Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:35:18 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Diane Ravitch :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Diane+Ravitch istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/why-i-resigned/71390/ Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST A story on Wednesday in the The New York Sun reported that I resigned from the editorial board of Education Next. I resigned because Education Next published a deeply flawed account of Mayor Bloomberg's school reforms. I resigned with regret because I admire Education Next. I have found it to be the most consistently interesting and lively publication about American education currently available. That is all the more reason why I was surprised to read Peter Meyer's article, "New York City's... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/flawed-reform/68152/ Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST The New York City Department of Education has embarked on a perilous new path in its efforts to raise test scores. Just a few weeks ago, the Department released letter grades for the city's schools, from A to F. In recent days, the Department announced the closure of 14 schools that received a D or an F. Is the grading system accurate and reliable? Did the grading system identify the worst schools? Is the closure of the lowest-performing schools likely to improve public education? Could the... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/parents-job-ii/59559/ Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST Several weeks ago, I wrote an article in the Sun titled "Don't Blame the Teachers." My basic argument was that proposals for merit pay, performance pay, and other incentive plans assume that teachers are slackers who need more pay to do their best. I contended that in many classrooms, teachers confront students who have negative attitudes about academics, are not pushed to succeed by their parents, and are immersed in an anti-intellectual popular culture. The responses I received to my article... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/dont-blame-the-teachers/56557/ Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST Recently, I attended yet another one of those conferences where leaders of American industry, commerce, and government get together to decide what to do about our schools. The meeting proceeded through the now-familiar litany of bad news: American students perform poorly on international tests as compared to their peers in Europe and Asia. American graduate programs in science and engineering have relatively few American-born students and lots of foreign students. India and China are grabbing... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/first-get-the-knowledge/55230/ Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 EST Who was the greatest American president? According to the latest Gallup poll, 18% of Americans picked Abraham Lincoln. Second place goes to Ronald Reagan, 16%, followed by John F. Kennedy, 14%, Bill Clinton, 13%, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 9%. These numbers demonstrate that the public is woefully ignorant of history. That only 18% name Lincoln as the most significant president is strange enough. But to suggest that Reagan, Kennedy, and Clinton follow close behind Lincoln and were "greater"... DIANE RAVITCH and MICHAEL RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/english-in-us/45223/ Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST In this Christmas season, many of us will sing "Joy to the World" without knowing that it is a hymn written by the English preacher Isaac Watts, and several days later, we will follow it up with "Auld Lang Syne," an old Scottish song that was rewritten by the poet Robert Burns. Not only are these songs part of the standard repertoire of American life, they are also part of our legacy from the British Isles. In 1910, when Robert Frost taught at a high school in rural New Hampshire, he expected... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/challenge-in-science/43919/ Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST This week, many families will take advantage of the holiday to take their children to the Rose Science Center at the American Museum of Natural History, to the Hall of Science in Queens, or to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. Those children whose parents lack the income or the education to take them to science museums will fall even further behind in their knowledge of science. All of our city's children need to understand the principles of science, which are so important to their... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/what-i-saw-at-davos/27163/ Tue, 7 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST For many years I had heard about Davos, but never expected that I would ever be a participant. Last fall, however, I received an invitation to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos. What I discovered, when I arrived at the beautiful ski resort in Switzerland, was the world's greatest display of economic, political, and intellectual fireworks in one place at one time. The forum began on a Tuesday evening and ended the following Sunday. For four consecutive days, there were dozens of... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/lessons-from-naep/23941/ Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST Last week the U.S. Department of Education released the results of the latest assessment of reading and mathematics in fourth and eighth grades in big-city public schools. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, all states are required to take part in the federal test, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Since 2002, urban school districts have been invited to give the NAEP to samples of their students on a voluntary basis. Five cities did so in 2002; 10 in 2003; and 11... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/problem-of-the-21st-century/22054/ Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1903 that "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." While the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination persists in the United States to the present day, the "color-line" that DuBois experienced has clearly been broken. It appears that the problem of the 21st century - and for as far into the future as any of us can project - is the problem of religion, specifically the conflicts stemming from religious differences and zealotry. On the... Diane Ravitch http://www.nysun.com/opinion/uft-agreement/20949/ Tue, 4 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST The agreement reached between the United Federation of Teachers and the Bloomberg administration truly is a win-win situation for both sides, and more importantly, for the city's 1.1 million students. It involves higher pay for the teachers, some givebacks to permit principals to have greater management discretion, and additional instruction time, which will mainly benefit students who need extra time. We should all be grateful that an agreement was reached, and that the union did not find it... