Michelle Rhee, Diane Ravitch Square Off Over Racial Achievement Gap
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Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, D.C., and Diane Ravitch, the education historian, are two of the most high-profile voices in the often heated debate over the future of the nation's schools.
Rhee is a proponent of teacher accountability; as head of D.C.'s schools, she pushed for high-stakes testing and fired teachers who were deemed to be underperforming. Ravitch, herself once a proponent of charter schools and testing, has become an outspoken critic of both and has argued that improving schools means alleviating poverty.
But the two had never met in person until Thursday, when they participated in a forum on education organized by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates,
First Posted: 8/19/11 05:14 PM ET Updated: 8/19/11 05:14 PM ET