Taking Back School Reform: A Conversation Between Diane Ravitch and Mike Rose

Last month, education scholars Diane Ravitch and Mike Rose held a conversation at the University of California-Los Angeles about issues raised in Ravitch’s much-discussed new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System . Afterward, they continued their conversation by e-mail, focusing on key topics that emerged in their discussion at UCLA.

Rose recently sent us an edited transcript of their e-mail exchange for publication. In an e-mail, Rose suggested that he and Ravitch were eager to present their dialogue to teachers. The transcript follows.

You and I are both concerned about the predominance of school-bashing rhetoric in the national discussion of public schools. This dismissive language runs across the ideological spectrum; we find it in the pages of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard or at a convening of left-leaning high-tech entrepreneurs interested in education. This way of talking about public schools, as we both argue, provides the ideological foundation to dismiss public education, to seek free-market solutions or structural or technological miracle cures. So well-to-do parents don’t send their kids to public schools. Wealthy donors direct their money elsewhere. And young people have second thoughts...