School Reform Lesson: Ravitch Was Right
Next January, Diane Ravitch’s long-anticipated book on education reform, Slaying Goliath, will be published but it is being preceded by an anthology, The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch. I contribute to Ravitch’s blog, and we have only had two types of disagreements. One is addressed in the new book.
The first disagreement was illustrated last fall when we were sitting with some of America’s top education experts. I said that Ravitch is the most important education writer of the last century. Only she dissented.
The second was included in The Wisdom and Wit, where she wrote:
John Thompson contemplates the urgent issue of whether I hurt reformers’ feelings. …To be precise, the question posed by his review is, “Should Diane Ravitch Be More Careful to Not Hurt Reformers’ Feelings?”
Ravitch acknowledged that “reformers say I am ‘mean’ or ‘harsh’ when I say that some ‘reformers’ have a profit motive or that their grand plans actually hurt poor minority children instead of helping them.” She had been told, “Bill Gates was very hurt by my comments about his effort to remake American education. He frankly could not understand how anyone could question his good intentions.” But Ravitch had never questioned his intentions, even though she “certainly question[s] his judgment and his certainty that he can ‘fix’ education by creating metrics to judge teachers.”
Ravitch confessed to being less worried about the Billionaires Boys Club’s feelings than their “constant repetition of the blatant lie that American public CONTINUE READING: School Reform Lesson: Ravitch Was Right - The Oklahoma Observer
