Here is a good blog by a Los Angeles parent who asks the question, “who is Diane Ravitch?–and explores the answer.
I know who I am.
I am one of eight children, born in Houston and a graduate of the Houston public schools.
I was lucky enough to be admitted to Wellesley College, where my friends included incredibly talented women. I graduated in 1960.
I married a wonderful man two weeks after college, moved to New York City, and began having children. I had three sons, one of whom died of leukemia at the age of two.
I earned a Ph.D. in the history of American education from Columbia University in 1975. My mentor was the great historian Lawrence A. Cremin.
My first book was a history of the New York public school system, published in 1974. It was also my doctoral dissertation.
I was divorced in 1986. My ex-husband and I are good friends.
From 1991-93, I was Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration. Then I worked as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution for two years.
I missed New York City and moved back to Brooklyn and became an adjunct at New York University. I published more books.
In 1997, the Clinton administration appointed me to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees federal testing. Secretary Richard Riley reappointed me in 2001, and I served on that board for seven years, learning a lot about testing.
I was a fellow at three different conservative think tanks in the 1990s and early years of this century. The Manhattan Institute, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution.
In 2010, I published a book explaining that the ideas I had thought were good in theory turned out not to work, that they were actually damaging education, and I became a critic of testing, accountability, choice, and competition. My book explained why and how I lost faith in these ideas. It is “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining American Education.”
I have lived with my best friend for the past 25 years.
I still live in Brooklyn. I have written ten or eleven books and edited many more.
I have four grandsons.
My latest book –Reign of Error–is the #1 book in education and the #1 book on public policy as of this moment on amazon.
I am 75 years old.
I have no staff, no research assistant. Whatever appears under my name was written solely by me.
I love what I am doing.
I love children, and I admire those who dedicate their lives to educating children and improving the lives of children, families, and communities.
I want all children to have a wonderful education, not just the basics and testing.
I will work for a better education for all as long as I have strength and breath.
Beautiful, poignant, inspiring.
Great statement by Diane and great blog post by the Los Angeles Red Queen.
She will wake up a lot of LA-er’s with her open eyes, mind and heart.
Dear Red Queen,
Here’s what I wrote in answer to that question:
“To Diane on Her 75th Birthday, July 1, 2013
“She is our Boadicea, our warrior queen, our courage grubber and prod, our fierce maternal spirit, the one who shelters the humane heart of our teaching from the heedless technocrats and rapacious profiteers. Under her withering gaze, the lords and would-be lords of the land, and the puffed-up toadies who serve them, shrink to their proper size. We see them for what they are and know that we can, we shall, give no further ground—that we shall, moreover, retake what they have already stolen. Under her nurturance, and following her example, we grow stronger daily. If she, at her age, girds on her sword, and wields it so mightily, shall we stand idly by? Certainly not, not when our livelihoods, our freedom, our learning, and our children’s well-faring are at stake. It is time, it is far past time, for teachers to take back the teaching profession.
“May Diane’s birthday be hereafter remembered as the moment when we all vowed to miss no opportunity to strike back at the invaders of our schools and at those who collaborate with them, the day when we vowed to give them no respite until we have taken back what is ours. May her birthday be the day when we all vowed not to accept serfdom, for ourselves or for the children under our care. May this be the day when we all vowed to say no, loudly, clearly, at every opportunity, to their crude, boorish “standards”; to the mind-numbing drivel of their “teacher proof” online curricula; to their presumptuous, inane evaluation checklists and standardized tests; to their easy answers to difficult problems; to their crony capitalism and theft.
“And to you, Diane, from the kids, on your birthday, thank you.”
Lovely. Thanks.
And Brooklyn swells with pride, knowing you are here with us.
You are also the undisputed savior of public education.
Thank you, Ron. Miles to go before anyone can sleep.
If you want miles to go, you had better sleep. Adrenalin only takes you so far. Gramma needs to hang around for a bit.
Beautifully written, Red Queen!
You go girl!!!
Sent from my iPhone
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You and your scholarly writing have given this teacher great hope.
‘Bless you!
I, too, admire Diane Ravitch. She has helped me feel that I was not a failure as a teacher. The system is what is failing everyone–especially children and teachers of the public school system. I think it is failing many public school administrators, as well, because they are blindly following instead of leading. I am half way through Dr. Ravitch’s book, Reign of Error….
I am finding out so much that I did not know–like why Catholic schools are being hurt by charters. What I like the most is that Dr. Ravitch always backs her information up with research and cites it. I don’t see that with the “reformers”. I hope that everyone reads this book and wakes up to what is truly happening in education.
Diane, here’s a column by Alan Ehrenhalt in our October issue. The print headline is “Too Many Tests, Too Little Wisdom.” Governing reaches about 80,000 state and local government officials in print and many thousands more read us online.
http://www.governing.com/columns/col-school-scandals-reveal-testing-ignorance.html
Mark, Thank you so much for this article. I especially like this quote: ” It is hard not to conclude in the end that the school testing movement represents a popular fad in educational policy that is desperately lacking in either substantive methodology or common sense…….Cooking the books on the tests won’t do anything to solve this problem. All it will do, when the extent of the mischief is revealed, is undermine public confidence in the entire enterprise of school testing”
GREAT!
“I love what I am doing. I love children, and I admire those who dedicate their lives to educating children and improving the lives of children, families, and communities. ”
Your intentions and motivations couldn’t be clearer and nothing short of inspiring us all to stand up, get informed and take action. Thank You Diane Ravitch!
Wow! I just said “oh my gosh!” out loud reading about your life Diane. You are wonderful and an inspiration to me, who at age 56 is so ready to continue fighting for and loving children.
