"Public education is under attack. Local school boards are under attack. Local governance is under attack.
That was the blunt message delivered by
Diane Ravitch at the closing General Session of National School Board's Association (NSBA) annual conference in San Diego.
A nationally recognized education researcher and author,Ravitch has
become a fierce critic of many of the education reform models that, in
the past decade, have been advocated by misguided state and federal
policymakers, as well by wealthy ideologues. And she shared her
criticisms and concerns with conference attendees.
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| Diane Ravitch at National School Boards Association |
“What I’m going to try to do today,’ she said, “is
arm you with the
facts you need to help you
defend your public schools from an
unprecedented assault.”
The repeated attacks on public education today—and
the so-called
reform proposals being touted as solutions—are both
inaccurate and
deceptive, Ravitch argued.
“These people who call themselves reformers, who say our public
education system is obsolete, that it’s failing, that it’s broken …
they’re wrong,” she said.
“Our schools are not failing. Our system of
public education is not broken.’
“Let me tell you what’s the problem—
our federal education policy is
broken,” she added.
“Federal education policy is hurting our public
schools. Federal education policy has abandoned the historic principles
of federalism and is imposing mandates that are bad for children.”
The truth about public education and many of today’s reform ideas
will be laid out in her upcoming book,
Reign of Error: The Hoax of
Privatization and the Danger to America’s Public Schools, she said.
The truth, she said, is something you don’t see on the evening news
or in the daily newspapers. In reality,
test scores on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are the highest in history.
High school graduation rates are the highest in history. The nation’s
dropout rates are the lowest in history."
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| NSBA |
