A Response to David Denby's Profile of Diane Ravitch

            A friend asked for my reaction to the recent New Yorker profile on Diane Ravitch.  In a sentence, my reaction is, Diane Ravitch is one of the most sensible people working in ed policy today and people should listen to her.  There are a lot of reasons that people spend more time poking and undermining Ravitch than debating her on her actual points, mostly having to do with her evolving views and corresponding shifts in allegiance.  Denby’s article seems to try to simultaneously tell the story of this intellectual journey and provide clarity about the important debates in ed policy.  I think Denby had good intentions (he titled the piece “Public Defender”), and I am glad more people will learn about Ravitch’s clear-headed crusade.  However, many of the attacks on Ravitch are politically motivated and because the article does an inadequate job teasing out the ideological and political strands of these debates, it is likely to confuse many people. 

            The most oft-cited critique of Ravitch is her “flip-flopping.”  I find this criticism stupid and dangerous.  The challenge of educating the public in a democracy HAS NEVER BEEN MET SUCCESSFULLY.  If you were trying to build a self-propelled car and over a century had never succeeded, why in God’s name would you choose to support those thinkers who wanted to keep trying the same idea?  My support would be behind those people who still felt passionately about reaching the goal, and were willing to admit defeat when an idea did not work.  The goal, as I see it, is to continue to increase the likelihood that any child born anywhere in this country can become an independent-minded critical thinker who approaches the world with a useful skill set and a sense of efficacy about their lives.  Ravitch has believed in this vision of education throughout her career and her critiques of the reform movement’s ability to get there are cogent.  In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “I do not think much a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”  The inability of collective political consciousness to accept that smart people change their mind may be inevitable, but there is no reason that Denby needs to add to this collective failure in thinking with phrases such as: “Yet irony abounded in what she said.  Less than a decade ago, she was one of the ‘they’ she denounced in her speech.”  David Denby, I used to like clam chowder and now I don’t.  When I refuse clam chowder these days, that is not irony, and neither is Ravitch’s speech to the AFT.

            While I believe Ravitch has been upfront about the reasons for her changing behaviors, the reform movement has been much less willing to explore and critique its own ties to privatization.  I believe that most reformers have good intentions, and even that many of them do not see their movement as opening the door of public education to private companies.  Nevertheless, they are.  For just one example, read this letter from top Michigan educators about federal money being awarded to the nefarious EAA in their state.  Denby gives voice to Ravitch’s denial that education is at the historical nadir that reformers insist on, but seems to undermine her point about privatization.  Near the beginning of the article, he writes that Ravitch is “barnstorming” the reform movement “which she calls a ‘privitization’ movement.”   It’s not an egregious misreprentation, but by omitting any evidence supporting this quite reasonable view, Denby’s article seems more eager to characterize Ravitch as a firebrand than an important voice in this crucial debate. 

            But maybe I protest too much.  It’s true that Ravitch has always liked to be out on one limb or another, and her enthusiasm for the union is a bit discomforting given the real problem with “dead weight” in our teaching corps.  And here I think Ravitch’s political manuveuring sets her up for caricaturist portrayals.  Again, however, I sense that she has a more laudable keel than the Rhees and the Kleins.  Assuming, as I do, that Ravitch’s goal for education is that talented, experienced educators hold the helm, the union is a necessary liability.  Too many times, politicians have turned to quick fixes that move the control panels of instruction further and further from the hands of the only qualified technicians, experienced teachers.  While I am often embarrassed by the teachers in my union (e.g. squawking over coming in a day before students arrived back from Sandy, etc.), if I have to choose I’m going to give teachers and not private industry a seat at the decision-making table.  If Denby wanted to talk about irony, he could have chosen “parent-trigger” initiatives that give parents the “power” to give control of the schools to private companies, thereby further disenfranchising themselves. 

            Aside from privatization, Ravitch’s other major critique of the reform movement is its insistence on standardized tests for evaluating students and Value-Added Measures for evaluating teachers.  Here is where it might have been better for the New Yorker to assign an education journalist to this story.  Among educators, there is a robust conversation happening about the ways in which we might assess students outside of standardized tests.  Here in New York City, Shael Polokow-Suransky has spearheaded a very exciting new assessment system that fairly quantifies a student’s ability based on “performance-based” projects such as researched essays.  When assessments are skill-based and embedded in a rich curriculum, the distinction between “teaching” and “testing” begins to fade.  A student learns as they are assessed.  This new model of gauging the success of our schools is already off to a promising start and if it can gain traction I believe it will completely reframe the testing/teaching debate.  Of course, it will require experienced educators to succeed, and so we need policies whose goal is to keep our most talented teachers in control of curriculum.    

            My final critique of the article is Denby’s very misleading treatment of the Common Core.  He writes, “The standards, … require that all students read, for example, ‘Macbeth,’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ by the end of tenth grade…”  This is a dangerous mischaracterization.  First of all, teachers are not mandated to teach specific texts.  The purpose of the suggested texts is to maintain rigor for all students, but any good teacher would scaffold or build to this goal and not just drop Steinbeck’s tome on a fourteen-year-old’s desk as the quote seems to suggest.  Secondly, the Common Core standards are most notable for requiring ELA teachers to include more nonfiction.  This quote seems designed to ruffle the feathers of those who think education should provide “useful information,” i.e. not fiction, and that change is well underway thanks to the Common Core.  Lastly, Denby does not mention the CCSS as they relate to the union but it’s worth noting that the unions are not by and large opposed to the standards.  On his blog Eduwonk, Andrew Rotherham writes, The past few weeks I’ve heard on numerous occasions about the teachers unions ‘opposition’ to Common Core as if it’s just an obvious fact.  I’m not sure where this is coming from, but overall they’re not opposed, they’re on board with the new standards and in some places/ways trying to help on the implementation…”  The challenge of how to effectively implement the new standards and how they will impact the system is complicated and very interesting, but Denby’s one throwaway comment about the CCSS is misleading and offers no context for this significant aspect of the conversation.