I started this blog in April 2012, because I had a lot of things I wanted to say, more than I could put into a tweet. Since that time, I have posted commentaries more than 26,000 times. Most of the posts have been about testing and privatization because they are, in my view, destroying public education and real education. But I have also posted humor, political commentary, poetry, and whatever I felt like sharing with you. You have sent about 625,000 comments. I have read them all. A few weeks ago, the number of page views passed 38 million.
I recently decided that it was too much to continue the pace, a minimum of four posts, sometimes 5, 6, 7, 8 times a day. Obviously, I enjoyed it and I loved sharing what interested me with you, as well as your feedback. I learned so much from your comments, because you told me and everyone else what was happening in your town, your school, your state. Thank you for being such a strong and active community of readers and commenters.
One of the things that I am proudest of with this blog is that it has been a platform for so many other bloggers. I helped them reach a larger audience, and some now have their own well-established, well-earned reputations for wisdom and insight.
So here is the new plan. I will post my original comments and articles. I will post news and reports about the Network for Public Education. I will post original articles that have not appeared anywhere else, such as the brilliant commentaries by our reader Laura Chapman. I will report research that is not likely to get wide circulation if it interests me. I may occasionally post breaking news bulletins of interest to the community. With rare exceptions, I will no longer repost blogs by others.
Other bloggers have important articles, and they will still be posted, but not by me. That role has been assigned to the new Network for Public Education website, and it will be curated by the estimable and tireless Peter Greene. So I will urge you again and again to open the NPE link so you can see the great work that other bloggers are doing.
If you have a post that you want to share, send it to Carol Burris at cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org.
If you want to read Peter Greene’s choices of the best posts of the day, go to this link.
https://networkforpubliceducation.org/best-posts/
Thus, in the near future, expect to receive fewer posts from me. Maybe one or two or none a day.
We will see how that goes. Meanwhile, browse the 26,000 posts and be sure to read the new stuff. I love this community and I want to keep you in my living room.
Thank you for keeping us informed and supporting public education. Know that all those posts are valued and greatly, greatly appreciated.
Historic and heroic, useful, richly informative, tireless, inspiring and animating us into progressive advocacy. Thank you.
Thank you for your tireless work. We have been emboldened by your wisdom. My father, who was born the same year you were, was a dedicated reader as a retired teacher of 38 years. He passed last year after dealing with many health problems. He often wondered where you got the energy to keep up your pace as he was slowing down, but it was something he most admired about you—the tenacity and the resolve to never give up the fight.
I came on this blog in 2013 after doing a search about why teachers are so vilified. I also read “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” in a Social Philosophy of Education course I took in grad school a year earlier. It was a new awakening for me, and I have been an avid reader ever since. I cannot tell you what a tickle it was when you posted one of my comments way back when.
You have been and continue to be a treasure to all of us whether teacher, parent, community member or student. Championing the network of other strong voices such as yourself was essential work, and your dedication to the cause is very much appreciated. I look forward to your future posts knowing how rare they will be and how valuable they are.
Love you back, Diane. Thank you for years and years of great work and posts.
We have all benefited from your fabulous work and those of others you print here.
Thank you, thank you. I will continue to look for your sends as well a those from NPE.
I’ll only post a few (thousand)
I’ll only post a few
And honest. It is true!
I’m really cutting back
This time, it is a fact
My poet’s spring is dry
And poems will be rare
So find another guy
To write the poems here
Poet, your priceless work is always welcome here. As I said, I will not publish previously published work (with a few exceptions).
Your poems are not previously published.
I always enjoy your work, SDP!
Not published previously — OR subsequently, no doubt.
UNpublished
My poems aren’t published
Before or even after
And no surprise, cuz rubbish
Is destined for the dumpster
Or is it the Blogster?
Poet, if your reworking of Tennyson, Longfellow, and Carroll are rubbish, I would go dumpster diving for them.
I found a brand new $500 garage entry door in a dumpster at the town dump that the guy next to me threw in.
When I worked for a construction company as a carpenter, we did demolitions and threw away all sorts of good stuff.
And a friend of mine built his house with Windows from dumpsters.
So, Americans throw away all sorts of perfectly good stuff.
It’s who we are.
You are what you throw away.
Every archeologist knows that.
The new exterior door that I got from the dumpster is now on our garage, by the way.
I had to build the door jams for it and hang it, but I saved a bundle.
The old one was rotted and completely falling apart and legitimately ready for the trash.
Thank you for your incredible work! I have been following religiously since the beginning. First as a principal and then as a professor. I have shared your thoughts and findings on countless occasions. You have such a way of cutting to the core of an issue. Your work on this blog has truly made a difference!
Peace!
Thanks for your tireless work, Diane.
