Ken Previti was puzzled that the U.S. Department of
Education paid someone to “monitor” what I wrote. Here
is his response to the latest effort to discredit my criticism of
corporate reform.
Why should the government monitor
critics? How does it feel to know that the U.S. government is
watching you and monitoring what you write? At the time, I heard
rumors about it, but I didn’t believe it. Now I feel as though I
was on Nixon’s famous Enemies’ List. It is a distinction I wear
with pride. I am praying for the strength and health to stand up for those of you who spend their your days in our nation’s schools, doing the hard work of educating children.
Thank you for having my back. Your protection means more to me than you will ever know.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, you are the best~! When are you speaking in New York City?
I will post my schedule in about 10 days. I am speaking on September 11 at 6 pm at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square, on the NYU campus, sponsored by Class Size Matters and New Yorkers for Great Public Schools.
Oh I’m sure they’ll be watching. How bizarre.
Wish I had the list of everyone on the WATCH LIST!
I have been hassled!
This is real. In a sense, even our good teachers who are pushing back are also on a Watch List even if that one is energetic in form. It saps the mind, body and spirit to resist their systematic de-skilling. So let’s send the warning to all….cuidado mi commadres y compadres and fight on for our children and our democracy.
Does anyone know how to do an FOI on one’s files that the FBI or CIA may have on a person?
Diane, I have a related question. My students, in a class on educational theory and philosophy, are reading The end of education, by Neil Postman. We also follow your blog as a ‘text’ for the course. The students wonder if you have any response to your appearance in the Postman book. It falls (as you no doubt know) on p. 38. He quotes from a 1993 article in the Economist, where you comment on the potential of technology to disrupt the structure of schooling. Thanks for any feedback.
Neil,
I only vaguely remember that article. I remember writing it a few months after I left the Bush I administration. I was at Brookings at the time. I was asked to predict what education might look like in 150 years. What an assignment! I hope I said that children need teachers, not headsets. But actually I have no sure recollection of what I wrote then.
Unfortunately, Postman quotes you as saying that schools should “reduce the function of teachers to ‘coaches’ in the uses of machines.” Out of context, perhaps, to make a point?
Coaches do not teach? Must you be a sage on the stage to be called a teacher?
You are on the right side of children, the right side of teachers and parents. Thousands of kick-butt educators have your back, always!
It is exhausting to keep standing up for decency, love for our children and grandchildren. Being a grandmother myself, I appreciate all you do for all of us.
Stasi Tactics are becoming the norm in this country. So wrong, but the sociopathic climate will not change anytime soon. I am prepared to grow big hairy b**s and go down fighting and ringing all bells necessary to stand up for doing the right thing for children.
My husband spent his entire career in higher education, and I spent 40 years in public schools dedicated to educating children. We will not quit now, even if they have all the $$$ in the world, bug EVERYTHING, cheat us at every corner, lower all ToxicTests to 5% or less passing rate….it can’t last forever. It won’t!
Stay strong, your ARMY is out here.
“I am prepared to grow big hairy b**s and go down fighting and ringing all bells necessary to stand up for doing the right thing for children.”
Dang! That is one scary image!
From one grandmother to another.
Your reaction to my rather descriptive human anatomy had me almost falling out of my favorite comfy chair.
Too funny! I guess I was just a bit ‘out there’ with my personal drama. Almost equal to SNL Betty White’s skit about ‘dusty muffins’.
Dare I digress!
Diane, we love you, we support you, our kids need you! Thank you
You know, every computer I post on is getting incredibly slow. Maybe I’m on the watch list too? If so, UP YOURS ARNE AND PETER!!!!!
Yes, indeed, education bloggers are the best. Here’s my latest education blog. http://systemschangeconsulting.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/inclusion-as-a-path-to-friendship-time-to-end-segregated-schools/
There is beauty and power in numbers and solidarity.
Here’s to collectivist thinking and actions for the sake of the common good and public trusts of our society.
Here’s to having each other’s backs in the fight for equality, and fiscal and social justice.
May the truth render the biggest victory of all so that each may have his/her needs met with excellence and dignity . . . .
Diane:
I must be missing something. Why wouldn’t they monitor what is said here? I would have thought that at the least it signals that you are being listened to, if not necessarily agreed with. For example, it is hard to imagine that the discussion today on the 1st Grade ELA curriculum will not cause some relooking at what is being put into the curriculum.
She is being listened to, Bernie. You’re right.
And Duncan’s people are recording every molecule of written and spoken word (but does the latter include her landline and cell phones?) in order to study meticulously her every point and to analyze patterns and trends in her commentary so that they can come back to all their coporate media buddies and find some way to decontexturalize her words and smear her.
They CLEARLY see Diane as a force to be reckoned with, if not a threat to their disgusting and disingenuous agenda.
This is more than academic discourse. This is a targeting of Diane because she dares to questions, confront, and oppose, all with intelligence, science, and erudition, the very traits the Duncanists envy and are deficient in . . . .
Please follow what is going on in Dallas with Mike Miles the last days (see DMN education blog)…I think the feathers are about to fly; fiinally Broads’ sneaky tactics are seeing the light of day!!!
Here in Connecticut, several districts both high and low performing are taking money from the classroom to pay for “Communications Director” positions. In fact, we have a new Superintendent in Norwalk, CT (guess where he has passed through and his connections? Broad, NYC, etc.) who will allocate almost $88,000 dollars to the salary to that “critical need.” Another district, while threatening cuts to a “challenge program” found money to pay for a communications specialist.
Now reading that there was an official federal position that monitored what Diane wrote, and we paid for this with tax payer dollars, why am I starting to feel that my local tax dollars are now going to do the same thing?
Is this a plan to ensure every municipality has a “Local Ministry of Propaganda” to respond to critics of policies?
This is scary!
How much we have changed since the Nixon days. Illegal and unconstitutional were strong words during the Nixon era. Those words, intrinsic to maintaining the US as a democracy, no longer carry any weight.
Read Daniel Ellsberg’s statement on the direction this country is taking. Please do not believe that it cannot happen here.
It is happening:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/daniel-ellsberg-bradley-manning_n_3793199.html
The best thing about being on a Watch List is that one can use that conduit to get one’s information to them, too! Even though, we can’t influence them with facts, knowledge and experience, we can respond to their ignorance, inexperience and lack of knowledge in a quick manner.
Bloom where we are planted! Even in cement parking lot cracks or on fertile soil.
After all, we are educators. We have had more challenging scenarios on a given year, with more challenging students in tough schools! When in doubt, L.A.U.G.H.
Happy Sunday to all!