Last year, when I spoke in Indianapolis to the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, I was interviewed by Gregory J. Marchant, professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. He published the interview, and it was recently selected as the most read article in the journal in 2014. Greg asked some penetrating questions about my personal journey in the world of education research. You might find it interesting to read. He is a good interviewer, and I was very colloquial, as I tend to be.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Ravitch, Diane, Resistance, Teachers and Teaching

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Laura H. Chapman says:

April 4, 2015 at 2:39 pm

“Sometimes I’m intemperate, but I’m of an age where I don’t care
anymore.”

Me too.

Great interview and personal history not widely known. Bibliography is also important.

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- Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:
  
  April 4, 2015 at 4:40 pm
  
  I love that quote! Great interview. Thank you!
  
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ira shor says:

April 4, 2015 at 3:22 pm

just stopped everything to read it–wow, great piece, feels like a powerful launch to finally bringing democratic practice into education…great story.

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teacherbatman says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:03 pm

Thanks Diane. You are a real superhero.

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retired teacher says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:15 pm

Thank you for your candor and honesty. It’s refreshing as so many public figures speak with “forked tongue.”

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  April 4, 2015 at 4:19 pm
  
  That forked tongue being “dogma”.
  
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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  April 4, 2015 at 4:30 pm
  
  …and with forked dung, too.
  
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booklady says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:18 pm

It’s a terrific read, and I appreciate your posting it. I remember hearing an NPR interview you did in 2010 that stimulated me to read Death and Life GAS (have told many people to read it). It was fascinating to learn the details between HW Bush Dept Ed and 2010.

Let’s all urge our contacts to be vocal.

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Duane Swacker says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:19 pm

“who are espousing a strong dogma are persuaded by stories and narratives and not by facts. Facts are irrelevant. You can keep giving all the facts about why they are wrong, but they don’t listen to you. They have a dogma and their dogma is always right; there’s a right answer and a wrong answer.”

Yes, it is amazing how irrationally and illogically thinking humans can be, having much of their life dictated by dogma whether intellectual, political or religious.

After all dogma is “am god” backwards.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  April 4, 2015 at 4:26 pm
  
  “I supported No Child Left Behind (and at the time everybody did)”
  
  And there is that dogma raising its ugly head as, of course, not all of us supported NCLB but rejected it from the gitgo.
  
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 4:32 pm
    
    Duane,
    There are many small errors that happen in conversation and that I was unable to correct. That was one. The other was the odd statement that Lamar Alexander has been Assistant Secretary for research, when in fact I was talking about Checker Finn. No one, including me, ever calls him Chester.
    
    I well knew that many people opposed NCLB, but not in Congress. About 90% of Congress voted for it, even more Democrats than Republicans. Who wants to leave any child behind?
  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 4:54 pm
    
    Diane,
    
    I did not mean my statement to be an indictment but just as an example of that pernicious “dogma”. At the time, as you indicate, the majority believed that NCLB was indeed going to be THE salvation. It is quite easy for us to see the dogmatic aspects after the fact but few see that dogma at work at the time-history (as you know) is replete with it (dogma) in many forms.
    
    And that is why I continue to push for the logical and rational truth about the dogma of educational standards, standardized testing and the supposed measurement of the teaching and learning process-most have been so enculturated into that dogma that they cannot hardly begin to bring themselves to begin to doubt those supposed “truths”, much less doubt them.
    
    Not many have your abilities in looking at prior foundational beliefs and, finding evidence to the contrary, change those beliefs-what I would call a true scientist. I applaud you and thank you for this forum. It’s subtitle could be “education dogma destruction”.
  - SomeDAM Poet says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 5:01 pm
    
    “what I would call a true scientist.”
    
    Also what I would call a true scientist.
    
