As the Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, Educational historian Diane Ravitch became known for her push to establish national standards for K-12 education. From 1997-2004, she served as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, overseeing the federal testing program.
Now, as the author of The Life and Death of the Great American School System, she’s taking it all back.
Public education is under attack, says Ravitch. We are living through a movement in which schooling is being radically re-envisioned as a private rather than a public enterprise, with little debate over whether the ideology of the free market belongs in American schools in the first place. Proponents of the movement see standardized tests as a way to evaluate student and teacher performance.
Standardized Testing: The Monster That Ate American Education | Think Tank | Big Think