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Diane Ravitch's Blog - Education & Personal Development
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My Article on the Trump Agenda for Education | Diane Ravitch's blog
I was invited to write about the Trump agenda for education by The New York Review of Books. This is a publication I love to write for, because it's the most distinguished literary-political-cultural publication in the nation. In addition, the editing process is arduous and careful. Every word, every sentence was carefully scrutinized. I happen…
Timothy Snyder: Trump is a “Weak Strongman” | Diane Ravitch's blog
Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University, who has written many books about European history. His book "On Tyranny" was a bestseller. He writes a blog at Substack called "Thinking About..." Snyder writes: Americans have a certain idea of freedom. We are fine just the way we are and the only problem…
Mercedes Schneider: In Louisiana, Getting Vaccinated is Now a “Personal Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog
Mercedes Schneider writes about a remarkable decision by Louisiana's top health official. He has decided that getting vaccinated should be a personal decision, not a mandate that applies to everyone. It's not possible to stop the spread of a highly contagious disease if vaccination is optional. Please open the link to read the order of…
Trump Snubs Europe, Insults Ukraine, Joins Forces with Putin | Diane Ravitch's blog
Donald Trump, for reasons of his own, has decided to join in alliance with Vladimir Putin. He has indicated that the U.S. may leave NATO, which has kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War II. There is a chance that NATO might expel the U.S. due to Trump's partnership with Putin.…
Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Embraces Russia | Diane Ravitch's blog
The speed with which Trump embraced the Russian view of its war on Ukraine is head-spinning. Trump said that Ukraine started the war, even though the world saw that Russia invaded Ukraine and that Russia has destroyed Ukrainian hospitals, schools, apartment houses, cultural sites, its power grid, and other non-military targets for three years. Even…
How Elon Musk Is Profiting As He Tears Apart the Federal Government | Diane Ravitch's blog
The New York Times described the various ways that Elon Musk is helping himself and his business empire as he reorganizes the federal government. It was clear from the start that Musk has multiple conflicts of interest in his relationship to the government. He has taken control of several agencies that are investigating his business…
Julian Vasquez Heilig: Hands Off Efforts to Help Minority Students Succeed in College! | Diane Ravitch's blog
Julian Vasquez Heilig is a battler for the rights of the downtrodden. He researches and writes about diversity and equity. He is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. Recently, he was Provost at Weatern Michigan University. He recently stepped down to enjoy his freedom of speech as a tenured faculty…
A Tribute to Two Black Pioneers in Brooklyn | Diane Ravitch's blog
It's Black History Month. Ignore the fact that this annual tribute to the achievements and culture of African-Americans has been stripped of recognition by the federal government since the inauguration of the worst President in our history. Trump thinks that the nation was greatest when it was ruled by straight white men, and everyone else…
John Thompson: The Struggle Aming Republicans in Oklahoma | Diane Ravitch's blog
John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, describes the Republican infighting in Oklahoma. Meanwhile School Superintendent Ryan Walters continues his crusade to Christianize the state's public schools. He writes: At the end of January, I wrote in Diane Ravitch’s blog that: In Oklahoma, where rightwing MAGAs, led by Governor Kevin Stitt, State Superintendent Ryan Walters, and…
ALERT! The Disturbing Background of the Teen in the DOGE Group | Diane Ravitch's blog
Do you have 10-15 minutes to read a very important article? It contains a lot of alarming details about the 19-year-old computer whiz on Elon Musk's DOGE team. Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter, writes a blog about Internet security called Krebs on Security. In this awesome post, he describes the links of Edward…
James Fallows: “Defund the Air Traffic Controllers” | Diane Ravitch's blog
James Fallows is a veteran journalist, one of the best. He predicts disaster ahead because of the ignorance of the DOGE team slashing the federal workforce. Screenshot from CNN, credited to John Nelson, of Delta regional jet flight 4819 upside-down after landing at Pearson Airport in Toronto, after crash landing today. He writes: This post…
Trump Is Breaking the Law By Banning Teaching About DEI | Diane Ravitch's blog
Haley Bull of Scripps News reported yesterday that Trump sent out an order to all 50 states warning that the federal government would cut off funding to any school that teaches about "diversity, equity or inclusion." She wrote: The Department of Education is warning state education agencies they may lose federal funding if they do…
Washington Post Kills Ad Calling on Trump to Fire Musk | Diane Ravitch's blog