Diane, thank you so much for your work. I came to your posts from another reader as I recently decided that, although swamped with the work of learning to and teaching virtually, I wanted to become more informed about the unbelievable movement to destroy public education. I am much more informed and able to speak intelligently on the topic now, thanks to you.
You have made it possible for me to make comments on your blog without facing the huge learning curve of starting a blog of my own.
Next month I will be 86, never retired, and grateful to have kept on learning from you, others in your living room, and the many bloggers associated with NPE.
Enjoy your freedom from the self-imposed workload of multiple daily posts on this blog. Thank you is not enough. For everything there is a time and a season.
Laura, your contribution to the blog cannot be underestimated! Thank you for all your research.
Laura
You are sharper at 86 than most people are at 20.
Your knowledge of all the hidden passageways between the Deformer hideouts never ceases to amaze me.
As I have said before, you know more about Bill Gates and other Deformers than they know about themselves.
Laura:
You are amazing! Thank you for always doing the further research & for connecting all the dots for us.
& you & Diane have shown us: the 80s are the new 30s!
Diane, this is one of only 2 blogs I get, and the one I rely on to keep me thinking about education. Appreciate what you do, and will continue to; even with fewer posts, it is very very valuable. thank you
Diane,
Thanks for being our most valuable source of information and for allowing us to dialogue with each other. I am looking forward to your continued posting. Less can really be more.
I hope my reduction of posts will not inhibit the lively conversation among readers!
Sounds like a good idea, Diane! I have been subscribing to your blog for at least a year. I am a retired college sociology teacher–one of my upper level elective courses was School and Society. I used one of your books as required reading the last couple of times I taught the course. I appreciate keeping up to date on what’s happening to our precious public education “system,” and often despair about its future. I have shared a few of your posts to my Facebook page. Many of my friends are former students who are in the teaching profession.
Thank you for your scholarship and activism. You have provided a great sounding board for supporters of public education. I enjoy being part of this blog community as there is always something new to learn.
Please understand that your blog is more than just information. While in the trenches, I googled how to support public Ed that was being destroyed before my eyes. Your blog popped up and it was dynamite. After years of NCLB and then all hopes extinguished with Race to the Top the tears stopped. Your blog provided talking points and resources and connections. It helped to fuel action as I challenged administrators and school boards and colleagues. In essence it validated the way I had been feeling for years. The timing of the blog could not have been better. Thank you for your tireless efforts, for all you do for the children and for your champion support of public education. I will continue to check in daily!
Thanks for all that you do. This blog is prolific and I have no idea how you can read all the articles, books and comments while at the same time doing your own writings and making appearances/interviews at educational venues. You are not only a speed reader but also a speed comprehender.
All of the people who voted for Andrew Cuomo over Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout must be feeling pretty proud of their hero right about now.
Diane,
Thank you for your leadership.
In the 70’s, when my Leftist colleagues weren’t supposed to agree with your work, I always admired it.
I can’t think of a historian – in any field – who had such a profound, constructive effect on history as you.
Back when my high-challenge secondary school was collapsing, as corporate reformers blamed teachers, reading Deborah Meier and you kept me sane. And since then, you’ve personified what the nation needs to respect evidence-based discussions.
Thanks again for all you do.
When I retired in 2011, I had the unaccustomed luxury of time to read in the morning, so I formed the habit of reading all the news that’s fit to print. Not long thereafter, you began your blog, Diane. I soon realized that all the news I was interested in was not the insider ball at the NYT, but rather here. In so many ways, you’ve keep our democracy from dying in the darkness (long before the WaPo adopted that motto).
I’ll adjust my morning habits once more, reading here and also at NPE, where your choice of Peter Greene will insure excellence in editorial oversight.
Thank you for leading by example with your activism, outrage, and determination on behalf of our nation’s cornerstone, public education.
I can only echo all the comments above, especially those of LG, Christine, and John. And like John, I believe keeping a sense sanity is the most important value of this blog. Reading The Death and Life of the Great American School System was a seminal moment in my life. Prior to that, I had a lot of nagging doubts about this nation starting in 2010-11, doubts I could never quite articulate before. Reign of Error was another inspiration. I found your blog in the summer of 2016 when, again, I was starting to question my sanity. The vast majority of the comments and ideas voiced here helped me to clear my head and gave me a place to vent and lower–and, admittedly, sometimes raise–my blood pressure. I’d like to thank you and all my other “friends” here for allowing me to do so. It’s good to know we’re in this together, that we’re not alone. Just wish there were more of us.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for planning for the future. Your leadership has been critical, your advocacy essential. Now enjoy the freedom to do things just for the heck of it!
I like the idea of best posts of the day by Peter Greene on the NPE site. It will be helpful, I think.
Yes, Diane. Many, many thanks for indulging my various and sundry….
