Network For Public Education uncovers how U.S. DOE wastes a billion on defunct charter schools | Cloaking Inequity

Network For Public Education uncovers how U.S. DOE wastes a billion on defunct charter schools | Cloaking Inequity

NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION UNCOVERS HOW U.S. DOE WASTES A BILLION ON DEFUNCT CHARTER SCHOOLS

In @BetsyDeVosED’s budget, there are major cuts to programs like the Special Olympics. Sec. DeVos didn’t know the number of kids who would be hurt by that cut, so I made sure she now knows that 272,000 kids are seeing their support taken away. pic.twitter.com/6ZiOfDU4Ou

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) March 26, 2019

A blistering new report from the Network for Public Education (NPE) documents how the federal government, through the U.S. Department of Education, wastes hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on grants awarded to charter schools that never open or quickly close. The Department of Education is also funding charter schools that blatantly discriminate in their discipline, curricular, and enrollment practices.

The Washington Post broke the news here this morning

Now do your part.

Tell Congress: Stop funding the broken U.S. DOE Charter Schools Program.

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride,estimates that the federal Charter Schools Program, over its history, has awarded over $4 billion in seed money to charter schools.  In California alone, the state with the most charter schools, the failure rate for federally grant-awarded charters is 39%.

Here is a quick summary of what NPE found.

Hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dollars have been awarded to charter schools that never opened or opened and then shut down. In some cases, schools have received federal funding even before securing their charter.

• Our investigations barely skimmed the surface of the thousands of charter school grant recipients that never opened or opened but then closed. Of the schools awarded grants directly from the department between 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either never opened or shut its doors. The CSP’s own analysis from 2006-2014 of its direct and state pass-through funded programs found that nearly one out of three awardees were not currently in operation by the end of 2015.

The CSP’s grant approval process appears to be based on the application alone, with no attempt to verify the information presented. Schools have been approved for grants despite serious concerns noted by reviewers.

• The CSP’s review process to award grants does not allow the verification of applicants’ claims, thus leading to what award-winning, New York Times journalist Mike Winerip referred to as an “invitation for fiction writing.” This process resulted in numerous examples of awardees that claim they seek to enroll high percentages of minority and disadvantaged students, even while their programs and policies are designed to draw from advantaged populations. Finally, we found instances where achievement and/or demographic data on applications were cherry-picked or massaged, with reviewers instructed to accept what was written as fact.

Grants have been awarded to charter schools that establish barriers to enrollment, discouraging or denying access to certain students.

• Multiple schools we examined enroll smaller percentages of students with disabilities and students who are English language learners than the surrounding schools. Some appear to be designed to encourage “white flight” from public schools. Thirty-four California charter schools that received CSP grants appear on the ACLU of Southern California’s list of charters that discriminate—in some cases illegally—in admissions, and 20 CSP funded Arizona charters appear on a similar list created by the Arizona ACLU. One Pennsylvania charter receiving multiple grants totaling over one million dollars from CSP states on its website that its programs as limited to students “with mild disabilities.”

Recommendations by the Office of the Inspector General have been largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed.

• We reviewed numerous OIG audits that found significant concerns over how CSP money is spent and that described the lack of monitoring the Department carries out to ensure those funds contribute to the intended goals of the grants. Each audit includes specific recommendations. But not only is there little evidence the department has adopted any of these recommendations; the current Secretary has denied responsibility for oversight, believing that it falls outside the federal government’s purview—even though this is a federal grants program.

The department does not conduct sufficient oversight of grants to State Entities or State Education Agencies, despite repeated indications that the states are failing to monitor outcomes or offer full transparency on their subgrants.    

• Although the vast majority of public charter school grants are awarded to state education agencies (SEAs), our report reveals that the Department has shown no oversight when SEAs pass funding along to individual charters or charter organizations as subgrants. We found a continuing record of subgrantee schools that never opened or closed quickly, schools that blatantly discriminate in their discipline, curricular, and enrollment practices, and schools that engage in outright fraud as well as in related-party transactions.

The CSP’s grants to charter management organizations are beset with problems including conflicts of interest and profiteering.

• The Office of the Inspector General’s 2016 audit of CSP funded CMO’s and their related schools found that of the 33 schools they reviewed, 22 had one or more of the following: conflicts of interest between the CMO or the charter, related-party transactions and insufficient segregation of duties.  We found troubling examples of CMOs that received massive grants that engaged in practices that push-out low-performing students, violate the rights of their students with disabilities and cull their student bodies through policies, programs and requests for parental donations.

Under the current administration, while Congressional funding for the CSP rises, the quality of the applications and awardees has further declined.

• Based on our review of grant awards to SEAs and non-SEAs in 2017 and 2018, we provide evidence that the quality of the applications and the receiving grantees are likely getting worse, which may result in increased fraud, mismanagement and charter failure.

Send your letter to Congress today and say, “No more!”

Then share the report: http://networkforpubliceducation.org/asleepatthewheel/

And this action: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/cut-the-us-doe-charter-schools-program/

At a time when Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump propose slashing funding for public education, it is outrageous that this wasteful giveaway to schools that may not ever exist is increased to half a billion dollars a year.

This post was directly excerpted from the NPE press release. Full Disclosure: I serve as one of the founding governing board members of NPE.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

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Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

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Network For Public Education uncovers how U.S. DOE wastes a billion on defunct charter schools | Cloaking Inequity

Long Awaited Bipartisan School Funding Plan Proposed for Ohio | janresseger

Long Awaited Bipartisan School Funding Plan Proposed for Ohio | janresseger

Long Awaited Bipartisan School Funding Plan Proposed for Ohio

Yesterday  Ohio Representatives Robert Cupp (R-Lima) and John Patterson (D-Jefferson) released a much needed, bipartisan proposal for a new Ohio school funding formula. The Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan, of course, is preliminary.  It will be proposed as the substance of the Ohio House Education Budget and would have to be enacted by the Legislature. (Quotes in this post come from the preliminary PowerPoint presentation from Monday afternoon’s session.)

Conceptually the plan described yesterday afternoon would raise the level of state support for K-12 public education to a more adequate level and additionally address what is currently inequitable distribution of funding across the state’s 610 school districts.  The Cupp-Patterson Plan considers not only each school district’s capacity to raise funds from its local property tax base but also considers the amount and concentration of family poverty.

The details are not yet available, and of course, the details matter a lot in a school funding formula.  A state can make its formula more equitable, while at the same time underfunding the total allocation of state funds; such a plan merely levels down all districts.  We’ll need to look at the amount of funding the Cupp-Patterson Plan recommends.  Then, of course, because this plan is intended to serve as the basis of the Ohio House Education Budget, we’ll need to look at what the Legislature agrees to fund. A workable school funding formula would need to be fully funded.

In recent years without a fair and adequate formula, Ohio has merely imposed punitive, outcomes-based school accountability—punishing the lowest scoring schools and school districts.  Currently Ohio rates and ranks schools and districts on a state report card largely derived from aggregate standardized test scores—which have for decades been shown to correlate less with school quality and more with family and neighborhood poverty.  The state CONTINUE READING: Long Awaited Bipartisan School Funding Plan Proposed for Ohio | janresseger

The Geology of School Reform: Social Justice Humanitas Academy in Los Angeles (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Geology of School Reform: Social Justice Humanitas Academy in Los Angeles (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Geology of School Reform: Social Justice Humanitas Academy in Los Angeles (Part 1)

 Many readers have visited the majestic Grand Canyon. It is an unforgettable sight.

What is obvious to visitors are the strata, geological layers of different shades of red, beige, and brown, that reveal plant and animal life that lived eons ago.

OK, Larry, I get the strata part giving a glimpse of past life in layers piled atop one another. What’s the connection to school reform?

Every district, every school in the U.S. has historical layers of reform piled atop one another although the time frame is far less than an eon. A case in point is the Social Justice Humanitas Academy located within Los Angeles Unified School District. Consider the following official information about the school.

