Quotes by Diane Ravitch

“This process of self-censorship is ubiquitous and that those who do it believe that they are doing the right thing. That they call it sensitivity and fairness review without realizing that they are censoring to placate pressure groups, or in anticipation of protests.”

“The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.”

“Removing books from the library is a no-no.”

“If the contract is centered around more time for the kids, but the kids dont have to show up, it doesnt make sense.”

“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.”

“Of course, all students should learn African history, as they should learn the history of other continents and major civilizations. But this history should be taught accurately and based on the best scholarship, not ideology or politics.”

“Its an interesting development, and I would hope that the chancellor would take heed.”

“These stats are meaningless in the absence of a common test and common standards.”

“The middle kids are the ones who are lost - they tend to be forgotten by federal policy. The mediocrity of which everyone complains is what [middle students] are most likely to suffer from, and without the push and the prod to achieve, they wont make it.”

Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?

Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department

We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.

Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not ‘broken.’ Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.

A historian tries to understand what happened, why it happened, what was the context, who did what, and what assumptions led them to act as they did. A historian customarily displays a certain diffidence about trying to influence events, knowing that unanticipated developments often lead to unintended consequences.

Sometimes, the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.

Accountability makes no sense when it undermines the larger goals of education.

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.