Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch, CO-CHAIR OF COMMON CORE and RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. She is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1993, Ms. Ravitch was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic standards.

Ms. Ravitch was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board by Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

She is the author of many books, including The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education (2010), The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003), Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform (2000), National Standards in American Education: A Citizen’s Guide (1995), The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980, What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (with Chester Finn, Jr., 1987), and The Schools We Deserve (1985). In addition, she has edited fourteen books, including The English Reader (2006) and The American Reader (1990), written more than 400 articles and reviews, and has lectured throughout the United States and the world on democracy and civic education.

Ms. Ravitch serves on the board of the Core Knowledge Foundation, the Albert Shanker Institute of the American Federation of Teachers, the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, and Common Good. She is an honorary life trustee of the New York Public Library and a former Guggenheim Fellow.

Ms. Ravitch has received numerous awards, including the John Dewey Award from the United Federation of Teachers of New York City in 2005, the Gaudium Award of the Breukelein Institute, the Uncommon Book Award from the Hoover Institution, and the Kenneth J. Bialkin/Citigroup Public Service Award in 2006. A native of Houston, she is a graduate of the Houston public schools. She received a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and honorary degrees from several institutions.

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December 8 • Check out Education Week’s coverage of Common Core’s recent national survey of school teachers.

November 14 • Read Lynne Munson’s response to the latest NAEP results. Joanne Jacobs’s “Linking and Thinking on Education” and the Core Knowledge blog also highlighted her piece.

September 15 • A new Salon.com article highlights Common Core’s upcoming study on curriculum narrowing and quotes Executive Director Lynne Munson: “We were surprised at the extremity of the narrowing indicated by the teachers who took our survey.”

July 22 • Common Core releases new, second edition of its popular Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts. News Release

May 6 • Common Core's Curriculum Maps for ELA have exceeded 2 million page views.

February 24 • Common Core's Lynne Munson writes on "What Students Really Need to Learn" in the lastest issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership.

January 5 • Common Core’s Curriculum Maps for English Language Arts have exceeded one million views. See the press release here.

December 8 • Last week, the North Carolina State Board of Education approved revised social studies standards. Thanks to input from Common Core, among others, North Carolina's students will now take four social studies courses, including two US history courses covering the European exploration of the New World through contemporary time.

October 18 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson participates in a New America Foundation panel of leaders working to bring technology into classrooms in innovative ways. Watch a video of the discussion here.

October 11 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson gives Ed Week her perspective on 21st-century learning: "Twenty-first-century technology should be seen as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge, not an excuse to know less."

October 4 • California Governor vetoes curriculum narrowing bill. Opposed by Common Core, the bill would have effectively eliminated the state’s arts and foreign language high school graduation requirement. More...

Spring 2010 • The new issue of the AFT’s American Educator shines a light on 21st century skills, featuring contributions from Common Core’s Lynne Munson and Laura Bornfreund, eduwonk Andy Rotherham and UVA’s Dan Willingham, Diana Senechal, and Diane Ravitch.

December 4 • EdWeek profile questions motives of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 5

November 10 • You can now read Diane Ravitch’s op/ed on 21st century skills in the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Metro West Daily News, Lowell Sun, and Quincy Patriot Ledger.

November 3 • Education Week highlights Common Core’s concerns about the appointment of a P21 leader to a key Dept. of Education post.

November • Lynne Munson and Richard Kessler explain why arts education is vital in the November 2009 issue of Parenting magazine.

October 10 • Diane Ravitch’s recent op/ed on 21st century skills has been reprinted in the Providence Journal.

September 16 • A group of prominent scholars, teachers, education reform advocates, and union leaders issued a statement today expressing concern about the program put forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and calling for its revision. Press Advisory (pdf)

September 15 • Common Core’s Diane Ravitch shows how dated the idea of “21st century skills” really is in the Boston Globe

July 13 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson raises concerns about national standards at convention of the American Federation of Teachers. (PDF document)

July 9 • In USAToday Common Core’s Lynne Munson argues that a comprehensive education is more likely than a STEM education to produce new scientists.

July 2 • A USAToday editorial cites and links to Common Core’s “Still at Risk” study which showed how little our 17-year-olds know about history and literature.

June 2 • Common Core releases Why We’re Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don’t, a report showing that the nations that consistently outrank us on international comparison tests provide their students with a fulsome education in the liberal arts and sciences. Why is this news? Because the U.S. is moving further and further away from this model. Read brief excerpts from the documents featured in the report here.