Our mission is to achieve social justice through the development of the complete individual. In doing so, we increase our students’ social capital and their humanity while creating a school worthy of our own children.

According to the website, that mission is the school’s vision of what it aspires to:

A school’s vision is its inspiration, articulating the dreams and hopes for the school community. At Social Justice Humanitas Academy, our vision is: We will achieve self-actualization [original bold-faced]. The concept of self-actualization comes from Abraham Maslow, a leader in humanistic psychology, who understood a good life to be one in which an individual maximized their potential to become the very best version of who they are.

Directly below the mission statement is the following graphic.

While the above statement is general, the mission for the 9th grade entering class in 2018 is more specific:

Our mission is to provide a loving transition into young adulthood by: CONTINUE READING:  The Geology of School Reform: Social Justice Humanitas Academy in Los Angeles (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Six Fixes for the College Admissions Scandal | The Merrow Report

Six Fixes for the College Admissions Scandal | The Merrow Report

Six Fixes for the College Admissions Scandal

If you Google ‘College Admissions Scandal’, you’ll get 157 MILLION citations.  That’s how it is dominating our conversations.  It is absorbing stuff, the story of rich people getting yet another advantage in gaining access to the top shelf–but this time getting caught in the act.   Some of the pieces I have read include thoughtful suggestions about how to make the admissions process more fair, but most are largely salacious details and hot air/outrage.   I’d like to suggest SIX changes that could make the process a little bit more fair.

My bona fides: I recorded the process at four elite private institutions–Williams in 1986, Amherst in 2004, and Middlebury in 1990 for PBS and Dartmouth for NPR in the late 1970’s.  In every instance, some applicants had been ‘flagged’ by athletic coaches or heads of the music and drama departments.  Some applicants were flagged as ‘legacies,’ meaning a close relative had graduated from the college, and others were noted because their families had the capacity to make a major gift (or had already made one).  That’s standard operating procedure at elite institutions; the central question is, of course, how low would an institution go to accepted a ‘flagged’ applicant?  As a reporter, I could only ask that question.  At the end of the day, it depended upon the integrity of the process and of the individual members of the admissions committee.

Producer Tim Smith and I were the first television journalists to get access to college admissions, at Williams in the spring of 1986. We spent three days videotaping everything that moved, and of course the Committee talked about ‘flagged’ applicants, including athletes, musicians, and children of alumni, but it never CONTINUE READING: Six Fixes for the College Admissions Scandal | The Merrow Report

Choosing Democracy: Community Coalition on SCUSD Budget Crisis

Choosing Democracy: Community Coalition on SCUSD Budget Crisis

Community Priority Coalition 

 March 6, 2019 

Superintendent Jorge Aguilar 

Re: SCUSD financial crisis 

Dear SCUSD Board Members: 

The Community Priority Coalition (CPC) is very concerned about the Sacramento City Unified School District's financial health and deficit spending that will negatively impact students in the District. The Community Priority Coalition members consist of Black Parallel School Board, Building Healthy Communities. Hmong Innovating Politics, La Familia Counseling Center. Making Cents Work, League of United Latin American Citizens (Lorenzo Patiño Council #2862), Sacramento Area Congregations Together, Democracy and Education Institute, and Public Advocates Inc. 

Since 2016, the Community Priority Coalition has submitted to the Sacramento City Unified District Board an alternative budget that reflect the following Coalition priorities: 1) Class Size Reduction (24 to 1); 2) Professional development in cultural proficiency and restorative justice; 3) Additional instructional assistance for English Language Learner and increased efforts to involve their parents in their education programs. including bilingual counselors, teachers, social workers and other staff; and 4) After-school/early intervention programs. Although, CPC clearly understands that the District will make very difficult decisions; we are most alarmed that you are unable to address the key concerns of the Coalition given the District history and current financial crisis. 

On December 12, 2018, the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), released the Sacramento City Unified School District's Fiscal Health Risk Analysis report. The purpose of the report is to evaluate SCUSD fiscal health and risk of insolvency in the current and next two fiscal years. The report indicted the District’s financial health by stating “that the district will be cash insolvent in November 2019 (estimated to be October 2019 at the time of FCMAT’s fieldwork) unless significant action is taken.” 

