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No Idea Left Behind: An Interview with Dr. Diane Ravitch The
spring 2003 release of The
Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn,
brought its author, Dr. Diane Ravitch, considerable acclaim and
notoriety. The book is a
thorough and concise review of American educational materials
(primarily textbooks and standardized testing instruments) in the
context of our politically correct landscape.
The state of affairs turns out to not be a happy one, but Dr.
Ravitch’s work is absolutely one that had to be written.
Her
resume is quite extensive, and currently she is a Research Professor
at Dr.
Ravitch has a great many publications to her credit.
Her subject matter primarily has concerned American education.
Some of her notable works include Left
Back: A Century of BC: Dr. Ravitch, your book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, has been an excellent seller this year. What kind of reactions have you received from people to the work (both professionally and politically)? I hope it hasn’t resulted in the ex-friends phenomena that occurred to Norman Podhoretz. DR:
The response to date has been overwhelmingly positive. I have not yet
received a "bad" or negative review. The positive reviews
have come from mainstream places like The Washington Post
(where Jonathan Alter compared it to Steinbeck, Nader, I
have a few good friends in the publishing industry who are not
thrilled by the book, but they have apparently decided to ignore it
and let this pass. There was a critical letter to the editor in The
Wall Street Journal by Patricia Schroeder of the Association of
American Publishers, claiming that they expurgate only in response to
the pressures of the free market and that they are great defenders of
the First Amendment. Of course, one of my major points in the book is
that textbook adoptions in big states procedures remove book
purchasing from the free market altogether and warp the marketplace,
as well as provide a forum for cranks and zealots.
She ignored that. I
have received a terrific response from small publishers who are part
of the 25% niche that competes on an uneven playing field with the big
corporations. Also, I was a keynote speaker at the national convention
of the AFT, the second biggest teachers’ union, and their reception
was very positive. BC:
You’ve also published Left Back: A Century of Battles over School
Reform. For readers
who may be unfamiliar with your works, what do you view as being the
foremost problem with DR:
No, it really is not fair, because the word progressive covers such a
broad and elastic set of meanings. In some ways, we are all
progressives. Who can be against progress? There
are so many big problems that it is hard to pin it all on just one
source. Certainly, hostility to knowledge (i.e., anti-intellectualism)
is one area of concern. The education schools are (as I tried to show
in Left Back) complicit in this. But
parents don't escape blame, as so many abdicate their children to the
TV, internet, or peers. One
could go on and on, but what interests me most is to see how we can
teach our cultural traditions/heritage, and also teach the next
generation to be critical of that heritage. Unfortunately, every word
of that last sentence is now regarded as debatable--What do you mean
"our"? What do
you mean "cultural"? What do you mean "heritage"?
And then what are kids left with but dumbed-down lessons and
text, so they turn to the TV, movies, and video for excitement and
sensation. BC:
I’d like to mention a short piece that you recently penned.
It’s called “What
Harry Potter Can Teach the Textbook Industry,” and it highlights
that learning and reading can still interest children if they have
meaning and are applicable to human truth.
I experienced this as a child with Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, and
Lloyd Alexander. All of
the works that I read did not contain bells, whistles or fireworks as
photography. They were
printed in simple text. Is
it your opinion that if textbooks “de-glossify” and instead focus
more on politically incorrect reality they will be of more interest to
students? DR:
I think they should concentrate on terrific writing, both in
literature and history. These books need not be so superficial and
empty. If they spent as much money paying great writers as they do on
the artwork, the textbooks would be very different. I also think it
necessary to have books written by people with real names, who sign
their name, not committees (especially the history books, where no one
knows who wrote what or anything). BC:
I wrote a
piece about you and someone wrote to me saying that you’re not a
political moderate but actually a conservative.
I responded by saying that you worked for both the first Bush
Administration and the Clinton Administration.
Is my description of you as a political moderate correct?
You seemed to work very hard in The Language Police to
present criticisms of both the right and left. DR:
I am a political independent. I
am a registered independent. I
worked in the first Bush administration (at that time, I was a
Democrat). I was appointed
by President Clinton to the National Assessment Governing Board, and I
have advised governors, legislators, etc. of both parties. Judge me by
my works. BC:
Dr. Ravitch, as a faculty member at DR:
I teach at NYU. The faculty is certainly not Marxist.
However, I am willing to bet that 98% of the education faculty
belong to the same political party.
It is probably true of many other departments as well, but I
really don't know. Also
the education faculty is overwhelmingly opposed to testing, but favors
bilingual education, constructivism, favors diversity and affirmative
action, etc. On most
education and culture issues, there is very little if any diversity of
opinion. BC: You also hold a position at the Brookings Institute as a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies. Due to your simultaneously being a part of academia and a think tank, are there some advantages that employment with a university convey over working at an institute? I ask this because there are so many conservative scholars who are in think tanks as opposed to being professors at colleges. DR:
Conservatives are mainly in think tanks rather than universities not
by choice but because they are often shunned at universities.
I have several friends and acquaintances who were pushed out
because they were considered conservative.
This reduces the possibilities for debate and intellectual
freedom in universities. I
loved working at Brookings because I heard much more diverse opinions
than I had when I was at teachers college or even now at NYU. I am a
visiting fellow at Brookings, but was in residence in the ‘93-‘95
era. BC:
Sol Stern’s got a new book out, Breaking
Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice,
and he is also joined in his critique of “progressive education”
by the likes J. Martin Rochester and Kieran Egan.
Do you feel that the tide has turned and the days are over when
the general public will sit helplessly on the sidelines during debates
over public education? Will
we soon be seeing genuine reform? DR:
No, the education schools have not changed, nor are they likely to.
People will often write dissident books, but change happens
glacially in education. BC:
How do you rate the Bush Administration on education?
They’ve certainly spent a ton of money, but has the increased
expenditures been of benefit to children? DR:
The jury is still out. BC:
What are your future writing plans?
What’s the next subject you’ll address? DR:
I am planning to edit an anthology of English poems, essays and
speeches with my younger son, Michael Ravitch. We have a contract with
Oxford University Press.
Bernard Chapin works as a school psychologist full-time, a college instructor part-time and writes whenever possible.
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