Julie Creswell of The New York Times reported that The Washington Post killed an ad calling on Trump to fire his best buddy Elon Musk. The story was first reported in The Hill. Who could have given such an order? Creswell writes: An advertisement that was set to run in some editions of The Washington…
What You Need to Know about Trump’s Plan to Close the Department of Education | Diane Ravitch's blog
Trump wants to close the U.S. Department of Education. He thinks the Department of Education has been indoctrinating Americans to accept DEI and "radical gender ideology." He's wrong. Trump's education goals were laid out in Project 2025. During the campaign, Trump pretended he knew nothing about Project 2025, but he was lying. Of course. The…
Karen Attiah: Call the Attack on DEI What It Is: A Rollback of Racial Integration | Diane Ravitch's blog
Karen Attiah is Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post and a columnist. She says in this column exactly what I have been thinking. The attack on DEI is intended to restore the days when women, Blacks, Latinos, and people with disabilities had little or no chance to rise in their field. It's ironic to…
Sara Stevenson: Fully Fund Texas Public Schools Instead of Handouts for the Wealthiest | Diane Ravitch's blog
Sara Stevenson is a retired school librarian and Catholic school English teacher. She is a fearless advocate for public schools. Her article was published in The Austin American-Statesman. At this very time, the Texas Legislature is debating voucher legislation. It has already passed the State Senate. It is now being considered in the House. She…
Louisiana: Vouchers Fail the Students Who Need the Most Help | Diane Ravitch's blog
Remember the claim that vouchers would "save poor kids from failing public schools"? As we see in state after state, it's not true. Josh Cowen wrote in his new book The Privateers that voucher researchers have known for years that vouchers don't help poor kids; in reality, vouchers actually hurt poor kids. The poor kids…
Umair Haque: America’s Brexit Moment | Diane Ravitch's blog
Umair Haque, a London-based economist, is pessimistic about the direction of our economy., He wrote this a day before Trump announced that he was imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, our neighbors and largest trading partners, and 10% tariffs on Europe and China. Haque predicts that the economic consequences for the U.S. will be…
Musk Takes Control of USAID, Calls It “Evil” | Diane Ravitch's blog
Musk is sending his agents to sensitive federal agencies and taking over. He has taken control of the payments system at the U.S. Treasury, which processes trillions of dollars in Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, and other obligations and holds personally identifiable information about recipients. They gained access to the computers of the Office of…
Joyce Vance: The Anti-President And His Coup | Diane Ravitch's blog
Joyce Vance is a veteran prosecutor. She was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009-2017. She asserts that what has happened since Trump returned to the White House is not normal. He is dismantling one agency after another. He is firing highly qualified career civil servants. We are watching a coup,…
Robert Hubbell: Call It What It Is: A Coup | Diane Ravitch's blog
Robert Hubbell is a level-headed guy who follows the news closely and calls things by their rightful name. He writes an immensely popular blog. In this post, he says we are currently experiencing a coup, engineered by Trump and Musk. They are seizing control of every Department and agency, ousting loyal career officials and politicizing…
Wall Street Journal: “America’s Dumbest Trade War” | Diane Ravitch's blog
The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is known for its admiration for Donald Trump and its commitment to the best interests of big business and capitalism. On Friday, it published this editorial about Trump's determination to impose tariffs on our trading partners. This action, said the editorial, is just plain dumb. The editorial…
Trump’s Goal: To Take Complete Control of the Federal Government | Diane Ravitch's blog
During the campaign, Trump told Sean Hannity that he would be a dictator on Day 1. He understated his goal, as we now know. He intends to be a dictator after Day 1. He wants to take complete control of the federal government. He wants to destroy the civil service, place his loyalists in every…
Dark Money: Manufacturing Prestige for Rightwing and Fringe Academics | Diane Ravitch's blog
This is a fascinating article about an "academic" organization with shallow roots but a prestigious name. It was created in 2022. It confers awards on award-worthy recipients and on fringe academics. Its purpose seems to be to add luster to the latter. Take the recent Trump nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health: On October…
New Regime Is Dropping CDC Data into Memory Hole | Diane Ravitch's blog
One of the sure signs of an authoritarian regime is a passion to censor unwanted information, research, ideas, and history. The Trump administration is busy deleting scientific research at the Centers for Disease Control. Any studies that include data about LGBT+ people, women, or others whose existence is anathema to Trump and his Merry Band…
Will CBS Defend “60 Minutes” or Will It Pay Off Trump? | Diane Ravitch's blog
