I'm On Your Side by Diane Ravitch
In the spring of 2010, I went out to college campuses to talk about my new book. The book was unusual for me because it was not a history; it was not a policy book; it was not a memoir. It was all three. I wanted to explain why I had come to realize that many of the ideas I had championed were wrong. I wanted to explain how testing and choice policies were undermining education. Testing was ruining curriculum and instruction. Choice threatened the survival of public education.
Chapter nine was about teachers and the research on teaching. For the most part, this research is written by economists, and it makes for dry reading. So I wanted to find a way to engage the reader and decided to look at the research through the eyes of my favorite high school teacher, Mrs. Ratliff. Suddenly it all came to life. I understood it better, and was better able to convey to readers how misguided the policies based on this research are. Without