Diane Ravitch: The importance of evidence-based data in education reform
Thank you so much, Dan, and thank you to the members of the Academy. I want to thank my family, who is here, and also the Moynihan family – wonderful to see you again. I do want to say at the outset that I have divided my prize money amongst three organizations that I care a lot about. One is called the Save Our Schools March, it is being organized by national board-certified teachers. They will be marching on Washington on July 30th, I will be speaking to them—they are getting half my prize. The other two organizations, and their representative is here tonight, is a group called Parents Across America, and those are parents who are very unhappy with the direction of things that I am unhappy with, and Leonie Haimson is here to represent Parents Across America and also the third group, which is called Class Size Matters – Class Size Matters being the most outspoken and rigorous and dedicated group of parents in the city, constantly arguing that class size does matter, the budgets should not be cut, teachers should not be laid off, that there are other kinds of economies that can be made rather than laying off six thousand teachers. So, that is where my money is going.
I want to tell a story about Dan Rose, and he is a little bit afraid of this because I
