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Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quotes

Historian

Diane Ravitch is an American historian and education policy analyst. She is recognized for her extensive work in the field of education, particularly her research on the history of American education and her criticism of the No Child Left Behind Act.

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Famous Diane Ravitch Quotes

“The other article was by Lois Weiner, a professor who prepared urban teachers at New Jersey City University. Weiner was a parent activist at P.S. 3 in District 2, which she described as a highly progressive alternative school with an unusual degree of parent involvement. She claims that district administrators were stifling teachers and parents at P.S.3 by mandating "constructivist" materials and specific instructional strategies ... She [Weiner] continued, "The degree of micromanagement is astounding." Those who challenged the district office's mandates, she said, risked getting an unsatisfactory rating or being fired. Weiner contended that "opposition from parents is building against the new math curriculum," which was supposed to be field-tested with control groups, but instead was mandated for every classroom." Teachers were expressly prohibited from using other math textbooks or materials, and some were clandestinely "photocopying pages of now-banned workbooks.”

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Book:The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Source: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining 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.”

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Book:The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Source: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

“Challenge your self to read what your children are forced to endure, and then ask why we expect that textbooks - written and negotiated line by line to placate politically active interest groups in Texas and California - are up to the task of supplying a first-rate curriculum.”

Book:The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Source: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

“When you realize that your history books and your science books and your literature books are not the result of experts sitting down and making it a wise decision, but of political pressure groups coming to the state textbook hearings, this is wrong.”