A Once Great American Scholar

Tom Vander Ark:

Last week I attended Education Industry Days in a hotel between the AFT and the NEA-a bit ironic, don’t you think?. On the opening day, the front page of the USA Today reported that public sector union members now outnumber private sector members-we are well protected from ourselves.
The once respected scholar Diane Ravitch has joined the unions in monopoly protection-no choice, no market, no testing. She nearly made me crash my car in Phoenix this morning during her ridiculous back-to-the future NPR interview suggesting a return to free-for-all teach what-ever-however past. A former conservative, she now shuns markets, choice, testing-basically everything necessary to drive performance at scale. Hard to follow the logic of how her proposals would make things better for low income kids.
If you care about equality and excellence, see Education Equality Project and their case for accountability. Folks like Ravitch complain about accountability but don’t offer an alternative that has a reliable chance for making this significantly better for low income kids.