Ravitch: The pitfalls of putting economists in charge of education
This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch on her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement. Dear Deborah, A few weeks ago, Mike Rose [a professor at UCLA] posted a list of his New Year's resolutions. One of them was that we should "make do with fewer economists in education. These practitioners of the dismal science have flocked to education reform, though most know little about teaching and learning." Mike suggested that so few economists were able to give useful advice about the financial and housing markets that we should now be skeptical about expecting