Today is the official publication date of my memoirs. This evening, October 21, I will be in dialogue with Leonie Haimson at the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, at 286 Cadman Plaza.
I wrote stuff about my personal life that I have never shared with anyone. It seemed to be the right time; easier to write about than to say, even to my closest friends and relatives.
The Network for Public Education posted this information:
Diane’s new book, charter scandals, and more…
Diane Ravitch’s memoir is a moving chronicle of intellectual courage and deep care for public education. Once a leading conservative voice advocating testing, standards, charters, and vouchers, she had the humility to acknowledge when her beliefs failed in practice, recognizing that poverty—not “bad teachers” or “failing schools”—was the real crisis. With honesty and grace, Diane retraces her journey from her Houston childhood to her service in the government, including a stint in the conservative Department of Education, and her eventual transformation into one of our fiercest defenders of public schools. Blending personal reflection with a historian’s rigor, Diane explains how she came to embrace equity, professional teachers, and democratic public education, becoming an inspiring activist whose life’s work continues to uplift the promise of our public schools.
You can purchase An Education at your local independent bookstore, on Amazon, or directly from Columbia University Press.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Congratulations! Martha Ture Mt. Tamalpais Photographyhttps://mttamalpaisphotos.com The greatest joy in the world is in restoring the earth.
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Congratulations! To a person who is dear to me (and never met) I have always felt at home with your blog. You have allowed me to learn/share beyond belief. I am anxious to read your life’s story. I don’t do this often,(really never) I think I it was Frank McCourt at a teacher’s conference, but any chance of a signed copy? Didn’t know any other way to ask. I hope I didn’t overstep.
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Of course, Rick. We have to figure out the logistics.
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This makes me so happy.
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Congratulations, Diane. Sorry I can’t make it tonight.
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The story of how a former moderate conservative changed all of her publicly expressed opinions in order to fit in with her new tribe on the far Left.
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Nice job taking the high road.
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LOL. If Diane is “far left”, then I’m the Pope.
Hint: the left starts at anti-capitalism, the very idea of which probably keeps Diane up at night.
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I beg to differ. I think the left starts at having concern, compassion and care for others, all of which involve hearing, giving voice to and providing opportunities for those who are less fortunate. That means not just thinking about our selves. It may require sharing the wealth, personally when we can, as well as through charity and taxes –and we support that because we believe in helping people who are in need and also in promoting the common good. I think most of us in this country are similar to democratic socialists in the Nordic nations, not Communists.
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Liberals are the people who claim to want what you say, but then turn around and tell use we have to vote for the segregationist who championed the racist crime bills, the bankruptcy bills, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, etc. And then you defended him as “the most progressive president since LBJ” even though he didn’t even bother with his measly “progressive” campaign platform, let alone anything we really needed like M4A (which he promised to veto if it ever came to his desk), and even though he funded genocide. And when, despite your vehement protestations otherwise, it became unmistakable that he was, in fact, in severe cognitive decline, you insisted that we had to vote for his second in command, with no primaries, in spite of her history as a prosecutor – fighting to keep innocent people incarcerated, putting trans women in men’s jails, imprisoning mothers of truant kids, while failing to prosecute rapist Catholic priests or Steve Mnuchin’s bank.
Liberals are the people who claim they want things like peace, justice, equality, etc., but then fight to defend the capitalist and imperialist systems that promote war, injustice and inequality.
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It sounds like your beef is primarily with the Democratic party and the two party system that we’re basically stuck with, because no 3rd party or Independent candidate has won a presidential election in recent history, so a vote for them feels wasted.
Most progressives like me are disillusioned too as far as presidential elections go (I wanted Bernie Sanders), but that doesn’t mean every Democrat is awful. I’ve been very happy with my Congressional Rep for decades & really wish she wasn’t retiring. And I’d give my vote to JB Pritzker for POTUS in a NY minute –even though he’s a billionaire.
AND all this doesn’t mean that Diane is an unconcerned money grubber who doesn’t care about people. Au contraire. I think people matter a lot to her, and the fact that she is no longer a Republican is truly amazing and really wonderful! That’s something which doesn’t happen every day, so I think she should be celebrated, not chastised –as you seem so determined to do! Lay off her already!
