And we think S.F. is contentious

I almost got distracted by wondering if Charles Dickens was writing headlines for the New York Sun, but once you get past " 'twixt" and "laid to," this incident reported in a Sun article is pretty creepy. Prominent education commentator Diane Ravitch, who formerly supported New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plans to overhaul the public school system, has become a critic. The New York Post ran an op-ed with the headline "HYPOCRITICAL CRITIC" that was entirely a highly personal attack on Ravitch's viewpoint and motives. Now it's revealed that Bloomberg's staff generated the op-ed.

Feud 'Twixt Wylde, Ravitch Laid to City's Machinations

BY ELIZABETH GREEN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 31, 2007

A scathing opinion piece deriding a prominent critic of Mayor Bloomberg's education policies was generated with the help of city officials, sources said yesterday.

The article, written by the president of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, and published in yesterday's New York Post, accuses Diane Ravitch of opposing the Bloomberg administration irrationally, despite formerly supporting the policies it has implemented, perhaps because of a personal grudge. It concludes that Ms. Ravitch is "no longer a source we can rely on for fair-minded commentary."

Ms. Ravitch yesterday said the piece plainly originated from the city's Education Department, calling it a "paid hit job" meant to silence all critics of the Bloomberg administration. "They're trying to intimidate me, and they're trying to silence me, and I'm not going to be silenced," Ms. Ravitch said.

This caught my eye especially because I have viewed Ravitch in the past as a hard-line, pro-high-stakes testing privatization advocate, and had been noting commentary by her that indicated she was dramatically softening her position. (She's still a Hoover Institution fellow, but must be an increasing outlier in that anti-public-education set.)

These points in the op-ed intending to make her look like some kind of vendetta-driven hypocrite instead prompt me to cheer her:

* Having once argued that the city should "apply a wrecking ball" to the old educational model, she now states that she does "not believe that it is prudent to destabilize a large school system."

* Ravitch formerly held that "principals must have the authority to make decisions that count and . . . be held accountable for student performance." Today, she mocks the idea of giving principals greater autonomy, saying it would create a destructive "every school for itself" environment. She now describes holding principals accountable for results as tantamount to "threats of humiliation."

* Although long a proponent of holding students to high standards — which relies on annual evaluations to assess to what extent children have mastered standards — she denies that improved test scores accurately measure the performance of New York City students.

* When the mayor announced a change in the formula for school funding nearly identical to one Ravitch has repeatedly endorsed, she attacked the city for "foisting" the system on schools too quickly.

* Long a critic of the argument that class size necessarily improves student achievement, she now appears to view it as a panacea.

You go, Diane! She responds to the controversy in this New York Post commentary.