As readers may recall, I started a new book last June.
I finished it and turned it over to the editor on January 15.
The manuscript was nearly 600 pages.
In print form, it should be about half that length.
If you have been reading the blog all along, you know what is in the book.
Now it’s time to catch a break.
I am taking a one-week vacation starting January 31.
The blog will still be here every day, as I will have some pieces in the pipeline and I have invited some of my favorite bloggers to write guest posts.
This will be the year that the public begins to see who the corporate reformers are and the havoc they are wreaking on schools and communities.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rest & relax, our wonderful warrior!!
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Have a great break Diane! You deserve one!
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Mazel Tov! As a YA author (in my other life) I know what a long rollercoaster ride it is to write a book – congratulations for reaching the first stage of “finished” and can’t wait to read the final product when it’s in print.
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Yes, as you know, turning in the manuscript is step one in a long process, but what a great step it is.
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Great news indeed, Diane! Enjoy the break and I can not wait to read it.
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Happy winter break and congratulations again on your new book!
I hope there will be a book tour and that you will come to Atlanta!
Thank you again for all you do.
Ang
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congrats for your book..
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Have a well deserved break, Diane. Rest up. Refresh yourself for the continuous battle.
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I will be buying a copy for myself, a copy for my father (a retired administrator), and a copy to leave on the table in my department room!
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How will we ever thank you for all you’ve done for teachers and public education? Enjoy your well-deserved vacation and I can’t wait to read your book!
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Enjoy your time off! It’s well deserved.
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Hi Diane. This is the first time I have commented on your blog but I have been reading your posts since the blog’s inception. Please know that you inspire me and keep me going. The reason being, you give me hope that we, as public school teachers, have a voice out there fighting for us. I have been teaching for 12 years in a small upstate New York city school. We are ravaged with 75% poverty and developmentally innappropriate expectations for our kids from the Common Core. There is no “soft bigotry” of low expectations, just expectations WAY out of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky). I have seen the corporate reform agenda taking shape for years and have seen main stream media’s narrative of it’s benefits. It’s demonization of us public school teachers. It frustrates me to such a degree that it is hard to have hope for change. You give me that hope. You inspire me to get the message out to my collegues. To speak up at meetings and generally be the voice of dissent in this otherwise brainwashed, “duped” society. Thank you for that. And thank you for continuing this fight against the monster that is the pritization movement. Enjoy your break. It is well deserved.
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Congratulations Diane!
Also, just FYI the “Special Master” is also in New London Public Schools in CT.
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Congratulations, Diane! I hope you enjoy your well-earned rest. And to start it off on a happy note, today’s Portland Press Herald is running a big story about Colorado’s investigation of a K12-run charter for failing and possibly corrupting the local school board. Given the recent failure of two virtual charters (on a K12 school) to get certification in Maine, I hope this article is evidence that the tide is starting to turn away from Jeb Bush, Michell Rhee, and their charlatanist charters.
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David in Maine,
As the public starts to see how our public schools are being invaded by profiteers, the scene will change. They have been successful in framing a scenario, but the narrative is false and their remedies fail to benefit anyone but themselves.
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Congratulations, and enjoy your break. I can’t thank you enough for your efforts and will add your new book to your earlier one in “gift packs” to a great many folks.
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A well deserved vacation. Thank you for your expertise, diligence and mostly for connecting all of us. Thanks to you, we are a community with voices that are getting heard. (BTW, I posted your interview on Tavis Smiley for my followers, this week.). Have a great vacation, Diane.
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Diane, so glad to hear of the completed manuscript and the vacation, both. Balance is important, and rest is integral to balance.
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Congratulations & we’re all looking forward to your new book. Hope it’s out in time to combat some of the changes that will be brought on by our new FL Sup (rejected by Indiana & hired by Rick Scott). Rest up – I think we have turbulent times ahead.
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Congratulations! Respect and Gratitude for your courageous leadership and sacrifice for the sake of our children and their future. You exemplify the American
ideal and the promise of the our Founding Fathers who offered us Freedom of Speech and Hope for a better tomorrow.
Let your body and mind rest with each other and have some well earned fun time.
A lesson from the children.
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A well deserved vacation after your yeoman’s work on the public education front, for which I’m sure you shall be canonized… Happy trails on your break!!!
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I cannot wait to read it and to recommend it to everyone I know! Have a lovely break.
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Congratulations, Diane! I can’t wait to buy your book.
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Enjoy your much needed break. But before you leave, are you planning on writing any thoughts about the NYC evaluation debacle?? (And I hope you include why VAM, in any capacity, is wrong.) Funny how the local media doesn’t tell the public that some districts across the country actually turned down RTTT funding to keep a fair and balanced eval system in place.
Again, I hope you will find a place where you can turn off the news and just bask in the sun and enjoy colorful drinks with pretty umbrellas in it.
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Tune into NY1tonight if you live in NYC.
Discussion of teacher evaluation.
9 pm.
