Diane Ravitch Research Articles

Policy Dialogue: Twenty Years of Test-Based Accountability

AbstractSince No Child Left Behind was signed into law, test-based accountability has become a core feature of the K-12 public education system in the United States. The approach, it would seem, is here to stay. Yet that is not to say that anything resembling a consensus has emerged. Over the past twenty years, critics have continued to raise questions about the theory of change underlying test-based accountability, and scholars have detailed a variety of unintended consequences associated with it.If test-based accountability is both likely to persist and imperfect in its design, then it is critical to consider how its shortcomings might be addressed. In service of that aim, and in keeping with the mission of this feature, this Policy Dialogue explores future possibilities by starting, first, with a look at the past. In this particular case, participants were asked to address one simple question: “What have we learned from two decades of high-stakes testing?”As regular readers of HEQ are aware, these dialogues usually feature a historian in conversation with a scholar or practitioner from the world of policy. In this case, the choice of Diane Ravitch was a natural one, particularly given the fact that she is a member of HEQ's editorial board. A research professor at New York University, she is also a former assistant US secretary of education and the author of several books about measurement and accountability.Rather than select a single interlocutor, however, the editors chose to pair her with three leaders who represent the broad range of viewpoints in the field: Denise Forte, Princess Moss, and Paul Reville. Denise Forte is the interim CEO of The Education Trust. She brings to our conversation twenty years of experience in congressional staff roles, including as the staff director for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Princess Moss is vice president of the National Education Association and cochair of the NEA's task force on measurement and accountability. In prior work with the NEA's Executive Committee, she helped develop the group's position on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—from NCLB to the Every Student Succeeds Act. Paul Reville is the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former secretary of education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Nearly a decade before the passage of NCLB, he played a key role in the development of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, which instituted standards-based accountability across the state.HEQ Policy Dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references for readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

Framing the Common Core: An Analysis of Four Key Policy Actors

Background/Context In recent years, the American political context has become increasingly divided, as exemplified by the debate over the Common Core State Standards. Initially a bipartisan national venture, the standards became immersed in controversy soon after their introduction in 2010. In the aftermath, a growing body of research has examined the Common Core at the policy level; yet little empirical research has analyzed the public messaging of key interest groups involved in the Common Core debate. Research Design This empirical study draws on frame analysis to unpack the public discourse of four policy actors involved in the debate over the Common Core: the Gates Foundation, Heritage Foundation, National Education Association, and education historian Diane Ravitch. It examines policy documents released by each actor to first understand the central public frames present in their discourse about the standards, then unearth the implicit logics embedded in these frames. Findings/Results Four underlying logics—market, technical, democratic, and pragmatic— emerged from the explicit frames used by the four actors. These logics overlap, some existing on both sides of the debate, with opponents such as Gates and Heritage Foundations often using competing public frames about innovation or freedom, while also drawing on similar implicit market-based assumptions about the purpose of education to inform their arguments for and against Common Core respectively. Conclusions/Recommendations These findings suggest intriguing similarities in the discourse of key actors involved in education reform and add nuance to growing fears that market-based logics dominate modern education policy. Yet some of the discourse still draws on democratic logics, the expressions of which between different actors. Methodologically, frame analysis emerges as a productive means of unpacking hidden or obscured ideas within policy and the discourse about that policy, especially when paired with the concept of logics, which mediate values and action.

Review of The wisdom and wit of Diane Ravitch

Review of The wisdom and wit of Diane Ravitch

O mito do mérito: ensaio sobre meritocracia e qualidade da educação

Políticas educacionais com critérios meritocráticos têm sido a tônica dos processos avaliativos não apenas no Brasil, mas como uma tendência global. A proposta deste texto, em tom ensaístico, é discutir a noção de mérito a partir de três autores. Na primeira parte são apresentadas críticas a epistemologias que se pretendem neutras em relação à avaliação educacional, partindo das contribuições de Miriam Limoeiro-Cardoso. A segunda parte apresenta ideias de Michael Young em uma sátira da meritocracia como hierarquização social. Na terceira parte há as críticas de Diane Ravitch aos testes padronizados no sistema educacional dos Estados Unidos, que levaram à construção de qualidade como desempenho de excelência em avaliações mensuráveis.

