Renowned school reformer Diane Ravitch has changed her mind

Federal testing has narrowed education and charter schools have failed to live up to their promise, she says

The President’s Speaker Series at CSU Monterey Bay resumes Feb. 23 when prominent education scholar Diane Ravitch visits campus. Her talk will start at 7 p.m. in the World Theater on Sixth Avenue.

Her topic: Will Education Reform Improve Our Schools? She will use her best-selling book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, as the foundation for a discussion on the critical state of education reform in our nation.

Dr. Ravitch is research professor of education at New York University; a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. From 1991 through 1993, she was assistant secretary of education in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, where she led the federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic standards.

A former proponent of the No Child Left Behind Act, Dr. Ravitch later became disillusioned by the test score-based philosophy and has become one of its most vocal critics. “We are judging students by these test scores. They are not telling us how much students are learning. They are telling us how much students have been prepped,” Ravitch has said. In the book, she critiques the punitive uses of accountability to fire teachers and close schools, as well as replacing public schools with charter schools and relying on superstar teachers.

“We should have a long-term plan in which we improve the quality of the teaching force, have higher educational expectations for those who come into teaching. We should begin to think about an improved profession, better assessments and insisting on this vision of education in which kids get a broad, rich and coherent curriculum, rather than basic skills only,” she said in her latest book.

Dr. Ravitch shares a blog called Bridging Differences with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week. She also blogs for politico.com/arena and the Huffington Post. Her articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines.

The lecture is free. Reservations are recommended and can be made online by clicking here. For more information, or to request disability accommodations, call (831) 582-4580.

For driving directions and a campus map, click here.