Longtime author and education historian, Diane Ravitch, has come full circle on education reform. Once its champion who supported school choice using charter schools and increased accountability, her new book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education," now makes her a fierce critic of education reform.

Dr. Ravitch discusses her new book in today's Wall Street Journal (here) in overwrought fashion by writing the "current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools" and accuses the Obama administration of believing the solution is to "fire teachers and close schools." She also faults the Bush era No Child Left Behind Act as imposing "draconian penalties" on schools failing to make AYP. This would be news to many, including the Journal, which was a critic of Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' refusal to actually impose penalties on states that receive billions in federal education aid without enforcing the corrective actions required of failing schools.

She also attacks charter schools as ineffective and failing in their promise, while acknowledging they remain only 3 percent of the total number of public schools. Dr. Ravitch's criticisms of charters mirror many of Michael Mulgrew's UFT talking points. The Chalkboard previously pointed out her "negative waves" about charters here. What she omits is that the charter laws in many states themselves are ineffective and permit not much more than district-type schools.

Coming Full Circle to Conventional Thinking
Dr. Ravitch, for all her knowledge and experience, comes off with her latest treatise as oh-so-conventional by falling back on the same shibboleths and excuse-making typical of so many urban school districts. She even dusts off that golden oldie: blaming "poverty" for low student academic performance, rather than the adults in charge of the school systems doing such a disservice to so many young people in need. Weak-kneed public officials and stultifying teacher union contracts she finds no fault, even as Time magazine's Joe Klein (here) and Newsweek's Evan Thomas (here) challenge this ongoing education malpractice.

For a more detailed critique of Dr. Ravitch's book, see Tom Carroll's review in the Huffington Post (here).

Not only is Dr. Ravitch the latest and consummate champion of conventional thinking in public education, but she's a vapid one at that. She opposes charter schools, and federally-inspired testing and accountability, yet is bereft of anything thoughtful or useful in their place. Instead, Ravitch presents bland truisms like supporting "coherent curriculum" and that the "government should commit a good school in every neighborhood in the nation." (Wow.) Incidently, isn't that precisely what Chancellor Joel Klein--with whom Ravitch sharply disagrees--has been trying to do by approving new charter schools all across New York City?

In some ways it's pathetic to observe Dr. Ravitch revert to something so opposite of what she herself was for many years: innovative and willing to try new things. Perhaps that field got too crowded in the last two decades; now, she's the latest critic, making a new splash. Her criticisms should come with more than prosaic drivel.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
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