The Life and Death of Great American School System

Ravitch was born into a Jewish family of 8 in Houston Texas. She completed the majority of her education in Houston until reaching higher education where she moved to Massachusetts and attended Wellesley College. She then moved on to receive her doctorates degree from Columbia University. She married Richard Ravitch and then divorced him after having two sons. Their third son died from leukemia at the age of 2. She now lives in New York with her companion Mary Butz, a retired New York City public school principle. She began her career as an editorial assistant in the New Leader magazine. After gaining her Ph.D. she became a historian of education. She worked closely with the Teachers College president, Lawrence A. Cremin, who became her mentor. She continued her career with great success detailed below and is currently serving as the president and founder of the NPA. Diane Ravitch has been a contributor to the field of education in so many different capacities.

She is foremost a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She has founded and been a part of many different organizations over the course of her life. She founded the Network for Public Education and was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board. This board oversees the federal testing program which has highly influenced her writing and views on education. She has had the incredible opportunity to work as the Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education during the administration of George H.W. Bush. She used this opportunity to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. She was also in charge of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. She is the author of many published and well known books and has gained a tremendous following through her blog reaching 5 million hits.

Her work has been translated into many different languages and she has traveled across seas to lecture and spread her knowledge. She has won many awards including one from the Polish government for her work on solidarity. Some other awards include, "honorary citizen of the state of California," Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award, Horace Kidger Award, Henry Allen Moe prize and many more. She is a member of the National Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and is the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Clearly, she has the knowledge and experience to be writing about education and school systems.

The book begins with Ravitch basically explaining what contents are found within the text. She mentions her views on education and explains what has caused those views to change throughout her life. She believes that schools should have a strong curriculum and focus more on sciences and liberal arts. She goes onto compare and contrast two major movements within the education field. The No Child Left Behind Act and A Nation at Risk. She is clearly more fond of the A Nation at Risk movement and feels that, "these recommendations were sound in 1983. They are sound today" (Ravitch, 2010, p. 30).

She then begins to discuss her time spent in administration with the different presidents and whether their goals were achieved or not. How they aimed high and only expected high test scores and therefore the students suffered by not actually gaining information. During the George H.W. Bush administration it became clear that while test scores were going up the number of Asian and Caucasian students were increasing while the number of Hispanics and African- American students shrunk. She then moved into an interesting point about where the power of education is held, in the hands of non-educators. She shared a specific example of this from San Diego were a team of non-educators banded together to create strict economic adjustments to education and ended up increasing the rate of teacher resignations and student dropouts.

There is clearly a large issue with testing and how it used in the education field. She spends a whole chapter discussing the history of testing in the education system. She mentions the good that tests can have for teachers and the value they can provide when used correctly. She makes some great points about making sure tests are reliable and accurate and are not used just to measure success for both the educator and students. Her philosophy relies on the principle that tests should be used to inform a teacher of what information is sticking and what is not.

It is clear that there is some bias in Ravitch’s writing. I didn’t expect her to have no bias after gaining such an amazing education in this field. It is incredible to read about the things she has accomplished and been a part of. I can see through this book how those experiences have shaped not only her opinions but also her as a person. I feel that she exceled in backing up every argument she made though. She was able to use real facts and life experience to explain the connections she was making. I did feel like she had some obvious bias towards A Nation at Risk. I didn’t notice a ton of facts to back up her argument other than she felt like it was a better program. If I am being honest though I trust her opinion on that because of the experience she has had. In my opinion she spent a majority of the time discussing testing and its value to the education system. I appreciated this outlook but would’ve also valued her views on other aspects of education. She did spend time discussing the different types of schooling offered to students which was an aspect of education I had never thought about.

There was again some bias towards the sciences and liberal arts. I completely agreed with her stance but felt she needed some more discussion on the subjects she felt were overvalued such as reading and math. I agreed that the liberal arts and sciences are important and create some amazing character traits within students but also wanted some recognition for the good that math and other areas of education have to offer. I would have also enjoyed her views on interdisciplinary studies. I felt her shortcomings with liberal arts could be solved with an increase in interdisciplinary studies.

Overall I felt she was very unbiased and was able to look at almost every subject objectively. You can tell from her writing that she is passionate about education and every student. I think that level of passion makes it difficult to be objective but I can see she did try to be as objective as possible. I have very mixed feelings about the style of writing used in this book. It all felt very historical like I was reading a text book. I think this comes from her discussing all her different experiences and the social changes that occurred. She was also very professional which aided to this overall textbook feel. This specific tone made it hard for me to question the things she was saying. She composed her thoughts in a way that made it sound more like a fact than an opinion and the majority of this book is based on her opinions. After realizing this I begin trying to question every sentence instead of just blindly agreeing with Ravitch. I found though, she was able to back up her opinions with a few facts and life experience so in the end I agreed with her anyway.

This book holds value for me as an educator and the education field. It dissects the choices made in the world of education and their impact. Knowing that this book felt very historical to me I approached it with the idea of learning history so history doesn’t repeat itself. She wrote down why specific types of movements and testing weren’t working so future educators can learn from those experiences and not make the same mistake. I think this important because it is so easy to continue a negative way of educating just because "it’s how it’s always been." I think the education world is due for a new reform based more in social justice.

Due to the nature of this book and it’s author I left wanting to create change. I wanted to take every argument she made and find a way to institute into a classroom right now. I feel like that speaks volumes about the effectiveness of her writing and arguments. She had an amazing mix of emotionally getting me involved in the argument while intellectually satisfying my need for facts. I do feel that I wouldn’t have felt this way if I wasn’t already undergoing a change in my own though processes due to this course. I would have disagreed with a lot of her stances which does bring up the point that her book probably will only have this kind of impact on those already in the education field or studying it.

At the end of the book Ravitch states that education should be focused on the individual. I agree with this statement completely but am also worried and confused on how to implement it. I felt that her arguments and points made throughout this book were geared mostly towards the infrastructure of education and those with the power to change it. While this is extremely important I didn’t really gain any "how to" from her book. I realized what was wrong and maybe what not to do but didn’t feel any specific suggestions on what to do to become better. The biggest suggestion that I did understand was to follow the curriculum and the value of the curriculum. This is an easy recommendation to undertake and will do my best to include it in my classroom. As stated above I learned a lot more about what not to do when it comes to education. I learned not to place too high of an emphasis on testing and how best to interpret the scores received. I think that this will mostly impact my grading scale. I also feel that I want to create some form of remedial test. That way testing is not all about getting a good grade but it focuses more on making sure the students are fully understanding the material being taught. I think the idea of alternative forms of assessment are also very crucial to double checking your student’s understanding.

This allows the students different opportunities to express their knowledge other than a black and white test. I had never fully realized the goal of education. It’s not to create straight A students who know how to crank out a paper in an hour or cram for a test, but to create learners. I recognize how cheesy the previous sentence is, but it’s true. I went through my whole educational career only focused on getting the grades. In college I suffered for that. I realized that I needed to be actually learning the information being taught to me and not just the ability to regurgitate it. This is an idea that I haven’t fully discovered how to solve yet. I know that grades are important for growth and as a motivator but I really want my classroom to be motivated by a desire to learn not just pass. I really loved the last chapter of this book. Almost every single paragraph in this chapter begins with "our schools will not improve if…" (Ravitch, 2010, p. 227). I will continue to refer back to this chapter throughout my career as an educator. I feel the points mentioned in this chapter will allow me to do some self-reflection. A lot of the paragraphs relate to the broader education system less than individual classrooms, but I feel I can relate the principles taught there into the smaller system of my classroom.