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Great, Diane! Enjoy that rest. And THANK YOU for the new book. We will surely be able to use it in our fight. I believe this is your thing, to write and fight as you have, so it is really a labor of love that you do. But here is the thing – the fruit of your labor is loved by so many because it is such is a valuable gift. You have given us so much that has been so desperately needed… when so few were giving it. You are really appreciated.
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Congratulations! Tell your publisher to print a lot – you’re going to need them!
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For all the posters and viewers of this website: How can we thank Diane? Easy. She has no billionaire backers to buy up hundreds of thousands of copies of her forthcoming book [to distribute free to unwilling readers] and land her on the bestseller list.
We can do it. This blog gets a huge number of views. So buy a copy for yourself, and as suggested above, buy one for another willing reader or two. The majority of posters here [and I recognize some of the names above] are not very interested in the ‘show and tell’ of having it in people’s hands: we want people to read the book, think about it, talk about it with other people, use it to help galvanize action to defeat the separate and unequal educational schemes of the charterites/privatizers. Agree with it, disagree with it, but continue the discussion of how to achieve a “better education for all.”
I plan to buy a copy for myself and two others. How about y’all go with this one plus two plan?
Any takers?
🙂
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Good idea.
We may not be rich, but I bet we can all afford an extra book or two!
Lets send/give some to any politicians we may know…perhaps some local ones who still feel (perhaps?) a little beholding to the voters.
Or maybe a local reporter, or local current events /news blogger?
Local PTA president?
Worth a try.
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I love this idea – I’m in.
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Yes, one plus two is a definite plan and I hope to get one personally autographed. I so hope to meet Diane someday. Rest, relax and recharge. We will miss you!
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Diane, I look forward to your new book. Your writing has had a huge impact on my work as an educator, and citizen. In my work with students, I have found that the solution to stopping bullying is to shine the light of day on what they are doing. Bullies only want their friends to know what they are up to. You are “showing the light of day” on the powerful forces that have been having their way behind the scenes with public education.
Thank you, thank you!
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This is awesome news.
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As hard as it may be, really take a vacation. We will survive if only barely. waiting for your book is like waiting for the birth of a baby! I plan to give a copy to a local school board member. A successful, progressive school district is slowly being destroyed.
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Enjoy the vacation! Read something you’ve been excited about!
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Wonderful news! Can’t wait to read it! Enjoy a well-earned break!
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This is my first comment on this blog but I have been a lurker here for a while now. You are one of the sanest and bravest voices on education out there now, and I am always trying to get my educator and non-educator friends to read The Death and Life.. I really look forward to reading your new book. Thanks for all you do!
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Demonizing reformers because they are “corporate” by itself is only half the story, even as praising teachers in the traditional school systems simply because they are unionized and “public” likewise is only half the story. Not all charters are good schools, but not all are bad. Not all public schools are bad, though some are. Not all gun owners are murderous thugs who want more babies to die. Not all people who want babies to die by abortion, are necessarily bad people. Perhaps this will be the year when the populace at large in many, many areas will begin to see the unintended consequences of what they have been supporting. That thought comforts Diane. It also comforts me.
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I don’t think those analogies are accurate. You’re correct that the quality of teachers isn’t guaranteed simply because they’re unionized or teach in public schools. But their very existence, unlike corporate ed reform, is not inimical to the existence of public education.
Reformers acting under the aegis of corporate interest, by their very existence, stand opposed to the independence and integrity of public schools. Their goal is the utilization of a market called “public education” that is worth half a trillion dollars. This goal encourages privatization wherever possible. Their existence is antithetical to a system of democratic public education.
Those who support public education and the right of its employees to organize would do well to “demonize” particularly those corporate interests. It is they who profit from technological privatization (eg, Gates), or the weakening of unions (eg, the Waltons), or private investments in public education (hedge funders, banking interests, etc). These corporate interests bankroll most of the education reform agenda, its political servants and white papers. Corporate reform is not half the story; it’s most of the story.
PS: Congratulations, Diane, I’m thrilled to read your new book!
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A sensible critique of my argument.
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You go girl! 🙂
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Congratulations, Diane. May you enjoy some much-deserved rest.
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I’m really looking forward to your new book, Diane!
For those who will be reading it and want to get involved in supporting public education at the local and national level, but are having difficulty navigating the minefield of astro-turf corporate sponsored “reform” organizations that use opposite-world names to disguise their true agenda, I hope you have included information about grass roots organizations that people can contact, such as Parents United for Responsible Education, Save Our Schools, the National Opportunity To Learn Campaign, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, Education Law Center, etc.
Wishing you a safe and rejuvenating respite from all the turmoil!
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I can’t wait to read your new book, and I’ll make sure everyone I know reads it, too!
Please do take a REAL vacation–we need you to be well-rested to continue the dialogue that you started. In the meantime, let’s EVERYONE go Garfield–in other words: STOP-“STANDARDIZED”-TESTING-in-2013. As Diane mentions in a later post, we DO have the mass. Yes WE can (& will)!
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a well deserved break!
Claudia Vizcarra
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Hope you are on a warm beach somewhere.
Please put Philly on your book tour. We need you!
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Congratulations! Enjoy your vacation!
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