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Diane Ravitch

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Do we need neighborhood public schools? I believe we do ... For more than a century, they have been an essential element of our democratic institutions. We abandon them at our peril.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Not everything that matters can be quantified. What is tested may ultimately be less important than what is untested, such as a student's ability to seek alternative explanations, to raise questions, to pursue knowledge on his own, and to think differently. If we do not treasure our individualists, we will lose the spirit of innovation, inquiry, imagination, and dissent that has contributed powerfully to the success of our society in many different fields of endeavor.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If she [English literature teacher Mrs. Ratliff] had been evaluated by the grades she gave, she would have been in deep trouble., because she did not award many A grades. An observer might have concluded that she was a very ineffective teacher who had no measurable gains to show for her work.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If it had been written in the usual somber, leaden tones of most national commissions, we would not be discussing it a generation later. A Nation at Risk was written in plain English, with just enough flair to capture the attention of the press. Its arguments and recommendations made sense to nonspecialists. People who were not educators could understand its message, which thoughtfully addressed the fundamental issues in education. The national news media featured stories about the 'crisis in education.' The report got what it wanted: the public's attention.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The trouble with test-based accountability is that it imposes serious consequences on children, educators, and schools on the basis of scores that may reflect measurement error, statistical error, random variation, or a host of environmental factors or student attributes. None of us would want to be evaluated - with our reputation and livelihood on the line - solely on the basis of an instrument that is prone to error and ambiguity. The tests now in use are not adequate by themselves to the task of gauging the quality of schools or teachers ... they must be used with awareness of their limitations and variability. They were not designed to capture the most important dimensions of education, for which we do not have measures.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
In effect, we have a cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses' ... This "curricular smorgasbord," combined with extensive student choice, led to a situation in which only small proportions of high school students completed standard, intermediate, and advanced courses.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The state put a Broad-trained superintendent, Randy Ward, in charge of the Oakland schools ... Ward embraced the small schools but went further; his school reform plan aimed to turn the district into a marketplace of school choice while overhauling the bureaucracy. He closed low-performing schools and opened charter schools. He attracted $26 million in grants from the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and corporations based in Oakland.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the market, with its great strengths, is not the appropriate mechanism to supply services that should be distributed equally to people in every neighborhood in every city and town in the nation without regard to their ability to pay or their political power. The market is not the right mechanism to supply police protection or fire protection, nor is it the right mechanism to supply public education.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
A Nation at Risk proposed that four-year colleges and universities raise their admissions requirements. It urged scholars and professional societies to help upgrade the quality of textbooks and other teaching materials. It called on states to evaluate textbooks for their quality and to request that publishers present evidence of the effectiveness of their teaching materials, based on field trials and evaluations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
While I have never been a member of any union, I was a friend of Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whom I met after my history of the New York City schools was published. His successor, Sandra Feldman, was also my friend, and I am friends with her successor, Randi Weingarten, who was elected AFT president in 2008.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the problem with the marketplaces that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to systemic reform was that it required numerous stakeholders - textbook publishers, test publishers, schools of education, and so on - to change, which turned out to be an insurmountable political obstacle.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Nor is it wise to entrust our schools to inexperienced teachers, principals, and superintendents. Education is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of the market and the good intentions of amateurs.

American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it is threatening to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Do we need neighborhood public schools? I believe we do ... For more than a century, they have been an essential element of our democratic institutions. We abandon them at our peril.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Not everything that matters can be quantified. What is tested may ultimately be less important than what is untested, such as a student's ability to seek alternative explanations, to raise questions, to pursue knowledge on his own, and to think differently. If we do not treasure our individualists, we will lose the spirit of innovation, inquiry, imagination, and dissent that has contributed powerfully to the success of our society in many different fields of endeavor.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If she [English literature teacher Mrs. Ratliff] had been evaluated by the grades she gave, she would have been in deep trouble., because she did not award many A grades. An observer might have concluded that she was a very ineffective teacher who had no measurable gains to show for her work.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If it had been written in the usual somber, leaden tones of most national commissions, we would not be discussing it a generation later. A Nation at Risk was written in plain English, with just enough flair to capture the attention of the press. Its arguments and recommendations made sense to nonspecialists. People who were not educators could understand its message, which thoughtfully addressed the fundamental issues in education. The national news media featured stories about the 'crisis in education.' The report got what it wanted: the public's attention.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The trouble with test-based accountability is that it imposes serious consequences on children, educators, and schools on the basis of scores that may reflect measurement error, statistical error, random variation, or a host of environmental factors or student attributes. None of us would want to be evaluated - with our reputation and livelihood on the line - solely on the basis of an instrument that is prone to error and ambiguity. The tests now in use are not adequate by themselves to the task of gauging the quality of schools or teachers ... they must be used with awareness of their limitations and variability. They were not designed to capture the most important dimensions of education, for which we do not have measures.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
In effect, we have a cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses' ... This "curricular smorgasbord," combined with extensive student choice, led to a situation in which only small proportions of high school students completed standard, intermediate, and advanced courses.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The state put a Broad-trained superintendent, Randy Ward, in charge of the Oakland schools ... Ward embraced the small schools but went further; his school reform plan aimed to turn the district into a marketplace of school choice while overhauling the bureaucracy. He closed low-performing schools and opened charter schools. He attracted $26 million in grants from the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and corporations based in Oakland.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the market, with its great strengths, is not the appropriate mechanism to supply services that should be distributed equally to people in every neighborhood in every city and town in the nation without regard to their ability to pay or their political power. The market is not the right mechanism to supply police protection or fire protection, nor is it the right mechanism to supply public education.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
A Nation at Risk proposed that four-year colleges and universities raise their admissions requirements. It urged scholars and professional societies to help upgrade the quality of textbooks and other teaching materials. It called on states to evaluate textbooks for their quality and to request that publishers present evidence of the effectiveness of their teaching materials, based on field trials and evaluations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
While I have never been a member of any union, I was a friend of Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whom I met after my history of the New York City schools was published. His successor, Sandra Feldman, was also my friend, and I am friends with her successor, Randi Weingarten, who was elected AFT president in 2008.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the problem with the marketplaces that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to systemic reform was that it required numerous stakeholders - textbook publishers, test publishers, schools of education, and so on - to change, which turned out to be an insurmountable political obstacle.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Nor is it wise to entrust our schools to inexperienced teachers, principals, and superintendents. Education is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of the market and the good intentions of amateurs.

