Diane Ravitch Quotes

There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions.

What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.

We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.

Of course, all students should learn African history, as they should learn the history of other continents and major civilizations. But this history should be taught accurately and based on the best scholarship, not ideology or politics.

Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department

When you succeed at keeping almost everyone in school, you must figure out ways to educate everyone you keep in school.

One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change ...

The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.

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.

If we continue on the present course, with big foundations and the federal government investing heavily in opening more charter schools, the result is predictable. Charter schools in urban centers will enroll the motivated children of the poor, while the regular public schools will become schools of last resort for those who never applied or were rejected.

American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.

The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.

Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.

An attack on Public Education is an attack on Democracy

Will non-English-speaking students start speaking English because their teachers were fired? Will children come to school ready to learn because their teachers were fired?
It would be good if our nation's education leaders recognized that teachers are not solely responsible for student test scores. Other influences matter, including the students' effort, the family's encouragement, the effects of popular culture, and the influence of poverty. A blogger called "Mrs. Mimi" wrote the other day that we fire teachers because "we can't fire poverty." Since we can't fire poverty, we can't fire students, and we can't fire families, all that is left is to fire teachers.

Those who can't teach, pass laws about how to evaluate teachers.

Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions

Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.

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?

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.

One problem with test-based accountability, as currently defined and used, is that it removes all responsibility from students and their families for the students' academic performance. NCLB neglected to acknowledge that students share in the responsibility for their academic performance and that they are merely passive recipients of their teachers' influence.

Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?

What I had come to understand was that the root cause of poor performance in schools is not 'bad schools' or 'bad teachers' but poverty. Closing schools and firing their teachers and principals does not help students. If anything, it introduces damaging instability into their lives. The privatizers hail disruption and call it 'creative,' but it is neither creative nor beneficial.

You can't lead your troops if your troops do not trust you.

Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not 'broken.' Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.

Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.

Social scientists generally agree that students' families (especially family income, which determines advantages and opportunity) have an even bigger impact on student performance than their school or teachers.

Most people believe that schools were good enough when they were children and that they are good enough now. But the dynamic growth of our system of education has spawned serious problems of educational quality.

I support charters, but the right kind of charters. I support charters that support kids who have the highest needs. A charter should be targeting students who are in serious trouble. It should serve students who didn't succeed in public schools when it can help them. Or, at least, charters should agree to accept similar proportions of the kids with the highest needs.

What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children.

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.