Something interesting happened at the Harlem Children’s Zone conference yesterday: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan paid tribute (kind of) to one of his biggest critics.
Arguing that we can’t wait to improve schools until we fix poverty, Duncan quoted New York University education historian Diane Ravitch.
“Historian Diane Ravitch got it right a decade ago when she said:
Public policy must relentlessly seek to replicate schools that demonstrate the ability to educate children from impoverished backgrounds instead of perpetuating (and rewarding) those that use the pupil’s circumstances as a rationale for failure.
Ravitch has, among other things, suggested that Duncan might really be former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in drag.