American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it is threatening to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Do we need neighborhood public schools? I believe we do ... For more than a century, they have been an essential element of our democratic institutions. We abandon them at our peril.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Not everything that matters can be quantified. What is tested may ultimately be less important than what is untested, such as a student's ability to seek alternative explanations, to raise questions, to pursue knowledge on his own, and to think differently. If we do not treasure our individualists, we will lose the spirit of innovation, inquiry, imagination, and dissent that has contributed powerfully to the success of our society in many different fields of endeavor.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If she [English literature teacher Mrs. Ratliff] had been evaluated by the grades she gave, she would have been in deep trouble., because she did not award many A grades. An observer might have concluded that she was a very ineffective teacher who had no measurable gains to show for her work.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
If it had been written in the usual somber, leaden tones of most national commissions, we would not be discussing it a generation later. A Nation at Risk was written in plain English, with just enough flair to capture the attention of the press. Its arguments and recommendations made sense to nonspecialists. People who were not educators could understand its message, which thoughtfully addressed the fundamental issues in education. The national news media featured stories about the 'crisis in education.' The report got what it wanted: the public's attention.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The trouble with test-based accountability is that it imposes serious consequences on children, educators, and schools on the basis of scores that may reflect measurement error, statistical error, random variation, or a host of environmental factors or student attributes. None of us would want to be evaluated - with our reputation and livelihood on the line - solely on the basis of an instrument that is prone to error and ambiguity. The tests now in use are not adequate by themselves to the task of gauging the quality of schools or teachers ... they must be used with awareness of their limitations and variability. They were not designed to capture the most important dimensions of education, for which we do not have measures.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
In effect, we have a cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses' ... This "curricular smorgasbord," combined with extensive student choice, led to a situation in which only small proportions of high school students completed standard, intermediate, and advanced courses.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The state put a Broad-trained superintendent, Randy Ward, in charge of the Oakland schools ... Ward embraced the small schools but went further; his school reform plan aimed to turn the district into a marketplace of school choice while overhauling the bureaucracy. He closed low-performing schools and opened charter schools. He attracted $26 million in grants from the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and corporations based in Oakland.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the market, with its great strengths, is not the appropriate mechanism to supply services that should be distributed equally to people in every neighborhood in every city and town in the nation without regard to their ability to pay or their political power. The market is not the right mechanism to supply police protection or fire protection, nor is it the right mechanism to supply public education.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
A Nation at Risk proposed that four-year colleges and universities raise their admissions requirements. It urged scholars and professional societies to help upgrade the quality of textbooks and other teaching materials. It called on states to evaluate textbooks for their quality and to request that publishers present evidence of the effectiveness of their teaching materials, based on field trials and evaluations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
While I have never been a member of any union, I was a friend of Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whom I met after my history of the New York City schools was published. His successor, Sandra Feldman, was also my friend, and I am friends with her successor, Randi Weingarten, who was elected AFT president in 2008.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
But the problem with the marketplaces that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to systemic reform was that it required numerous stakeholders - textbook publishers, test publishers, schools of education, and so on - to change, which turned out to be an insurmountable political obstacle.
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Nor is it wise to entrust our schools to inexperienced teachers, principals, and superintendents. Education is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of the market and the good intentions of amateurs.

American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it is threatening to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?
From The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education