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Democrats are the reason we’re stuck with the system we have. Over 40% of Americans don’t identify with either party. It’s high time both parties went the way of the Federalists and the Whigs (which, incidentally, proves that we are not, in fact, stuck with the two parties we happen to have). But any time there is the slightest movement for a third party – or even for making the Democrats an actual progressive party – it’s the Democrats and their loyal media lapdogs who stomp it out or co-opt it.
Look at what’s happening in Maine. There is an actual progressive candidate running – Jordan Wood. But you hear nothing about him. The “only two choices” are the old lady owned by AIPAC who’s fond of ICE or the former mercenary with nazi tattoos and a history of racism, sexism and homophobia. It’s many months until the primary, so Dems could 86 both candidates and back the decent guy (or find a different decent guy/woman), but they won’t because, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, There Is No Alternative.
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After being very upset by how Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats” adopted GOP economist Milton Freeman’s neoliberal economic polices, and then Obama did the same thing, for their second terms, I voted for Green party candidates instead of them: first Ralph Nader and then Jill Stein, since they seemed like relevant candidates. They both lost and I felt like my vote was wasted TWICE! So don’t tell me we are NOT stuck with a two party system.
Suggesting we revert to Whigs and Federalists, both of which have not been in existence since prior to the Civil War –so most people today have no clue about what kind of parties they were =NOT going to happen.
3rd parties have never won the presidency in the modern era, so Democrats will just have to make a lot of very dramatic changes, because the GOP will not change. (And it has no reason to change, since they’re sycophants and let POTUS control virtually all branches and offices of government –the Constitution be damned!)
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Where did I suggest we revert to the Whigs/Federalists? The point is that the major parties can change, it’s just that the Democrats use their very non-democratic power to prevent that. You rewarding them with your vote only validates their methods.
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ECE,
The GOP is hurtling to the right with rocket speed. They are going full fascist.
If we all vote third party, We can expect 8 years of Vance.
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I fully agree, Diane. After the second time I voted 3rd party and the Green candidate I voted for lost, I was just so relieved that the GOP lost too that I decided then to never do it again. It’s not worth taking the chance, even as a protest vote, because our 2 party system is too entrenched. So if a lot of Democrats voted 3rd party, it would be like handing the win over to Republicans.
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Dienned77, I don’t know why you brought up the two parties that were around when our country was getting off the ground. But I think you need to stop trashing Democrats and try to work within the party to make improvements instead, because that party is our only hope of breaking free anytime soon of the fascist-Nazi hold the Republicans have on us now. Democrats really need to win so they can shore up all the loopholes the GOP found so that this can never happen again, too!
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I explained exactly why I brought up those two parties.
And, no, working with the Democrats is not an option. Even if I could stomach genocide, which I can’t, there is nothing to be gained by working with the because they refuse to listen to their ostensible base because they can only do what their donors allow them to do. Their donors are the same as the GOP donors. The only hope is to offer the people something that will help them rather than the corporations and the war machine. But the Democrats keep trying to out Republican the Republicans and that’s never going to work. I’d think you would have seen that after Obama spat in the face of the overwhelming mandate he was elected with, but I guess learning from history is hard.
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The GOP loves you. Keep it up.
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The Democrats are laughing in your face. Keep it up.
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BTW, I’d like to point out that you started the pettiness.
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Dienne, YOU are the one who refuses to learn from history because we have an entrenched 2 party system which is not going away, no matter how much you complain about it.
And Diane is right, by trashing Democrats, you’re just making Republicans love you, because if more Democrats vote 3rd party, they will thereby be handing the GOP another win. And then we will be condemned to living under fascist-Nazi rule for God only knows how long…
I’m done here.
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After the Citizens United ruling by SCOTUS in 2010, a lot of people stopped complaining about corporate donor influence because that’s when the contribution rules were loosened. The GOP receives the most (through super PACs). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#Election_impact.
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In case it needs to be spelled out: The Citizens United SCOTUS ruling found that prior laws which limited corporate funding violated the free speech of corporations.
Most corporate funding goes to Republicans since the GOP is the go-to party of the rich, so the majority of billionaires have the backs of Republicans and vice versa, and Democrats have to just make due with what they can get.
