Diane Ravitch

Bio: Diane Ravitch is an academic researcher from New York University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Primary education & Curriculum. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 103 publications receiving 5740 citations. Previous affiliations of Diane Ravitch include University of Michigan.

Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers. EPI Briefing Paper #278.

Abstract: Authors, each of whom is responsible for this brief as a whole, are listed alphabetically. correspondence may be addressed to Educ_Prog@epi.org. Executive summary Every classroom should have a well-educated, professional teacher, and school systems should recruit, prepare, and retain teachers who are qualified to do the job. Yet in practice, American public schools generally do a poor job of systematically developing and evaluating teachers. Many policy makers have recently come to believe that this failure can be remedied by calculating the improvement in students' scores on standardized tests in mathematics and reading, and then relying heavily on these calculations to evaluate, reward, and remove the teachers of these tested students. While there are good reasons for concern about the current system of teacher evaluation, there are also good reasons to be concerned about claims that measuring teachers' effectiveness largely by student test scores will lead to improved student achievement. If new laws or policies specifically require that teachers be fired if their students' test scores do not rise by a certain amount, then more teachers might well be terminated than is now the case. But there is not strong evidence to indicate either that the departing teachers would actually be the weakest teachers, or that the departing teachers would be replaced by more effective ones. There is also little or no evidence for the claim that teachers will be more motivated to improve student learning if teachers are evaluated or monetarily rewarded for student test score gains. A review of the technical evidence leads us to conclude that, although standardized test scores of students are one piece of information for school leaders to use to make judgments about teacher effectiveness, such scores should be only a part of an overall comprehensive evaluation. Some states are now considering plans that would give as much as 50% of the weight in teacher evaluation and compensation decisions to scores on existing tests of basic skills in math and reading. Based on the evidence, we consider this unwise. Any sound evaluation will necessarily involve a balancing of many factors that provide a more accurate view of what teachers in fact do in the classroom and how that contributes to student learning. Evidence about the use of test scores to evaluate teachers Recent statistical advances have made it possible to look at student achievement gains after adjusting for some student and school characteristics. These approaches …

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Abstract: In the literature of advocacy, the apostate makes a particularly compelling figure. Having crossed over from the opposite camp on an issue, it is assumed that she/he knows the arguments inside and out, sees flaws more clearly and has arrived at conclusions more objectively. Diane Ravitch is just such an apostate. The esteemed educational historian and policy analyst who once served as Undersecretary Of Education was once an advocate for charter schools and an array of reforms designed to improve education through testing, accountability, and choice etc. She now has come to the position that those reforms have not worked and are undermining what ought to be our supreme commitment; the goal of providing a first rate education for all Americans as a public goal through the reinvigoration of the public school system.

Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms

Abstract: For the past one hundred years, Americans have argued and worried about the quality of their schools. Some have charged that students were not learning enough, while others have complained that the schools were not in the forefront of social progress. In this authoritative history of education in the twentieth century, historian Diane Ravitch describes this ongoing battle of ideas and explains why school reform has so often failed. "Left Back" recounts grandiose efforts by education reformers to use the schools to promote social and political goals, even when they diminished the schools' ability to educate children. It shows how generations of reformers have engaged in social engineering, advocating such innovations as industrial education, intelligence testing, curricular differentiation, and life-adjustment education. These reformers, she demonstrates, simultaneously mounted vigorous campaigns against academic studies. "Left Back" charges that American schools have been damaged by three misconceptions. The first is the belief that the schools can solve any social or political problem. The second is the belief that only a portion of youngsters are capable of benefiting from a high-quality education. The third is that imparting knowledge is relatively unimportant, compared to engaging students in activities and experiences. These grave errors, Ravitch contends, have unnecessarily restricted equality of educational opportunity. They have dumbed down the schools by encouraging a general lowering of academic expectations. They have produced a diluted and bloated curriculum and pressure to enlarge individual schools so that they can offer multiple tracks to children withdifferent occupational goals. As a result, the typical American high school is too big, too anonymous, and lacks intellectual coherence. Ravitch identifies several heroic educators -- such as William T. Harris, William C. Bagley, and Isaac Kandel -- who challenged these dominant and wrong-headed ideas. These men, dissidents in their own times, are usually left out of standard histories of education or treated derisively because they believed that all children deserved the opportunity to meet high standards of learning. In describing the wars between competing traditions of education, Ravitch points the way to reviving American education. She argues that all students have the capacity to learn and that all are equally deserving of a solid liberal arts education. "Left Back" addresses issues of the utmost importance and urgency. It is a large work of history that by recovering the past illuminates a future.

Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony

Abstract: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. The elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...

Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later.

Abstract: A group of lst-graders who were administered a battery of reading tasks in a previous study were followed up as 1 lth graders. Ten years later, they were administered measures of exposure to print, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and general knowledge. First-grade reading ability was a strong predictor of all of the 1 lth-grade outcomes and remained so even when measures of cognitive ability were partialed out. First-grade reading ability (as well as 3rd- and 5th-grade ability) was reliably linked to exposure to print, as assessed in the 1 lth grade, even after 1 lth-grade reading comprehension ability was partialed out, indicating that the rapid acquisition of reading ability might well help develop the lifetime habit of reading, irrespective of the ultimate level of reading comprehension ability that the individual attains. Finally, individual differences in exposure to print were found to predict differences in the growth in reading comprehension ability throughout the elementary grades and thereafter.

What Are the Effects of Induction and Mentoring on Beginning Teacher Turnover

Abstract: In recent years there has been an increase in the number of programs offering support, guidance, and orientation for beginning teachers during the transition into their first teaching job. This study examines whether such programs—collectively known as induction—have a positive effect on the retention of beginning teachers. The data used in the analysis are from the nationally representative 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey. The results indicate that beginning teachers who were provided with mentors from the same subject field and who participated in collective induction activities, such as planning and collaboration with other teachers, were less likely to move to other schools and less likely to leave the teaching occupation after their first year of teaching.