Historically, the District’s mis-management in the accounting department, poor budget development process, poor board decisions, and failure to address the structural deficit have placed the quality of education for the SCUSDs' students in jeopardy. Moreover, the current financial crisis will undermine the Local Control Accountability Plan process and shut out key stakeholders in the process. 

We understand that the District doesn’t want receivership nor do the Coalition, but the historical practices of the District gives us much pause. Therefore, we are urging the district not to use the 

District's budget shortfalls in a way that will balance the budget on the backs of students, teachers and staff. 

The Community Priority Coalition sincerely wants to work collaboratively with the Superintendent and SCUSD Board for the betterment of our children. 

Sincerely, 

Community Priority Coalition

Community Priority Coalition 

4625 44th Street, Rm 5 Sacramento, CA 95820 

Jessie Ryan, President 

Darrel Woo, First Vice President 

Michael Minnick, Second Vice President 

Christina Pritchett 

Lisa Murawski 

Mai Vang 

Leticia Garcia 

Rachel Halbo 

Choosing Democracy: Community Coalition on SCUSD Budget Crisis

Report: U.S. government wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools and still fails to adequately monitor grants - The Washington Post

Report: U.S. government wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools and still fails to adequately monitor grants - The Washington Post

Report: U.S. government wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools and still fails to adequately monitor grants

In @BetsyDeVosED’s budget, there are major cuts to programs like the Special Olympics. Sec. DeVos didn’t know the number of kids who would be hurt by that cut, so I made sure she now knows that 272,000 kids are seeing their support taken away. pic.twitter.com/6ZiOfDU4Ou

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) March 26, 2019

The U.S. government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons, according to a report from an education advocacy group. The study also says the U.S. Education Department does not adequately monitor how its grant money is spent.

The report, titled “Asleep at the Wheel” and issued by the nonprofit advocacy group Network for Public Education, says:

• More than 1,000 grants were given to schools that never opened, or later closed because of mismanagement, poor performance, lack of enrollment or fraud. “Of the schools awarded grants directlyfrom the department between 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either never opened or shut its doors,” it says.
• Some grants in the 25-year-old federal Charter School Program (CSP) have been awarded to charters that set barriers to enrollment of certain students. Thirty-four California charter schools that received grants appear on an American Civil Liberties Union list of charters “that discriminate — in some cases illegally — in admissions.”
• The department’s grant approval process for charters has been sorely lacking, with “no attempt to verify the information presented” by applicants.
• The Education Department in Republican and Democratic administrations has “largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed” recommendations to improve the program made by its own inspector general.

“Our investigation finds the U.S. Department of Education has not been a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in its management of the CSP,” it says.

The Education Department did not respond to questions about the study’s findings. The report has been given to members of Congress with education oversight authority.

Charter schools are publicly financed but privately operated, sometimes by for-profit companies, and they have become a controversial part of the “school choice” movement that has gained ground throughout the country over the past few decades.

Today, about 6 percent of U.S. schoolchildren attend charter schools, with 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico having laws permitting them. Some states have only a few charters while others have many. California has the most charter schools and the most charter students; in Los Angeles, 20 percent of children attend such schools. In the District, almost half of the city’s schoolchildren go to charter schools.

[There's a backlash against charter schools. What's happening and why.]

Supporters first described charters as competitive vehicles to push traditional public schools toward reform. Over time, that narrative changed, and charters were touted by supporters as offering choices for families who CONTINUE READING: Report: U.S. government wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools and still fails to adequately monitor grants - The Washington Post

Why School Psychologists Are Worried About the Mental Health of America’s Students | American Civil Liberties Union

Why School Psychologists Are Worried About the Mental Health of America’s Students | American Civil Liberties Union

Why School Psychologists Are Worried About the Mental Health of America’s Students

Earlier this month, thousands of school psychologists met in Atlanta at the annual convention of the National Association of School Psychologists. One of the hottest topics among attendees was exhaustion — a consequence of having to serve more students who are experiencing more trauma and other mental health problems without more help in carrying the load.