We have never seen a president like Trump. He never misses an opportunity to grift. He got $16 million from ABC News because George Stephanopoulos said he raped E. Jean Carroll (the judge in the case agreed). Never went to trial. He got $25 million from Zuckerberg because he was locked out of Facebook after…
Tennessee: Legislature Passes Universal Vouchers, State Will Pay for All Students | Diane Ravitch's blog
Governor Bill Lee was determined to get a universal voucher bill, regardless of which families get the money or what it costs the state. Since Republicans control the legislature, he got what he wanted. The plan will be phased in. The legislature knows that most vouchers will subsidize private school tuition. They probably know that…
The Christian Case for Separation of Church and State | Diane Ravitch's blog
Benjamin Cremer is a Wesleyan minister on Idaho. He posted an important commentary, making the Christian case for separation of church and state. I believe in the separation of church and state as a Christian, not because I’m against Christianity, but because I know the history of Christianity. It is because I have studied all…
Simon Rosenberg: Trump Is Responsible for Chaos, Mayhem, Disruption | Diane Ravitch's blog
Simon Rosenberg is a leader of the resistance to Trumpism. He blogs at Substack, where his blog is called Hopium. He wrote today: Morning/Afternoon all. If Donald Trump has a superpower it has been the evasion of responsibility for the bad things he’s done in his life. Yesterday he blamed Biden, Obama, Pete Buttigieg, DEI…
CBS In Talks with Trump to Settle a Ridiculous lawsuit | Diane Ravitch's blog
One by one, the lords of the media are kissing Trump's ring. ABC paid him $15 million because George Stephanopoulos interviewed Trump and said that Trump had been convicted of rape by a New York jury. Trump said it was false and he was defamed. ABC could have fought the suit, but instead it paid…
Why Paul Krugman Left The New York Times | Diane Ravitch's blog
Paul Krugman is a Nobel-Prize winning economist who wrote a regular column for The New York Times for 24 years. Recently he left the Times and now writes at Substack. On Substack, he wrote about why he left. For many years, he wrote, the Times had edited his work very lightly. Recently, his editors had…
Trump Signs Executive Order Directing Federal Funds to School Choice, Directly Attacking Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog
Trump has always expressed contempt for public schools. In his first term, he appointed billionaire religious zealot Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. She has spent many millions over decades to promote charters and vouchers, and she shoveled as much money as she could to charter schools, especially large chains. His nominee for Secretary…
Trump Signs Executive Order Threatening to Punish Schools that Teach About Racism and Gender | Diane Ravitch's blog
Trump signed an Executive Order threatening to cut off federal funding from schools that "indoctrinate" students on issues related to race and gender. The order is titled "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling." Let's start by acknowledging that this order is in direct violation of a law that was passed in 1970 to prevent the…
Trump Appoints Vocal Critic of DEI to Lead Civil Rights Commission | Diane Ravitch's blog
Trump appointed Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of policies that acknowledge race or gender, to be chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC traditionally advocates for race-based and gender-based policies to monitor whether employers are trying to give all groups an equal chance. Lucas opposes the EEOC's actions. If the EEOC receives a…
Trump Administration Rescinds Funding Freeze | Diane Ravitch's blog
A maxim: Where Trump goes, chaos reigns. The across-the-board federal funding freeze imposed by the Trump administration was withdrawn, according to this report at MSNBC. The freeze was announced, then modified, and today it was withdrawn. It caused widespread chaos, as numerous programs were confused about whether or not they had funding. Red states, where…
Heather Cox Richardson: The Facts About Our Blow-Up with Colombia | Diane Ravitch's blog
Yesterday, President Donald Trump began a trade war with Colombia after that country’s president refused to permit two U.S. military airplanes full of deportees to land in Colombia. As Regina Garcia Cano and Astrid Suárez of the Associated Press pointed out, Colombia and the U.S. had an existing agreement for deportations under former president Joe…
Jim Acosta Signs Off at CNN | Diane Ravitch's blog
CNN doesn't want to make Trump angry. Trump doesn't like Jim Acosta. CNN moved him to a late-night slot, where fewer viewers would see him. Jim Acosta resigned. He is now on Substack. This was his final message on CNN: I just wanted to end today’s show by thanking all of the wonderful people who…
TIME: RFK Jr. on Vaccines | Diane Ravitch's blog
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the most famous vaccine skeptics in the U.S., tried to distance himself from his decades of anti-vaccine sentiment during his Jan. 29 hearing to be confirmed as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee agencies including the Centers for Disease…