Diane Ravitch Defends Public Education

2010 NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly (RA)
New Orleans, Louisiana — June 26 - July 6, 2010

NEA Friend of Education Diane Ravitch's Speech
Delivered at the 2010 Representative Assembly

Diane Ravitch Defends Public Education (full speech)

~ Researcher and former Assistant Education Secretary Diane Ravitch blasts ‘So-Called Reforms’ in No Child Left Behind in a speech to NEA members at the NEA Annual Meeting. She says the current education reform movement is pushing bad ideas.

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Well, it’s kind of amazing that this convention is being held in New Orleans. I was, just a few minutes ago, interviewed by documentary filmmakers who said to me, “Well, don’t you know that New Orleans is proving a new model?” The new model consists of wiping out public education and firing the unions, and it’s spreading across the country. And I said, “God forbid.” I pointed out to them what we all used to know, which is that public education is the backbone of this democracy, and we cannot turn it over to privateers.

Since my book appeared in early March, I have started out on what I thought would be a conventional book tour, but it really has turned into a whistle-stop campaign. I have been to 40 different cities and districts. I have another 40 planned starting in September. I talked to union members, to school board members, to administrators, to left-wing think tanks, to right-wing think tanks. I have met with high-level White House staff. I have met with about 40 members of Congress. I would say that I have met so far about 20,000 teachers, and after today I think I am going to increase it to 30,000.

And in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.

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I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.

We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.

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The single most reliable predictor of test scores is poverty, and poverty, in turn, is correlated to student attendance, to family support, and to the school’s resources.

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The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen!

So here’s a thought for NEA. Print up four million bumper stickers that say, “I am a public schoolteacher, and I vote — and so does my family.”

Do not support any political figure who opposes public education. Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.

Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System:

How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Basic Books, 2010