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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

A Really Cool Event « Diane Ravitch's blog

A Really Cool Event « Diane Ravitch's blog:


A Really Cool Event

Back when I was writing The Death and Life of the Great American School System, I was looking for a way to characterize Race to the Top. It sounded so familiar to me because its main ideas came dire t from the conservative think-tanks from which I had recently resigned. How could I find a way to explain the contradiction: a new Democratic administration embracing GOP themes of testing, accountability, choice, competition?
And then I found a blog written by Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (where I had been a founding board member). Mike said of Race to the Top, “It’s as if a bunch of do-gooders sat together at the NewSchools Venture Fund summit and brainstormed a list of popular reform ideas, and are now going to force them upon the state’s. (Wait, I think that is how this list got developed.)”
NewSchools Venture Fund is an organization that funds charter schools and entrepreneurs. To cement his link