The Life and Death of Schools
Diane Ravitch on the real threats to public education
BY RICHARD WHITTAKER, FRI., SEPT. 28, 2012
On the subject of public education, Diane Ravitch may be America's most important whistle-blower. The former U.S. assistant secretary of education doesn't employ hidden cameras or purloined documents, and she doesn't entrap teachers or find evidence of financial malfeasance by district administrators. Instead, she uses cold, hard numbers to expose the Big Lie: that the education reforms of the last two decades – from No Child Left Behind to high-stakes testing and the ongoing, bipartisan, national love affair with charter schools – have done much, or anything, to fix American public education.
What makes Ravitch's findings even bolder and more telling is that she began her career as one of the big cheerleaders for