    Richard Feynman (who was also a true scientist) once commented about being a scientist that “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”
  - retired teacher says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 5:17 pm
    
    I think most people want to improve education, and I have always tried to stay open to new ideas. As for NCLB, when I looked at the final years of NCLB and saw that everyone had to be on or above grade level, I knew this was nonsense. It was a statistical impossibility! NCLB was another dispatch from the bubble. From that point on the everything has gone down hill. Now the assertions from the insane testing are even more absurd.
  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 5:23 pm
    
    rt,
    
    “NCLB was another dispatch from the bubble.”
    TAGO!
John Ogozalek says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:25 pm

To quote one of Diane’s responses from the article: “What I am trying to do with the blog is to give people the understanding that this is national. They are not alone, and this is what teachers tell me when they write to me at night. I frequently get off-line letters, and they say you’ve given me again, courage, support, you make me realize I’m not alone and you’ve given me the courage.” VERY TRUE. And, that’s why I am always telling everyone I talk to about schools and children….check out Diane Ravitch. Really, at this point it’s really some of the best advice I have to give.

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SomeDAM Poet says:

April 4, 2015 at 4:36 pm

“Changing your mind”

Changing your mind
Is not a crime
When err you find
In reason or rhyme

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Lloyd Lofthouse says:

April 4, 2015 at 5:29 pm

I should have been out in the yard on the hillside behind our house hours ago with the battery powered weed whacker—instead, I sat hunched over in front of my desk top reading that interview, smiling and laughing with tears in my eyes. Some of those tears are still lingering and that’s good because tears lubricate eyes that are usually too dry for someone who is almost seventy.

Back in the late 1980s, near the beginning of my second decade as a classroom teacher, I started to think there was some sort of covert conspiracy being waged against the public schools and teachers, but I couldn’t find any evidence, and I convinced myself I was imagining it—that it was all a coincidence.

But what was happening in the district where I taught was not my imagination. The teachers in that district were under attack by district administration and it was getting worse annually. At the time, I thought it was just that district’s school board, the district’s superintendent and his assistant superintendents, and what was happening in that district was an isolated event. I saw a lot of good teachers that I knew quit and move to teach in other districts and then I lost contact with them. I refused to quit and stayed to fight, and fight I did until I was being warned by not only the local teachers union—at one point the union supported me with lawyers during the hottest battle I fought with the district administration—but also by vice principals that I trusted who warned me to stop being publicly critical of their management of the district or they were going to find a way to get rid of me. I was also told they were afraid of me because of my “poison” pen.

They didn’t fire me. I retired on my own after thirty years in the classroom, and a few administrators in that district office probably went out to celebrate when I left. In fact, that big battle, where the union provided legal support through one of CTA’s lawyers, ended with the principal, who was a puppet of district administration brought in to specifically break the teachers at the high school where I worked—I was not the only rebel at that HS—was fired for failing to achieve what the district wanted, and he had three years left on his contract.

I didn’t care. I was a crusty former U.S. Marine and a Vietnam combat vet with PTSD, and I learned the hard way in combat when snipers were coming real close to taking me out that the only thing to fear is fear itself. I fought those district tyrants until I retired. And I’m still fighting, but, with damaged feet, I think I’m too old to take the fight to the streets. I’ll leave that to the youngsters.

Now I know without a doubt that what I suspected was true all along. It was and still is a conspiracy but this conspiracy of dunces is out of the closet and Diane might be the one who opened that closet door and dragged them out in to the sunlight where they can’t hide.

Thank you. I still have a few hours of afternoon sunlight, so now I’m off to whack weeds, and each one I whack will be seen as an effigy for a corporate reformer, and we have a lot of weeds on that hillside so maybe I’ll whack them all.

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- Betsy Marshall says:
  
  April 4, 2015 at 6:19 pm
  
  Thank you for adding more color and depth to the portrait of Lloyd Lofthouse. I like to see the people that I speak and listen to.
  
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  - Lloyd Lofthouse says:
    
    April 4, 2015 at 9:43 pm
    
    Your Welcome.
    
    :o)
    
    I ended up cleaning up the yard and whacking weeds for 3.5 hours, and now my feet are sore as usual. This job job never ends, and we don’t even have grass—just a tribe of really big oak trees that like to drop a few tons of leaves every fall.
    
