Diane Ravitch stokes the teacher revolt in Sacramento
Education historian Diane Ravitch brought her anti-corporate education reform, pro-teacher message to an enthusiastic crowd at the Sacramento Convention Center last Friday.
The Sacramento Bee downplayed the crowd as “hundreds of teachers.” Event organizers
put it at closer 3600 people, not bad at all considering the lousy weather and traffic.
put it at closer 3600 people, not bad at all considering the lousy weather and traffic.Ravitch was preceded by a long line of speakers, including California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, who said he carried a copy of Ravitch’s Death and Life of the Great American School System with him during his election campaign. He warned, “There’s too much at stake to let the fad reformers and the bubble testers take control of our schools and classrooms.”
After Torlakson was Stanford professor of education Linda Darling-Hammond, who was an education advisor to Barack Obama, but has disagreed with the president’s Race to the Top program. Darling-Hammond noted that Finland, whose students are top of the world in academic achievement, approaches