Diane, you & this blog have opened my mind to many issues & points of view I may not have considered otherwise. The intelligent, (usually) civil conversation here is a pleasure to participate in, & a welcome respite from most other comment boards.
I have a suggestion.
Add a link for the “Network for Public Education Website” in the menu bar at the top of your website.
Right now that menu bar across the top says:
Home About Follow Diane’s posts Blog Topics.
My suggestion is to add “Network for Public Education Website” to the right of “Blog Topics”.
NOTE: In my previous comment, I added several spaces between each link to help avoid confusion, but when I posted my comment, those spaces vanished cramming all the links together.
To be clear, the menu bar that appears at the top of your blog’s page runs from left to right and says;
Home
About
Follow Diane’s Posts
Blog Topics
ADD:
Network for Publication Website
Thanks for offering your living room
“What a gifted writer and historian” I remarked to my self while reading Left Back.
I introduced my 92 year old self with the following.
I am writing a book I call The Syllabus of Adulthood, in which I address solutions to destructive adolescent behavior by recommending long past due changes in preadolescent schooling. One requires teaching driving lessons beginning at age nine in fourth grade using auto simulators.
Neural networks representing explicit skill lessons will copy in the cerebellum as internal models to serve as implicit, unconscious, behavior prompts to adolescent licensed drivers and their dare-taunting peers, eliminating to a large degree automobile accidents and loss of life. (Self-driving automobiles will not be available to the general public before 2050, according to latest reporting.)
You eventually directed me to this blog. Like trying to mount a horse already running, I never did quite get in the saddle.
You’re not just a gifted writer and historian, you are a gift to every parent with a child, who cares about the kind of education that child receives. You are a gift to this country.
Your light will shine on this blog and its participants, however much you reduce your presence.
Thank you for illuminating me to your concerns about the future of public education. I have them in mind as I progress along my own path towards its improvement.
Another youngster here, Darrell! Your writing is admirable.
Dear Diane You have been indefatiguable (sp?) and I much admire you. Thanks seeing Education so broadly–everything matters. Stay well. Mary Stimpson Rivkin “60
On Mon, Mar 1, 2021 at 6:02 AM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” I started this blog in April 2012, because I had a > lot of things I wanted to say, more than I could put into a tweet. Since > that time, I have posted commentaries more than 26,000 times. Most of the > posts have been about testing and privatization because ” >
indefatigable
I had to look it up, it’s been awhile since I used the word in a sentence.
Naturally, it has Latin roots: from Latin indēfatīgābilis, from in- + dēfatīgāre, from fatīgāre to tire]
tireless, untiring, unflagging, unwearied, determined, tenacious, dogged, single-minded, assiduous, industrious, hard-working, unswerving, unfaltering, unwavering, unshakable, resolute, indomitable, persistent, relentless, unremitting
And one smart cookie!
Indefatigable and Undefeatigable
Diane is indefatigable
Posting every day
Really undefeatigable
Keeps the wolves at bay
Thank you for everything you do and will do here, Diane. You have been my window on the news—and history, economics, politics, etc [everything intersects at education] for quite a few years now. And more: you are my one and only “virtual” mentor. Though we may never meet IRL, know that you are right up there with my mother and my long-time therapist as life guides. This blog and its wonderful conversants have inspired me to learn more about more fields than I ever could have imagined. I look forward to continuing in your blog’s new format in tandem with well-chosen curator/ adjunct Peter Greene at the NPE site.
Good move in slimming down your work, since if viewers want to read blogs from others, they should subscribe to them.
Among many, many wonderful things, you helped us get through the past four years.
The nation owes leaders like you a huge debt of gratitude.
It ain’t over, John. We fight on. You won’t be inundated with my posts as you have been in the past. But I will post whatever I feel like posting, while trying to abide by my intention to limit myself to original articles by me or others, breaking news, important research.
Thank you Diane for supplying a forum for us to learn, grow, and love as we vent our anxieties on a topic near and dear to all our hearts.
Well done!
I understand completely. It is time you listen to the voice in YOUR head. I will always invite you into my room.
Thank you, Diane, for welcoming us into your living room for so many years. I started reading you (& Deborah Meier) in Education Week when I retired in 2010, & had more time. I wished that you had your own blog &–just like that, in April, 2012–you did it!
We know how much influence the posts & the comments exert: important information & dialogue vital to educators, parents, students, communities, the world.
I’ve got to say: you’ve said this before (less posts) so I’ll believe it when I see it.
But, I hope you will do it for you, & we kids, here, will be alright.
Just as long as you don’t turn off the living room light & lock the door.
Thank you for all of your hard work, Diane. I have learned so much from you and from this blog. I hope you can get more down time and relaxation. I will do what I can to carry on this work in my region.