    LOL
KrazyTA says:

April 4, 2015 at 6:07 pm

IMHO, this is one of the best postings on this blog. Period.

And as concerns dogma (see Duane Swacker above, quoting from and commenting on the interview)—when it comes to the self-styled “education reformers” and their self-serving privatization schemes and twisted numbers games and perversely destructive incentives like merit pay and their shameless attempt to create a two-tiered education system that comfortingly reassures the comfortable and deeply afflicts the afflicted—

It’s déjà vu all over again of proven failures, constantly recycled and rebranded, just the same old putrid wine in new shiny bottles. And stretching across geographical lines and historical eras and political philosophies.

Self-correction? Homegrown talent pegged the “thought leaders” of the “new civil rights movement of our time” some time ago:

“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.” [Dorothy Parker]

And in the extended meaning to which the following quote has been put:

“There is no there there.” [Gertrude Stein]

Perfectly describes the hollowness of the rheephorm playbook. *Full description: The Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$.”

But enough of the negative. Homegrown talent also reminds us to give credit where credit is due:

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” [Mark Twain]

*Hint for those doing too much CCSS closet reading: I am referring in the above to the owner of this blog.*

And just what does moral courage consist of? Again, the same talent brings it home:

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” [Mark Twain]

“Diane Ravitch’s blog A site to discuss better education for all.”

Color me, and a lot of other people, gratified and astonished.

😎

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Kathleen says:

April 4, 2015 at 7:24 pm

Diane: you give me hope and the will to continue the fight. Thank you.

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Greg Marchant says:

April 4, 2015 at 8:32 pm

I greatly appreciate the time that you took in your crazy schedule to provide the interview. It was an honor and a privilege. Thanks for the blog mention.

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AlwaysLearning says:

April 4, 2015 at 10:17 pm

“To see these guys who are making money hand over fist, and they’ve made it a mission of discouraging teachers and pushing them out of the classroom because they cost too much. A lot of what’s behind this is budget cutting.” So very sad but true. Thank you for exposing the truth and validating what we have all suspected.

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Chiara says:

April 5, 2015 at 12:23 am

If you read ed reform sites and you’re a public school parent, something really sticks out and it’s this: they never mention public schools with the exception of promoting testing in public schools.

There’s elaborate analysis and promotion of charter schools, but the only mention of public schools has to do with testing. Try it yourself. Read what they write and promote.

Tweets by edu_post

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Bridget says:

April 5, 2015 at 12:37 am

After reading the interview, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and revisit the first posts Diane started in 2012. I even found a July 2012 repost of one of my own comments. I wasn’t even sure what a blog was back then, but I knew I had found a place of comfort. I was ready to give up and retire. Thanks to Diane, I am still in education. You have been a great role model. Since then I have moved from teacher, to administrator, to district supervisor. I now oversee our District’s programs for at-risk and special Ed students. I am a fierce advocate for children, parents, and teachers. If not for this blog, I think I may have given up back then. Now I’ve learned that there is power in numbers, but also more power in knowledge. Thanks to Diane and the many commenters, for educating me on Ed Reform. I truly believe we will win this fight now that parents are waking up to the realities of this education take over. I was amazed to see an August 2012 Texas Parent Opt Out letter on this blog. Parents are the key.
It’s getting more and more difficult to remain, because there is so much happening that I find hard to watch. But I want to be here to help the children who have no voice. Thanks to my blog family for helping keep me sane. At least I think I still am…Happy Easter!

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- John Ogozalek says:
  
  April 5, 2015 at 6:07 am
  
  Great comment, Bridget.
  
  Happy Easter to you, too.
  
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NY Teacher says:

April 5, 2015 at 9:04 am

You may have changed your mind, but you stayed true to your values of always trying to do what was best for public education.

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Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

April 5, 2015 at 9:13 am

A wise man once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Emerson, by the way. We have to change our minds when facts and experience warrant or we are fools.

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drext727 says:

April 6, 2015 at 6:26 am

Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.

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