Diane Ravitch is Research Professor at New York University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
In 1993-94, she was a Visiting Fellow in Governmental Studies at Brookings. From 1991 to 1993, she served as Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to the Secretary of Education and was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education.
Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
She is the author of:
- The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (March 2010)
- The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (May 2003)
- Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (2000)
- What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (with Chester E. Finn, Jr.) (1987)
- The Schools We Deserve (1985)
- The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (1983)
- The Revisionists Revised (1978)
- The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973 (1974)
In addition, she has edited a number of books, including Brookings Papers on Education Policy (annual), The American Reader (1991) and The Democracy Reader (with Abigail Thernstrom) (1992). She has also written more than 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications.
She has lectured in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, and throughout the United States. Her lectures on democracy and civic education have been translated by the USIA into many languages, including Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. In 1989, she became an advisor to Teachers Solidarity and the Ministry of Education in Poland. In 1991, the Polish Government awarded her a medal for her work on behalf of the Solidarity movement.
She is a member of PEN International and an honorary life trustee of the New York Public Library. She was formerly a trustee of the New York Historical Society and the New York State Council for the Humanities. She was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (1979), the Society of American Historians (1984), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985).
She was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, by the following institutions: Williams College; Reed College; Amherst College; the State University of New York; Ramapo College; Union College; St. Joseph's College of New York and Siena College.
In 2010, she was selected as Friend of Education by the National Education Association and received awards from the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Horace Mann League. In 2011, she was honored by the National Council for the Social Studies. In 2011, she received the Daniel Patrick Moynihan award from the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
A native of Houston, she is a graduate of the Houston public schools. She received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1960 and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1975.
For more information, also visit Diane Ravitch's homepage.
