Ravitch, the author of the controversial 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, showed herself to be witty, personable, and well-practiced in the polemical arts. She has emerged as an unlikely champion of public school teachers, having once trumpeted, from her federal post and then from the conservative Hoover Institution’s task force on K–12 education, the very reform measures—charter schools and make-or-break standardized testing—she now deplores and that teachers’ unions have generally bemoaned. The reason for her change of perspective: research, she says. There’s simply no solid evidence attesting to benefits from “school choice” or from the use of testing to determine how a teacher is evaluated and a school is funded. Indeed, mounting evidence suggests that these policies are undermining public education, Ravitch said.
Not every assertion of hers was soothing to the audience, however. At one point while lecturing, Ravitch cast her eyes toward the front row, directing attention to O’Keefe, who had put in a good word for Catholic education in his opening remarks. “I’m a great supporter of Catholic schools,” she said, adding, “we should be saving Catholic education” instead of pouring public money into charter schools that siphon off the best students from public schools and tuition-paying students from parochial schools. Her implicit call for public support of private, Catholic education met with polite silence.
A fine article by my friend Bill.