This is what I don't understand about Diane Ravitch.? After several years (more or less) of fairly relentless criticisms of school reformers, she is back to her old self today, telling the New York Times that the new NAEP history? test results are ?alarming.?? ?Well, of course, they are. (Fordham has been talking about this for a long time.) As the Times reports, only 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency on the NAEP exam, considered the gold standard for measuring academic performance.? ?And there are lots more alarms where these came from.? But it would sure be great if Diane could come back to the reform fold and start writing again about how lousy many of our public schools are and making suggestions about how to fix them.
--Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