“so ready to continue fighting for and loving children”
Awesome. Good for you, Lisa!
Diane is a modern Diotima (the mentor of Socrates).
Beautiful!. Redqueen says you are a movement. I say you are a weather front- you can’t be stopped. Thanks
You are an education champion for our children and a crusader for educators.
As always, so concise and exact. Whatever the topic, you make it seem so easy, the sign of a master.
Diane, I hope you take pride and satisfaction in the fact that, when future historians look at this era, they will see the brightest beacon of light for teachers and students as having been a fellow historian, writing history and making it, on the side of the Angels.
If I wrote really well, I would have said this. Thanks, Michael.
As it is I will just ditto…especially the ” on the side of the angels” part.
Thank you, Diane.
Thank you.
“if I wrote really well,” you say
But there is a lovely rhythm to what you wrote, Ang, and I have noticed that there often is. You have a good ear.
Thank you, Robert.
This old science teacher has spent so long in passive voice…
😉
The complement is much appreciated.
Thank you Diane for giving us hope in what feels like a never ending fight against insanity. It is reported in today’s Phila. Inquirer that tomorrow, Tuesday, a bill will be introduced in the Pa. state house entitled the “Protecting Excellent Teachers Act”. The bill proposes to end teacher seniority in furloughs and layoffs; instead teachers will be subject to layoff based on their test-based evaluations under Pa.’s new flawed teacher evaluation system. And to further “protect” excellent teachers, the bill adds two years to the period required to obtain tenure, from 3 to 5.
Meanwhile the state starves the Phila. SD.
It was inspiring hearing you speak at the Philadelphia Free Library, and your book is a wonderful antidote to the radical nonsense spewed by Broad, Gates, Rhee and Kopp.
I thought George Orwell was dead, not writing legislation in Pennsylvania.
Thank you for all your work in education.
I am glad I found her when I went googling for answers about something called Race to the Top, about a year ago.
I’ve noticed that the dummies always go with the sports metaphors.
Years ago, I taught in a Catholic girls school where we had a drunken priest who used to get on the PA in the morning (after a drink or two) and say, “Girls, you have to get out there today and carry that ball.”
Yeah I will pretty much stay miles away from any legislation with a cute name if I can help it. Unfortunately I do not know how to get away from RttT. Oh how I wish I did.
I thank you Diane. I am in awe of your openness and your advocacy for us. Teaching is my passion. I wake up each day and look forward to teaching. Lately, I have been discouraged and angry over the reformers deceit. You have given all of us the voice to set the record straight. You are a beacon. My kids are 17 and 19. I hope and pray that public education will reign through and continue for ALL learners. I look forward to your posts and am currently reading your book. Thank you!
Diane, you are a mensch, a hero, a spiritual force . . . one always to be loved, respected, and reckoned with.
I really liked this part.
“She feels like a clarion voice of sanity to this parent at least, among a bewildering juggernaut of complicated politics governed by appearance and straw men and quid pro quo’s and mystifying indebtedness that results in misguided public policy.”
I read, so eagerly, everything from Diane, and thank her so much, for being willing to discover so much about this thing called education. Alan t. Board member, New Faculty Majority, the National Coalition for Adjunct and contingent faculty.
Thank you, Dr Ravitch, for sharing of yourself, your background, your conviction.
And to the extent that one or two folks said some awfully nice things to me above, too – many thanks to you too!
Hope everyone turns out in LA! Hope there are enough seats…. 😦
And a HERO to many, especially me!
And we love you for it, Diane!
Thank you for everything that you are. You are amazing and an inspiration.
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
What is the “Road Not Taken” that the owner of this blog chose of her own free will?
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” [Mark Twain]
Thank you for picking the rare rather than the common.
🙂
I didn’t know you were ever an adjunct, Diane. This must mean you have taught. So why don’t you think of yourself as a teacher?
For clarity and economy of style and power and color and, not parenthetically, moral authority expressed with an absolute aversion and absence of pomp,condescension,or self-importance, and possessing the most formidable of intellectual arsenals complemented by her humility and pristine integrity, Diane is the center of our universe. Now that sounds very cornball, but think through it calmly: what other individual or group has so unified and energized us and caused the enemy, with their overwhelming material assets, to get skittish and begin to scatter? She is the David to the deformers’ Goliath. (And that’s no understatement).
: )
You’re getting mighty personal and intrusive, aren’t you Paul? All of us are influenced by the interaction of our experiences & our environment. It’s silly to assume only ONE reason is THE reason for Diane’s thoughtful analyses of edu-reform.
Such an ugly comment!
Roald Dahl said it best in “The Twits”
“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
― Roald Dahl, The Twits
The illustrations are worth looking up, but I can’t copy and paste them here.
Pretty pathetic Paul but expected from you.
Thanks for sharing you. You have my utmost respect and admiration.
When I hear the doom and gloom about our education system, I am inspired to know that there are passionate, principled people of good will out there fighting to make things better. Children are our future, so clearly few things can be more important than education. You have my admiration for taking a stand against the testing-focused system which fails to recognize individualism in either students or teachers. The only part I don’t understand is: how can it ever make sense to be anti-choice? Diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Different children benefit from different approaches. Diversity and choice are keystones of a free society where creativity can flourish. Educators deserve the same right other professions have: to learn from others in their field, and to innovate. Individuals who work hard and produce an excellent result deserve support, and rewards for their efforts. There are “good guys” and “bad guys” on both sides, so it’s never a good idea to generalize. Why should children embrace each others’ differences and learn from each other if we won’t? Our children can only benefit from a variety of choices which enable them to find a place that best complements and develops their individual strengths. We allow young people to choose their own colleges, based on their needs and strengths. Why would we not allow families the same during a child’s formative years?