The George Burns School of Public Policy
JUNE 3, 2011
Earlier today, Jonathan Alter posted an odd and misguided attack on Diane Ravitch’s recent piece in the New York Times. Resorting to some of my ‘favorite’ school reform tropes, Alter grossly mischaracterizes virtually of Dr. Ravitch’s professional opinions, all for the crime of noting–quite accurately– that our far-too-credulous mass media often hypes education reform “miracles” that are typically not miracles at all.
To prove that poverty doesn’t matter, political leaders point to schools that have achieved stunning results in only a few years despite the poverty around them. But
