Diane Ravitch Changes her Mind about School Reform, Testing, and Charter Schools!

Diane Ravitch is a well-respected education historian who at one time was one of the leaders of the conservative movement that promoted the power of standardized testing, school choice, and charter schools to reform public education.  In the past few years, she has undergone an about-face about her views and in the words of a NY Times article (see URL below) an “intellectual crisis”.   She is now referring to testing, choice, etc. as faddish trends that have undermined public education not improved it.  She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.    The article quotes another conservative education reformer, Chester Finn, Jr.,  as saying that “Standards, in many places, have proven nebulous and low,” and  “ ‘Accountability’ has turned to test-cramming and bean-counting, often limited to basic reading and math skills.”   Recently Ravitch was asked how she would reform public education and she replied:   “Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” she said. “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.”

Tony

The NY Times article is available at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?th&emc=th