Diane Ravitch's Report Card Flunks Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

In an article in the March 7th issue of The New York Review of Books, Diane Ravitch critiques Arne Duncan’s performance as our Secretary of Education. See “Flunking Arne Duncan.” Her grades on his report card in six categories are:

Report Card: Arne Duncan


Fidelity to the Constitution                 F


Doing what’s right for children             F


Doing what’s right for public education F


Respecting the limits of federalism      F


Doing what’s right for teachers            F


Doing what’s right for education          F

But the greatest tragedy of our times, writes Ravitch, is that "it is hard to find any leader of either party who stands forthrightly today as a champion of students, teachers, public schools, and good education."


Reflecting on our times, she writes:

We will someday view this era as one in which the nation turned its back on its public schools, its children, and its educators. We will wonder why so many journalists and policymakers rejected the nation’s obligation to support public education as a social responsibility and accepted the unrealistic, unsustainable promises of entrepreneurs and billionaires. And we will, with sorrow and regret, think of this as an era when an obsession with testing and data obliterated any concept or definition of good education. Some perhaps may recall this as a time when the nation forgot that education has a greater purpose than preparing our children to compete in the global economy.

For a review of Diane Ravitch's recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, read Chris Ohana's review in our current issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy.