5 Questions with Diane Ravitch

• Posted on January 7, 2011
• in 5 Questions, Feature
• by admin

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A prominent NYU professor, respected historian, and influential writer, Diane Ravitch served as the Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush. She has written several notable books on education reform, and many of her noteworthy articles and blogs can be read on Education Week, the Huffington Post, and Politico.com/arena. From her experiences as part of the National Assessment Governing board, she has emerged as a driven and passionate voice opposing merit-based pay for teachers.

1. Value-added assessment is currently a divisive issue in education reform. As a staunch critic of merit-based pay, what other measures do you propose to ensure that teachers are held accountable for their performances in the classroom? You write that there are intangible elements that make up a great teacher; how would you identify certain “standards” for an effective teacher beyond mere standardized testing?

Standardized testing is an inadequate measure of teacher quality or teacher effectiveness. Because students are not randomly assigned, these measures are highly unstable. They also have a wide margin of error, so teachers will be misidentified as effective or ineffective. Giving so much emphasis to test scores on these tests have perverse consequences: It leads to cheating, teaching to bad tests, and narrowing the curriculum. The result will not be better education, but worse education… Economists say that teachers are responsible for about 10-15% of variance in test scores; families and students themselves are responsible for about 60% of the variance. How do we hold families and students accountable? How do other nations do it? The best way to determine if teachers are doing a good job is to have good supervision of their work; good supervisors would observe the teacher in the classroom and make judgments about the quality of their work, including the quality of students’ work. How does Princeton hold its professors accountable? The current focus on “holding teachers accountable” is way too simplistic and doesn’t begin to address the causes of poor student performance.

2. Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Cathleen Black as chancellor of the New York City public schools to replace Joel Klein. You have drawn a fine distinction between being an educator and merely a manager or business professional; how are the two different in your mind? How would you characterize an educator who would succeed as a thoughtful and successful chancellor of a public education system?

Every nation with a high-performing school system has worked diligently to create a strong education profession. That means that teachers are well prepared to teach; that principals are master teachers; and that superintendents are expert educators. It is very important that the person who leads a school system have a deep understanding of education because he or she must make crucial decisions about curriculum and instruction; and when there must be cutbacks, he or she must understand what must be preserved and what can be sacrificed. Management skills alone are not transferable from business to education. A marketing person or an expert salesperson can work in any industry, whether selling cars or soap. But that person, no matter how successful, cannot bring their marketing or sales skills and succeed in a complex organization dedicated to education. There are children’s lives and futures at stake. They are not bars of soap or boxes of shoes or automobiles on an assembly line. To succeed in a leadership role in education requires experience and knowledge of education, as well as leadership skills. A strong educational leader can hire a business manager to carry out administrative and organizational assignments. But a strong manager can’t make educational decisions. And, in New York state, the law is very clear that the superintendent of any school district must have specific qualifications and experience. We live in a land of laws, not a land of caprice.

3. Is the education reform debate most crucial at the national or local level? You have opposed President Obama’s Race to the Top program; if we really wanted the national government to make profound changes in the education system, where should it start? How would you advise using this money to impact real change?

Race to the Top is a foolish waste of money. None of its major components is based on research or evidence or practice. The national government could play its historic role by concentrating funding on equity. That was the raison d’etre of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Equity means that federal money flows where the needs are greatest: to districts that have heavy concentrations of poor children. The federal government could relieve every school district in the nation of fiscal crisis by keeping its promise to fully fund special education. When that law was passed, Congress promised to pay 40% of costs, but now pays only about 11%. Unfortunately, the federal government lacks the knowledge or capacity to reform the nation’s schools. At present, the Obama administration is following the model of Chicago, but Chicago is not what anyone would recognize as a model school system. The idea of closing schools/opening schools/closing schools has not produced major improvement. The Consortium for School Research in Chicago determined that more than 80% of the kids from the closed schools were reassigned to other low-performing schools, with no benefit to them. This strategy doesn’t work for kids and it doesn’t improve education.

4. How can current college undergraduates act to address and accomplish different issues in education reform? What sort of responsibilities or positions do we have in this debate?

The best thing you can do is to study the issues, learn as much as you can, and get involved after graduation as teachers or in jobs where you can learn more by working for policymakers. As undergraduates, your job is to learn, to hear different points of view, and to become well prepared for your future career(s). As I advised TFA when I was in Houston, “practice humility.” Be aware of class differences, be aware that you are studying at an elite institution, be aware that you are members of the highest strata of American society. Do not look down on the people who have made a career as teachers and administrators. They may not have had the privilege of attending an Ivy League university, but don’t assume that they are not as smart as you. If you work in a school, you may discover that they have great wisdom about teaching, about children and about life. Be open to learning, be open to recognizing the limitations of inexperience, be careful about passing judgment on public schools and their teachers and principals. Be aware that you have a lot to learn and that it will be a long time before you have the experience, knowledge and judgment to change the nation’s education system. Practice humility. Be open to learning.

5. Currently, is there one particular issue in education reform that particularly inspires or worries you? How has it impacted your ideas?

I worry about the future of public education. I worry that entrepreneurs now see great opportunities to make money in the public sector and that they will exert their influence to privatize education and turn it over to the free market. I am a great admirer of the free market, but I also believe that our society needs a balance between the free market and the public sector. If public schools are privatized, it induces a consumer mentality among parents and it destroys any sense of community responsibility. It also erodes any sense of civic obligation. The path of selfishness and greed will not improve our society or our schools and it will endanger many children. The market has winners and losers. That’s fine for restaurants and shoe-stores but it is not fine for public education. We must work in collaboration to see that all schools improve. That’s a difficult goal, but we can’t abandon it just because it is difficult. We must improve the lives of children and families and improve the education profession at every level. With the fine education that you are now receiving at Princeton, I hope you will develop a zeal for good education and a passion to see that every child in every community has access to the advantages that you have had. Do not join in the senseless attacks on the men and women who do the hard work of education in our nation’s classrooms. Do what you can to help make things better for the kids and their teachers.

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Interview by Diane Jeon ’14

*Editor’s note: At the time the interview was conducted, it was not made clear to Dr. Ravitch that Students for Education Reform operates at 6 schools, only some of which are Ivy League institutions. In the spring of 2011 SFER will expand to a total of at least 10 schools, both public and private.