Diane Ravitch Quotes (13 Quotes)

Most people believe that schools were good enough when they were children and that they are good enough now. But the dynamic growth of our system of education has spawned serious problems of educational quality.

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

If the contract is centered around more time for the kids, but the kids don't have to show up, it doesn't make sense.

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

It's an interesting development, and I would hope that the chancellor would take heed.

This process of self-censorship is ubiquitous and that those who do it believe that they are doing the right thing. That they call it sensitivity and fairness review without realizing that they are censoring to placate pressure groups, or in anticipation of protests.

Of course, all students should learn African history, as they should learn the history of other continents and major civilizations. But this history should be taught accurately and based on the best scholarship, not ideology or politics.

Removing books from the library is a no-no.

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.

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.

The middle kids are the ones who are lost - they tend to be forgotten by federal policy. The mediocrity of which everyone complains is what middle students are most likely to suffer from, and without the push and the prod to achieve, they won't make it.

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

These stats are meaningless in the absence of a common test and common standards.