Diane Ravitch Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Diane Ravitch

  Education, Intelligent, Shining

  111 Copy quote

• 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?

  Diane Ravitch

  Education, Business, School

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.236, Basic Books

  75 Copy quote

• 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.

  Diane Ravitch

  Children, School, Curriculum

  Diane Ravitch (2011). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.118, Basic Books

  54 Copy quote

• Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Children, Thinking

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.72, Basic Books

  48 Copy quote

• Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.

  Diane Ravitch

  Decision, Understanding, Passive

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.238, Basic Books

  19 Copy quote

• There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions.

  Diane Ravitch

  Running, Powerful, Common Purpose

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.143, Hachette UK

  35 Copy quote

• Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Teaching, Working Conditions

  23 Copy quote

• Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.

  Diane Ravitch

  Children, School, Responsibility

  29 Copy quote

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

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Legislature, States

  Diane Ravitch (2011). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.224, Basic Books

  27 Copy quote

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

  Diane Ravitch

  School, Fire, Police

  31 Copy quote

• What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.

  Diane Ravitch

  Running, Thinking, Errors

  21 Copy quote

• Those who can’t teach, pass laws about how to evaluate teachers.

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Law, Teach

  17 Copy quote

• The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, School, Foundation

  Diane Ravitch (2011). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.200, Basic Books

  4 Copy quote

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

  Diane Ravitch

  Goal, Accountability

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.18, Basic Books

  16 Copy quote

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

  Diane Ravitch

  Reform, Complacency, Obstacles

  15 Copy quote

• When you succeed at keeping almost everyone in school, you must figure out ways to educate everyone you keep in school.

  Diane Ravitch

  School, Way, Succeed

  13 Copy quote

• Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Children, Educational

  "Education and the election: it's still all about the money" Lucy Clark, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2016.

  14 Copy quote

• What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children.

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Hurt, Children

  11 Copy quote

• The ladder was there, from the gutter to the university, and for those stalwart enough to ascend it, the schools were a boon and a path out of poverty.

  Diane Ravitch

  School, Gutters, Ladders

  Diane Ravitch (2000). “The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools”, p.244, JHU Press

  22 Copy quote

• American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.

  Diane Ravitch

  Stupid, Past, Ideas

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Diane Ravitch

  Wise, Book, Pressure Groups

  "Some educators take issue with textbooks" by Casey Wian, www.cnn.com. October 15, 2003.

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Diane Ravitch

  Rainbow, Gold, Pot

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.15, Basic Books

  8 Copy quote

• Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is an educational malpractice.

  Diane Ravitch

  Children, Educational, Ideas

  12 Copy quote

• I support charters, but the right kind of charters. I support charters that support kids who have the highest needs. A charter should be targeting students who are in serious trouble. It should serve students who didn't succeed in public schools when it can help them. Or, at least, charters should agree to accept similar proportions of the kids with the highest needs.

  Diane Ravitch

  School, Kids, Support

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  13 Copy quote

• We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.

  Diane Ravitch

  Children, Firsts, Bans

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  9 Copy quote

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