A Dust-Up, Then Peace, Between Diane Ravitch, Deborah Gist
Diane Ravitch is a former assistant U.S. secretary of education and one of the country's leading historians of education. Deborah Gist is the education commissioner in Rhode Island and a nationally watched leader for her aggressive efforts to improve schools in her state.
But a meeting this month between the two became the source of unusual controversy, after Ravitch wrote a online item accusing Gist of cutting her off repeatedly during the discussion—an account that the Rhode Island official disputed.
As of late Friday, both sides indicated they wanted to move on. Gist had sent a conciliatory letter to Ravitch, who received it favorably.
The original disagreement arose from a meeting that Ravitch and Gist had with Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafeeat the state Capitol in Providence. Ravitch, who co-authors the Bridging Differences blog for Education Week, was in Rhode Island to speak at a teachers' college, on a trip sponsored by the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers. She says she was under the impression that the May 3 meeting with Chafee was going to be a private one, but later learned that it would be attended by Gist.
Ravitch had a brief, private meeting with Chafee, and then sat in on a longer meeting that included the governor,