washington Post, November 30, 2010.

“The GOP’s Education Dilemma,” The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2010.

“The Myth of Charter Schools,” New York Review of Books, November 11, 2010.

“New York’s New Schools Czar,” New York Review of Books, November 11, 2010.

“Dictating to the Schools,” Virginia Journal of Education, November 10, 2010.

“New York City Plan to Grade Teachers with ‘Value-Added’ Data is Destructive,” New York Daily News, October 25, 2010.

“The Obsession With Testing Is Nuts,” Huffington Post, October 4, 2010.

“Stop Trashing Teachers!,” The Daily Beast, September 29, 2010.

“A Letter from One Non-Believer to Another,” Gotham Schools (blog), September 13, 2010.

“A Big Margin for Error,” New York Times, September 7, 2010.

“Stop the Madness,” book excerpt, NEA Today, August / September 2010.

“There's Plenty to Learn from George Hall Elementary,” Mobile Press-Register, August 27, 2010.

“Three Books About Education Reform,” Washington Post, August 22, 2010.

“Ravitch: Mayoral Control Means Zero Accountability,” The Answer Sheet (blog), Washington Post, August 4, 2010.

“The Sound of Bubbles Bursting: Student Gains on State Test Vanished into Thin Air,” New York Daily News, August 1, 2010.

“Obama’s Race to the Top Will Not Improve Education,” Huffington Post, August 1, 2010.

“Ravitch on Teachers and Her Critics,” The Answer Sheet (blog), Washington Post, July 8, 2010.

“Opinion: Don’t Close Schools, Fix Them,” AOL News, June 29, 2010.

“In Need of a Renaissance: Real Reform Will Renew, Not Abandon, Our Neighborhood Schools,” book excerpt, American Educator, Summer 2010.

“Why I Changed My Mind,” The Nation, June 14, 2010.

“Obama’s Right-Wing School Reform,” New York Review of Books, June 10, 2010.

“Why Does Everyone Think CEOs Have the Answers?,” School Administrator (AASA), June 2010.

“It’s Time to Give Scrutiny to Foundations’ Efforts to Remake Education,” book excerpt, Chronicle of Philanthropy, May 16, 2010 (subscription required).

“High-Stakes Testing” (in series “Twelve Things the World Should Toss Out”), Washington Post, May 6, 2010.

“No Bad Idea Left Behind,” American Interest, May-June 2010.

“Testimony of Dr. Diane Ravitch, Public Hearing on Charter Schools,” Senate Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, Albany, NY, April 22, 2010.

“A New Agenda for School Reform,” Washington Post, April 2, 2010.

“New York Education Officials Are Lying to the State’s Schoolkids,” New York Daily News, March 31, 2010.

“Has Education Reform Gone Too Far/Is Education on the Wrong Track? A TNR Symposium,“ with Diane Ravitch, Richard Rothstein, Ben Wildavsky, Andrew Rotherham, Kevin Carey, Nelson Smith, New Republic, March 15-21, 2010. (View part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.)

“‘T’ Is for ‘Texas Textbooks,’” Daily Beast, March 14, 2010.

“The Big Idea—It’s Bad Education Policy,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2010.

“Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform,” Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2010.

“First, Let’s Fire All the Teachers!,” Huffington Post, March 2, 2010.

“Why Public Schools Need Democratic Governance,” Phi Delta Kappan, March 2010.

“Today’s Education ‘Reforms’ Were Not Martin Luther King’s Dream,” Huffington Post, January 18, 2010.

“We’ve Always Had National Standards,” Education Week, January 14, 2010.

“New York City Charter Schools Need to Focus on the Neediest,” New York Daily News, January 13, 2010.

“What’s Wrong With Merit Pay?,” Hoover Digest 2009, no. 4.

“Critical Thinking? You Need Knowledge,” Boston Globe, September 15, 2009.

“All Twitter, No Twain,” Hoover Digest 2009, no. 3.

“Obama’s Awful Education Plan,” Huffington Post, August 23, 2009.

“The Partnership for 19th Century Skills,” Common Core (blog), July 6, 2009.

“Time to Kill ‘No Child Left Behind,’” Education Week (subscription required), June 8, 2009.

“Are Hollywood and the Internet Killing Reading?,” Forbes.com, February 17, 2009.

“Britain’s Language Police,” Forbes.com, December 27, 2008.

“We Shouldn’t Pay Kids to Learn,” Forbes.com, October 17, 2008.

“A Flawed Reform,” New York Sun, December 17, 2007.

“What’s So Great About Chinese Education?,” Huffington Post, May 28, 2007.

“History’s Struggle to Survive in the Schools,” Magazine of History 21, no. 2 (April 2007), pp. 28-32.

“‘Tough Choices’: Radical Ideas, Misguided Assumptions,” Education Week (subscription required), January 17, 2007.

“Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers—and the Public,” American Educator, Winter 2006-2007.

“The English in Us,” with Michael Ravitch, New York Sun, December 15, 2006.

“Improving Standards and Opportunity for Higher Education in Pakistan,” paper, First International Symposium on Issues in Higher Education in Pakistan, United Nations, December 5-6, 2005.

“Recalling Michael Lynch,” New York Sun, March 24, 2005.

“You Can’t Say That,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2004.

“Leaving Reality Out: How Textbooks (Don’t) Teach About Tyranny,” American Educator, Fall 2003.

“Does Education Really Need More Innovation in the Age of Scientifically Based Research?,” Presentation, Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, April 15, 2003.

Introduction to the 2000 edition of The American Reader (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

“What If Research Really Mattered?,” Education Week, December 16, 1998.

“The Great Technology Mania,” Forbes.com, March 23, 1998.

“Defining Literacy Downward,” New York Times, August 28, 1996.

“What Is Democracy and How It Should Be Taught in the Schools,” Free Society Seminar, American Federation of Teachers’ Education for Democracy / International Project, November 1989.

“Tot Sociology; Or What Happened to History in the Grade Schools,” American Scholar 56, no. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 343-354.

“Bring Literature and History Back to Elementary Schools,” in The Schools We Deserve (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 75-79.

“A Good School,” in The Schools We Deserve (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 275-294.

“Scapegoating the Teachers,” in The Schools We Deserve (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 90-99.

“The Uses and Misuses of Tests,” in The Schools We Deserve (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 172-181.

“Programs, Placebos, Panaceas,” Urban Review, April 1968.

Miscellany

A special video.

A song that always makes Diane smile.

 

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