Reinforcing Bipolarity

Today’s NYTimes piece on Diane Ravitch’s “about-face” on education reform issues is a new frontier in “he said/she said” journalism, in that it’s a completely intra-personal version of the genre!  We’ll call it “she said/she used to say.” Unfortunately, the only thing that’s sticking with me is “Diane Ravitch changed her mind and it annoys a lot of people.” I want to talk about this, though:

“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.

I think this just reinforces the either/or pendulum swinging that obscures the real objectives of improving schools.  First, it conflates the various strains of reform, which I’ve argued isn’t productive.  And second, the claim is devoid of any real data to back it up.  I’m actually interested in the substance of Diane’s shift, but all I’m getting here is: ” Diane thinks that reform is a trainwreck and that we must stop it.”  There are anecdotes, but nothing about how children are performing.