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/upholding-order-civility/20297/ Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST If you wish to join the cult of admirers of Alexander McCall Smith, there are two things that you must know in advance. First, Mr. Smith's novels are delightful, often making you laugh out loud. Second, they appear in series, and you must read each book in a series in the order of its appearance to be fully informed about the characters and their milieu. The six books in Mr. Smith's first and best-known series - the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" - detail the adventures of the wonderful... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/job-for-the-legislature/19216/ Fri, 26 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST The New York State Legislature recently passed a law directing Governor Pataki to appoint a commission, called the Amistad Commission, to examine whether students are learning enough about the slave trade. Now that our state legislators have gotten involved in curriculum matters, they should take a close look at how little our students know about any aspect of American or world history. Study after study has shown that American high school students are woefully ignorant of major events in... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/where-credit-is-due/12449/ Tue, 19 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST By now, everyone knows that Pope John Paul II was a major world figure in 20th century history. People of all races, classes, and cultures responded to his powerful personality, which radiated faith, love, hope, and charity. Future historians are likely to remember him primarily for his role in helping to bring down communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash recently wrote: "Without the Polish Pope, no Solidarity revolution in Poland in 1980; without... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/memorable-heroine/11877/ Thu, 7 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Samuel G. Freedman's mother died of breast cancer at the age of 50, when he was in college. He gave the eulogy at her funeral, but did not visit her grave again until another family member died 26 years later, in 2000. He seems to have tried to avoid even thinking about her. His father's family was colorful and romantic: They were politically engaged anarchists, radicals, and communists. Their stories thrilled him. His matrilineal line, by contrast, was a conventional, presumably ordinary... Diane Ravitch http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ward-churchill-exposed/11359/ Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST After Ward Churchill's writings became widely known, it was clear that he hates America, despises those who perished at the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns," and admires our nation's enemies. Last Friday, with the release of the University of Colorado at Boulder's preliminary review of Mr. Churchill's work and conduct, it is now also clear that he stands accused of numerous instances of academic fraud. Chancellor Phil DeStefano and other administrators concluded that Mr. Churchill's... Diane Ravitch http://www.nysun.com/opinion/recalling-michael-lynch/11067/ Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Michael Lynch was one of the 343 New York City firefighters who perished at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. To honor his memory, the Lynch family established a foundation to provide scholarships. On March 21, the third anniversary of the date that Michael was found in the ruins, the author addressed his family, friends, and colleagues. Tonight we gather to pay tribute to the memory of Michael Lynch, as well as to the other men and women who lost their lives on September 11, 2001... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/harvard-has-two-faces/10311/ Wed, 9 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Here are two books that offer sharply contrasting views of Harvard University. About the only thing on which they agree is that Harvard is the most consequential university in America, if not the entire world. It happens to be an excellent time to read about Harvard. The university is much in the news these days, due to President Lawrence Summers's controversial comments about why women are underrepresented in the sciences. Hardly a day goes by without another public attack on or defense of Mr... Diane Ravitch http://www.nysun.com/opinion/academe-gone-mad/9010/ Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers are accustomed to all sorts of strange outbursts and opinions, but it is hard to recall any as bizarre as those expressed by Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado. After he was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York, someone noticed an essay he had written three years ago in which he sneered at the victims of the World Trade Center attacks, comparing them to Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. In the same essay, he urged that Bill... Diane Ravitch http://www.nysun.com/opinion/name-that-school/8212/ Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST The Bloomberg administration, having decided that the small school movement is the wave of the future, has opened nearly 100 small high schools and plans to open another 100 next year. Each of these schools is supposed to have no more than 500 students. With more than 300,000 students in our public high schools, we project that the city will have to add at least another 400 new high schools to accommodate all high school students. Now whatever other problems these schools may encounter, it... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/relativism-on-the-ground/7556/ Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST Christopher de Bellaigue is a young and successful journalist who is married to an Iranian woman, speaks fluent Persian, and lives in Teheran. Born in 1971 and educated at Cambridge University, he has written for the Economist, the New York Review of Books, Granta, and the New Yorker. "In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs" (HarperCollins,304 pages,$26.95) is an anecdotal description of life in Iran by a privileged insider, interspersed with reflections on Iranian politics and Persian and Islamic... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/dont-believe-everything-you-read/812/ Wed, 25 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST In his poem "To a Louse," the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see ourselves as others see us." How many times have parents and teachers chastised us to "see ourselves as others see us" in hopes of improving our behavior toward others? The people who write history textbooks for schools have been trying to get this idea across to American students for at least the past generation. Since the Vietnam War, textbook authors and curriculum experts have sought... DIANE RAVITCH http://www.nysun.com/opinion/time-for-an-accounting/23/ Mon, 12 Jul 2004 13:41:12 EST Stephen J. Morello, the director of communications for the New York City Department of Education, wrote an unusually vituperative response to Andrew Wolf's column about the recent test scores for New York City public schools ["Time for an Accounting," Letters, June 17, 2004]. Mr. Morello accuses Mr. Wolf of writing either "gibberish or intentional deception"because of his attention to the reported decline in student performance on the state's fourth-grade reading test. As Mr.Morello surely...