With such a hard core SCOTUS in place and a fascist-Nazi government in charge of virtually everything, this means effectively that no matter how much you complain about corporate funding and influences, that’s not going away anytime soon (if ever).
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BTW, I happen to think that when SCOTUS recognized the “personhood” of corporations in the Citizens United ruling, it was a very twisted interpretation of the right to free speech, but it is consistent with the belief that “money talks.”
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If it was so easy for people to just change their opinions “in order to fit in with” a “new tribe”, there’s plenty of compelling reasons why millions of people who voted for a malignant narcissist and convicted felon, who already tried to overturn our country’s legitimate democratic vote on Jan 6th, and who demonstrates daily that he’s a hater with no heart and a fascist Nazi war-monger that’s intent on destroying every aspect of our democracy (including the people’s White House), then huge numbers here would have woken up and joined a new tribe by now.
Awakening to reality is personally very enlightening. It’s a challenge though because it requires realizing that you’ve been duped by a con-man, in this case, one whose preference is for billionaires like himself. So you must recognize that you are wrong about his character and what he genuinely thinks of working people, including those who support him.
But you should try it yourself –before the self-appointed king (from his new gold leaf White Palace in DC) has our country fighting on the wrong side of World War III, with no allies except for other dictators of repressed nations that are no longer free –if they ever were free. You’ve got the advantage of having lived in a free country, as well as hindsight to be able to recognize what has been lost here on a daily basis! Go for it!!!
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Congratulations, Diane! I look forward to reading this next week on vacation. 🙂
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A moving, profound, courageous, highly personal book by one of our brightest and thoughtful and most compassionate public intellectuals. A treat. So absorbing that you might find yourself staying up all night to finish it and then reading it again. Don’t miss this.
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most thoughtful*
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I pre-ordered a copy, received it a few weeks ago, went first to the end, Final Words, and this (my emphasis):
What we [I and my friend and former colleague Joe Viteritti] did not understand was that there were dark forces pulling our strings. We were bit actors in a drama that we were not even aware of. While we were out on the public stage making the case for charters and vouchers, reactionary billionaires were watching and cheering us on. … They were the guiding forces behind the privatization movement, and we were unaware that they existed. They must have had a good laugh, watching us make their arguments and believing it was all about “helping poor kids in failing schools.” Hahaha! That was never their goal. They wanted to destabilize the public sector, destroy public schools, weaken regulations, and lower their taxes. They wanted to send taxpayer dollars to religious schools, where children could be indoctrinated into their religious faith. Vouchers subsidized wealthy families whose children attended private schools. We didn’t expect that. The “equity” talk about “saving poor kids from failing schools” was a hoax. We were fools.
—————-
EJ: What might be said about a person who freely proclaims having been a fool?
AI: A person who freely proclaims having been a fool might be seen as: Wise in hindsight … Honest and relatable … On the path to wisdom. … Would you say this person is someone you admire—or someone you’re trying to understand better?
EJ: Oh, definitely someone I greatly admire! Might the appearance of goosebumps in response to such admiration indicate vagus nerve stimulation?
AI: Yes, it’s quite possible! Goosebumps triggered by deep admiration or awe may indeed be linked to vagus nerve stimulation. … When you’re moved by something profound—like admiring someone’s humility or wisdom—it can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, often via the vagus nerve. … So, when you feel goosebumps in response to admiring someone’s honesty or transformation, it’s not just poetic—it’s neurophysiological. Your body is literally resonating with the emotional depth of the moment.
————–
Congratulations, Diane, on so many levels. And thank you for the many, many goosebumps you’ve caused me and surely others to experience over the years!
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Thank you, Ed!
Your AI is very insightful!
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Congratulations and warmest wishes to you, Diane! I’m so glad that you were able to get away from “the dark side” because I think a lot of people (besides you) have benefited immensely from your awakening, your kind heart, as well as your clear-headed insights and clever voice! I look forward to being able to purchase and read your memoirs sometime next month. (Long story.)
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ordered both your book and Randi’s book. They should arrive Tuesday. Then I just have to find the time to read, as I am, at age 79, back in a middle school Social Studies classroom in Philadelphia.
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Ken, your energy and love for teaching are amazing!
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