Book Review: Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools, by Diane Ravitch and Badass Teachers Unite! Reflections on Education, History, and Youth Activism, by Mark Naison

Book Review: <i>Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools</i>, by Diane Ravitch and <i>Badass Teachers Unite! Reflections on Education, History, and Youth Activism</i>, by Mark Naison

Diane Ravitch, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to American Public Schools

Diane Ravitch, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to American Public Schools

Editor’s Introduction

Editor’s Introduction

The Leader of the Resistance: An Interview with Diane Ravitch

The Leader of the Resistance: An Interview with Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch: Reign of error – The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America’s public schools. New York: Knopf, 2013. [Rezension

Rezension von: Diane Ravitch: Reign of error – The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America’s public schools. New York: Knopf, 2013. 398 S., (978-0-385-35088-4).

Book Review: Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, eds., Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.

Book Review: Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, eds., Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.

“Rumpelstiltskin”: A Picture Book Multicultural Retelling

“Rumpelstiltskin” A Picture Book Multicultural Retelling Vivian Yenika-Agbaw (bio) Introduction Multiculturalism is a term that educators in the United States have embraced and have continued to use to describe our diverse experiences as a people in America and now as a people in our global community. This notwithstanding, there is still little consensus on how the term should be applied to the school curriculum. While educators like Diane Ravitch advocate for multiculturalism that encourages the assimilation of cultures to form a unique American culture, others such as James Banks and Cherry McGhee Banks, Christine Sleeter, Maxine Greene, and Sonia Nieto argue for multiculturalism that recognizes and respects American cultural diversity.1 These educators believe such a brand of multiculturalism taps into the strengths of the different cultural groups, thus expanding what it means to be an American. Children’s literature scholars have also theorized possible definitions of this term as it relates to this specific discipline. To Violet Harris and Rudine Sims Bishop ethnicity should be used as a major variable that distinguishes between children’s literature considered multicultural and literature that is perceived as non-multicultural. Although their argument sounds convincing, Mingshui Cai draws attention to the fact that there are indeed several scholars who think otherwise. To this group of scholars the ethnic criterion seems limiting. As Cai points out further, they would prefer a much more inclusive definition that takes into consideration geographical boundaries (the region of the country where the story takes place), cultural content (the culture of the group in question), and audience (general versus the specific cultural group in question). This way multicultural literature as a genre reflects the pluralistic nature of society, emphasizing regional, race/ethnic, gender, class, and other socio-cultural diversity. Maria Botelho and Masha Rudman, while acknowledging the validity of these views, posit that any definition of multicultural literature should also factor in ideologies of power. They believe that “moving beyond the limited definition of multicultural children’s literature as literature by and/or about people of color,” and instead embracing an expanded definition that examines how ideologies of power play out not just across racial/ethnic and other socio-cultural groups or between these groups, but also how they are reflected within these groups would reveal how people can be “othered” in their racial communities by age, class, disability, gender, or sexual orientation among others (259). For example, an impoverished female in a capitalistic patriarchal society regardless of race/ethnicity would most probably always remain on the margin of her immediate cultural [End Page 430] group. Botelho and Rudman propose then that since children’s literature “is a product of cultures as well as evidence of power relations . . . [and] a social transcript of the power relations of class, race, and gender” (71), we do need to use what they describe as a critical multicultural analysis to challenge “fixed and bound notions of culture, identity, class, race, gender, and power, and make visible the social construction of culture, power, genre, focalization and story closure” (260). While I agree and have advocated in the past that critical multiculturalism is an appropriate lens through which multicultural literature can be examined, I also do believe that retellings of traditional tales such as Virginia Hamilton’s The Girl Who Spun Gold—a Caribbean retelling of “Rumpelstiltskin,” which privileges what I refer to as an Africana (Africa and the African diaspora) Afrocentric perspective—would benefit more from an analysis that is grounded in a comparable multicultural school of thought that is linked to Black traditions. According to Reiland Rabaka, an Africana Afrocentricism “draws from critical thought and philosophical traditions in the realities of continental and diasporic African history, culture, and struggle—which, in other words, is to say that Africana critical theory inherently employs an Afrocentric methodological orientation” (134). Thus, while the term Africana itself, as James Turner admits, “posits fundamental interconnections in the global Black Experience” (94), the theory itself advocates an Afrocentric perspective that puts at its core of inquiry what Molefi Asante refers to as “African ideals and values” (71). Such ideals take into consideration language use, myths, symbols, and ancestral memory embedded within an African tradition, while paying attention to...

Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education

Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education

Review of Diane Ravitch Book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education.” New York, NY: Basic Books.

AbstractAbstractThe book has eleven chapters that can be clustered into three parts. The first part traces historical accounts of educational reforms in America and their impacts. The second part illuminates some of the major success stories and innovations American education system. The part of the book sheds light on corporatization of education and the ever growing dominance to business and corporate worlds in American education system. This part also gives some perspectives on some of lessons that need to be learned from the past experiments and reforms in American education system.

More Kool-Aid, Anyone?

When President Obama said states could leave No Child Left Behind ... well ... behind, I experienced moment of pure joy. I envisioned fireworks, I saw Lollipop Guild singing, Ding, dong, witch dead. mind's karaoke blasted, We won't get fooled again... But joy lasted less than nanosecond. Sadly, I remembered next line: Meet new boss, same as old As that lyric worked through my consciousness, reality settled in, and I realized this new boss isn't same as old boss. It's worse. With each incarnation of federal government's reform efforts, power of boss has grown punitive, callous, and arbitrary. And, each time we enter new phase, we spiral deeper and deeper into rabbit hole, and rabbit hole only place hallucinations are mistaken for vision, and Kool-Aid vendor runs fastest growing business in kingdom. One of fed's new visions, state waivers from NCLB regulations, powerful example of hallucination dressed up as vision. I have just two very simple Questions: Can someone just once take responsibility for failure--or even just call failure failure--rather than blaming teachers, public schools, parents, and communities? And can we just once look at failure and learn something about where we went wrong? The real failure can be found in Washington, D.C., and in state departments of education that went along with draconian plan. And what we should learn that big, sweeping, punitive reforms simply don't work. Instead, federal government seems to assume that failure requires legislation, tighter controls. Obama claims to be giving states more flexibility by offering opportunity to opt out of NCLB--if they meet a few new guidelines. But what I see an admission that NCLB failed to meet its primary vision--that all students would reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Of course, no reasonable person thought it would. But politicians and bureaucrats said it over and over as crowded audiences drank their Kool-Aid and nodded their heads--it sounded just swell coming from podium. Now though, Los Angeles Times has reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan strongly supports Obama's decision to let states opt out because the current law drives down standards, weakens accountability, causes narrowing of curriculum, and labels many schools as failing. Yikes. And Obama says, My ad-ministration giving states opportunity to set higher, honest standards. What? Are you saying NCLB standards are not honest? And Diane Ravitch, one of architects of NCLB and now severe critic, reports reform and its emphasis on testing have set back American education by generation. (By way, almost every teacher I know could have told her this back in 2001, but why listen to us?) She also said 2014 goal is timetable for demolition of public education in United States. Good grief, isn't that treason or something? Reading those criticisms from seat of power, why does anyone need to request waiver to discontinue using such failed system? I seriously question whether any state should receive federal money to continue this program. Instead, as taxpayer and citizen, I think any superintendent who continues to implement NCLB ought to be jailed for malpractice. And now education department has had an-other brilliant vision. They are planning a study. …

Can Schools Close the Gap?

How much effect can by themselves have on the persistent and corrosive learning gap between rich and poor? Not much, according to Diane Ravitch, whose writings I often admire. She recently told an audience of educators that the problem is poverty, not our schools (Carey, 2011, p. 14). A recent Kappan column echoes the sentiment: America does not have a general education crisis; we have a poverty crisis (Rebell & Wolff, 2012). Such remarks promote a dangerous complacency among those who believe that, on balance, our are doing well enough. These people insist that poverty, not schooling, should be our focus. Demography is destiny. Without doubt, poverty affects educational attainment. It is important then to fight for social justice, for programs we know will mitigate the effects of poverty. But must we buy into the notion that improvements to schooling can only have a marginal effect on the achievement gap? Absolutely not. The potential effect of better schooling becomes apparent the moment we take an unblinking look at how students actually spend time in school. Richard Rothstein is a compelling expositor of the notion that only societal changes can narrow the achievement gap. In a debate with Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, he argues that the purported gains on state tests aren't the result of better schooling but the result of test preparation and artful, state-level manipulation of cut scores and test item difficulty. As encouraging as these gains may look on paper, they don't truly reflect an increase in college readiness among low-income students, he said (Holland, 2007). Haycock does not deny this. But she cites numerous schools, districts, and whole states where improvements in teaching led to a significant reduction in the achievement gap, even according to NAEP scores, a more reliable measure of college readiness than state tests. As their exchange heats up, Rothstein makes small concessions, but then doubles down on his central argument: Improvements to schooling haven't had much effect on the real achievement gap--the one between those who are and aren't ready for college or post-secondary studies (Holland, 2007). Indeed, test score gains are not always a reliable indicator of substantial intellectual growth--of a kind that truly prepares students to succeed in college or other post-secondary studies. Schools affect learning When the dust settles, I'm convinced that there is indisputable evidence that improvements in schooling have a significant effect on student learning. But this would be even more true, not less, if we began to focus on precisely what Rothstein correctly defines as the real achievement challenge: truly equipping a larger proportion of students to succeed in college. When it comes to college readiness, Rothstein's pessimism overlooks a revealing feature of modern schooling: disastrous literacy practices. Our deep denial about this bears directly on our tepid estimations of how much effect can have on low-income populations. Fundamental changes to literacy practices will dramatically reduce the college-readiness gap, and in short order. Let's start with reading. Nothing is more important to college success than the ability to read well. But throughout K-12 schooling, the amount and complexity of students are required to do in a six-period school day is a scandal. When I ask my audiences, What are the two things you are least apt to catch students doing during the school day? Their immediate, almost choral response is reading and writing, followed by muffled laughter. Startling as it sounds, wrote Lucy Calkins and her colleagues, Students read for a remarkably small percentage of the day. It is not unusual, they found, for students to read for no more than 10 minutes during a 2 1/2 hour block (Calkins, Montgomery, & Santman, 1998, pp. …

Why Henry Giroux's Democratic Pedagogy is Crucial for Confronting Failed Corporate School Reform and How Liberals like Ravitch and Darling-Hammond are Making Things Worse

Progressive media and the academic community outside of education has largely embraced liberal criticisms of corporate school reform or neoliberal educational restructuring, typified by the highly publicized writing and speaking of Diane Ravitch and Linda Darling-Hammond. Despite offering valuable policy information, the liberal view is grounded in a number of indefensible positions with regard to the politics of knowledge and curriculum, neoliberal globalization, and the relationship between the political economy of schooling and broader economic and political questions. The article juxtaposes the ethical, political and cultural thought of Henry Giroux against the liberal position. It suggests that those committed to educational justice ought to re-evaluate political and cultural values in the struggles against corporate school reform so as not to follow the mistaken liberal thought and collude with the neoliberal ideology and economic doctrine that animates these destructive policies.

Review of Diane Ravitch's Book, "The Life and Death of American Public Schools,”

Review of Diane Ravitch's Book, "The Life and Death of American Public Schools,”

Diane Ravitch. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books, 2010. 296 pp. Hardcover $26.95.

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High-stakes testing: David Brooks vs. Diane Ravitch

New York Times invites public to debate school reform New York Times invites public to debate school reform

Moving Forward, Looking Back: Renewing the Struggle for an American Curriculum

Rationales for public school reform in the United States are often tied to historical perspectives on the birth and development of schools and are buffeted by the assumption that the history of public schooling says much about how reform efforts should proceed. This interpretive article explores 2 such perspectives on 21st-century schools: those of Diane Ravitch, distinguished educational historian and commentator; and those of Herbert Kliebard, considered one of the preeminent authorities on the development of the American curriculum. This investigation reveals that Ravitch's longstanding condemnation of progressivism and curricular differentiation as the source of what ails public schools fails to account for the demise of the schoolteacher as the central force in early 21st-century schools—a factor that Kliebard identifies as crucial to understanding the nature of 21st-century schools. It is then suggested that recommitment to teachers as the educational center of gravity in public schools may provide new insight into understanding how school reform on the 21st century might move forward.