My favorite adversary, Diane Ravitch
The national debate over how to fix our schools descends too often into well-phrased but acidic name-calling, like you hear at college department meetings. That may be why the prime subject of, as well as frequent participant in, the latest education policy spats is America’s most prominent educational historian, Diane Ravitch, a veteran of Columbia and New York universities.
I like Ravitch. She favored me years ago with her personal e-mail address and has helped with many stories and columns. She has long been one of the clearest and most interesting education writers. I envy her energy and productivity at age 73.
This puts me at odds with her many detractors, often people who like me support more charter schools, test accountability, changes in the recruitment, training and compensation of teachers and alterations in
