Diane Ravitch on Corporate Education Reform

Education historian and professor Diane Ravitch appeared on KALW's Your Call on February 24, 2011: http://yourcallradio.org.

Ravitch served as assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush and is the author of the bestselling book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."

Based on her experience and recent shift in thinking, she's the perfect interview, yet she's only done a few television interviews. Why won't the corporate media include Diane Ravitch in their many conversations and debates about education reform?

When the HW Bush administration asked Ravitch to join them, she happily climbed "aboard the bandwagon" of conservative ideologies around school reform.

She supported the idea that teachers whose students scored higher on tests should be paid more. She supported comprehensive standardized testing. She was affiliated with conservative think tanks. And when George W. Bush laid out his plan for No Child Left Behind ten years later, she was a supporter.

She believed these measures would end bureaucracy, give attention to neglected children, empower poor families, and close the achievement gap. "I, too, had drunk deeply of the elixir that promised a quick fix to intractable problems," she writes. That elixir recently wore off.

She is now an outspoken critic of No Child Left Behind and is equally critical of President Obama's "Race to the Top," a set of policies she says do will nothing to turn around the train wreck of the prior administration.

Diane Ravitch believes that the "the fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture, but reformers in the United States continue to look for shortcuts and quick answers."

Check out her work: http://www.dianeravitch.com/

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• diane ravitch
• education
• reform
• schools
• race to the top
• no child left behind
• public schools
• arne duncan
• bill gates

[oldwarhorse1865]

Since these foundations seem to like to push bad vaccines, Poison our air, water, food, import toxic goods, and rewrite history it should be apparent that they want our kids stupid!

When education was the best was when it was run locally and funded by the states! The Fed. government needs to BUTT OUTT!