Evaluating Education Reform: Lecture by Diane Ravitch

An evening with Diane Ravitch on September 30, 2013 at Stanford University was focused on her book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools (Knopf, 2013).
In Reign of Error, Ravitch argues against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, puts forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve public education. In her lecture, she discusses the topics she addresses in her book, including the strengths of U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how to effectively address the challenges.
A moderated discussion followed, featuring Ravitch; Eric Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University; Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford and founding director of SCOPE; and Channa Mae Cook, former principal and teacher and current Stanford doctoral student. Peter Schrag, former editorial page editor and columnist for the Sacramento Bee, moderated. Watch the panel discussion: • Evaluating Education R...
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education; from 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board. She has authored numerous books, including Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools (2013), and The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010). She is an honorary life trustee of the New York Public Library and a former Guggenheim Fellow. She was a member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University) from 1999 to 2009. She was a member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation from 1996 to 2009. She blogs at dianeravitch.net.

[@Gulliveck]

"We must have universal pre-K education" - what exactly this pre-K education should be teaching? The school is already 13 years long, and unless students enroll AP classes they only end up with Algebra II. Seriously? On contrary, reduce school to 10 or 8 years, because it seems to me that 8 years is more than enough for what is presently being taught in public schools.