It’s not just school psychologists who are concerned about being short-staffed. I know of far too many school counselors, social workers, and nurses who are serving more students than any practitioner can reasonably handle. Their impossible caseloads result in not only work overload and the risk of burnout but also an alarming number of young people not getting the help they need.

For the past several years, members of the school psychologist community have been raising concerns about the detrimental under-investments in school-employed mental health staff — and a new report from the ACLU adds further data to the extent of the problem. “Cops and No Counselors,” co-authored by me and six other experts, analyzed data that the U.S. Department of Education collected from every school district in the nation. We found that the majority of K-12 schools are ill-equipped to address the mental health needs of children who are experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression during their formative years.

Children today are reporting just as much stress as adults, with 1 in 3 reporting that they are feeling depressed. Suicide, once on the decline as a risk for young people, is now one of the leading causes of death among youth, second only to accidents. Many of the kids I personally work with have one thing in common: significant trauma histories.

Take the student who accidentally shot his friend when the gun they were playing with discharged. Or the boy whose parents have both been incarcerated since he was young and who has bounced from foster home to foster home, separated from his siblings during these transitions.  

These students are in pain. They’re acting out. And they’re often in schools that can’t address their needs because of the lack of mental health support on site.  

The National Association of School Psychologists recommends a school psychologist serve no more than 500-700 students. But the ACLU report reveals that school psychologists across the country  CONTINUE READING: Why School Psychologists Are Worried About the Mental Health of America’s Students | American Civil Liberties Union

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride - Network For Public Education

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride - Network For Public Education

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride

In @BetsyDeVosED’s budget, there are major cuts to programs like the Special Olympics. Sec. DeVos didn’t know the number of kids who would be hurt by that cut, so I made sure she now knows that 272,000 kids are seeing their support taken away. pic.twitter.com/6ZiOfDU4Ou

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) March 26, 2019

Download [6.63 MB]

This report details the Network for Public Education’s two month examination of the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program (CSP). Our investigation found a troubling pattern of insufficient applicant review, contradictions between information provided by applicants and available public data, the gifting of funds to schools with inadequate financial and governance plans, a push-out of large grants to the states with little supervision by the department, and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

By comparing claims made by charter grant applicants to information on state databases and school websites, we found numerous examples of federal tax dollars being misspent due to an inattentive process that routinely accepts applicants’ claims without scrutiny.

We found that it is likely that as many as one third of all charter schools receiving CSP grants never opened, or opened and shut down. In fact, the failure rates for grant-awarded charter schools in California has reached nearly four in ten.

American taxpayers have a right to demand that their tax dollars not be wasted. Tax dollars that flow to charter schools that never opened or quickly close should not be considered the cost of doing business. And a program with a stated commitment to spread “high-quality” schools should not be a major funding source for schools that leave families in the lurch and promote discriminatory enrollment practices that increase segregation and unequal opportunity for students with disabilities, behavioral challenges or English language learner status. We cannot afford to continue to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into a program whose stewards are clearly asleep at the wheel.

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride - Network For Public Education

If the LAUSD’s Goal is “Parent Engagement”, What is the Plan of Action?

If the LAUSD’s Goal is “Parent Engagement”, What is the Plan of Action?

If the LAUSD’s Goal is “Parent Engagement”, What is the Plan of Action?

Complaints about the many obstacles that the public faces when they attempt to participate in meetings of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board are close to universal.  Parents of children enrolled in charter schools and those in District schools all seem to recognize that there is a problem with a system that requires them to line up hours in advance because the Board Room is not large enough to hold the number of people who show up, particularly when there are contentious issues on the agenda. While other local districts hold their meetings in the evening, the LAUSD hold theirs during the school day which means that working parents, students and teachers are usually not able to attend.  Since the Board limits the number of people who can speak on a subject, frustrations mount when opposing sides are not given equal opportunity to present their arguments before a vote is taken.

For years, Board members from both sides of the aisle have promised to fix these problems. Former LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, who was supported by the District’s teachers, promised that he was “actively trying to get better on this.” Charter backed Board member Nick Melvoin has agreed that the “time of meetings…are valid concerns” and would be “looking at our Board rules soon to make sure that we can hear all voices.” While minor adjustments have been made, none have ended the need for parents to spend hours in line before sitting through marathon Board meetings.

In an attempt to force the LAUSD Board to finally discuss this issue, I used Article 3, Section 35145.5. of the California Education Code to submit the “Board Meeting Accessibility to the Public” resolution as an agenda item. As a result, it will be heard at the March 26, Committee of the Whole meeting at 1:00 PM.  If adopted by the Board, this resolution would make several changes, including a requirement that meetings could not be held  while school is in session, that at least half of meetings would occur after 6:00 PM, that meetings be planned to last no longer than four hours and that speakers for both sides of any issue be given an opportunity to speak. The full text of the CONTINUE READING: If the LAUSD’s Goal is “Parent Engagement”, What is the Plan of Action?

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch — Garn Press Coming Soon April 2, 2019

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch — Garn Press

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch

“DIANE’S RECORD OF SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM SETS A POWERFUL EXAMPLE FOR US TO GET INVOLVED AND STAY INVOLVED UNTIL THE FIGHT IS WON” – YOHURU R. WILLIAMS, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS, MINNESOTA

Diane’s unwavering support of public education has made her a national treasure. Public school teachers love her. In The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch she shines a light on their courage and endurance. Available for purchase April 2, 2019.

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch is a lightning rod in American Society. She is a fearless defender of public education as the foundation stone of democracy. In this unique collection of her most important writings, Diane Ravitch provides remarkable insights into her seminal thinking on public education, and on the dangers to democracy of treating parents as consumers, students as products, and teachers as compliant followers of commercial scripts.

Diane’s unwavering support of public education has made her a national treasure. Public school teachers love her. In The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch she shines a light on their courage and endurance. She inspires them. But through her writing she also strikes fear into the hearts of all those – oligarchs, politicians, hedge fund financiers, and corporate reformers – who are intent on dismantling public schools and turning them into corporate money makers.

Similarly, through her pen, Diane confronts the detractors of public education and exposes the nefarious purposes of the Common Core, high stakes testing, and corporate reform. She names names – Bill Gates, Eva Moskowitz, Mark Zuckerberg, David Coleman, Charles and David Koch, and the Waltons.

Essentially, Diane has a most extraordinary talent for encouraging readers to inhabit what’s happening in the texts that she is writing. We stand beside her and take up the challenge of resisting, persisting, and pushing down the risks to children whose public schools are in jeopardy and who are growing up in a democracy that is in peril. Her goal is to bring hope to all those educators who have been disrespected by plutocrats. In these writings, she does exactly that.

Buy (Coming Soon April 2, 2019)

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch
ISBN: 9781942146742
6 x 9 | 466 pages
Print: Available April 2, 2019

About Diane Ravitch

THE NEW YORK TIMES STATES “MS. RAVITCH…WRITES WITH ENORMOUS AUTHORITY AND COMMON SENSE.” THE NATION WRITES THAT “IN AN AGE WHEN ALMOST EVERYBODY HAS AN OPINION ABOUT SCHOOLS, RAVITCH’S NAME MUST BE SOMEWHERE NEAR THE TOP OF THE ROLODEX OF EVERY SERIOUS EDUCATION JOURNALIST IN THIS COUNTRY.” WHILE THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WRITES THAT “MS. RAVITCH [IS] THE COUNTRY’S SOBEREST, MOST HISTORY-MINDED EDUCATION EXPERT.”

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is also president and co-founder of the Network for Public Education, with 350,000 followers. She blogs at dianeravitch.net, which has had more than 32 million page views since she started it April 26, 2012.

From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education to Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, where she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

In 2011, she was honored to receive the Daniel Patrick Moynihan award from the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Her last two books were national bestsellers, and she received the Grawemeyer Prize in 2014 for The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She has received 12 honorary degrees.

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch — Garn Press