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Top 30 Diane Ravitch Quotes (2025 Update)

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.”

1. “Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.”

— Diane Ravitch

Featured in: Intelligent Quotes

Diane Ravitch Quote: “An attack on Public Education is an attack on Democracy.”

2. “An attack on Public Education is an attack on Democracy.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Those who can’t teach, pass laws about how to evaluate teachers.”

3. “Those who can’t teach, pass laws about how to evaluate teachers.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Accountability makes no sense when it undermines the larger goals of education.”

4. “Accountability makes no sense when it undermines the larger goals of education.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?”

5. “Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.”

6. “Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.”

7. “The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.”

8. “We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.”

9. “American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is an educational malpractice.”

10. “Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is an educational malpractice.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.”

11. “Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?”

12. “American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not ‘broken.’ Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.”

13. “Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not ‘broken.’ Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “You can’t lead your troops if your troops do not trust you.”

14. “You can’t lead your troops if your troops do not trust you.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.”

15. “Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “The ladder was there, from the gutter to the university, and for those stalwart enough to ascend it, the schools were a boon and a path out of poverty.”

16. “The ladder was there, from the gutter to the university, and for those stalwart enough to ascend it, the schools were a boon and a path out of poverty.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “When you realize that your history books and your science books and your literature books are not the result of experts sitting down and making it a wise decision, but of political pressure groups coming to the state textbook hearings, this is wrong.”

17. “When you realize that your history books and your science books and your literature books are not the result of experts sitting down and making it a wise decision, but of political pressure groups coming to the state textbook hearings, this is wrong.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “What I had come to understand was that the root cause of poor performance in schools is not ‘bad schools’ or ‘bad teachers’ but poverty. Closing schools and firing their teachers and principals does not help students. If anything, it introduces damaging instability into their lives. The privatizers hail disruption and call it ‘creative,’ but it is neither creative nor beneficial.”

18. “What I had come to understand was that the root cause of poor performance in schools is not ‘bad schools’ or ‘bad teachers’ but poverty. Closing schools and firing their teachers and principals does not help students. If anything, it introduces damaging instability into their lives. The privatizers hail disruption and call it ‘creative,’ but it is neither creative nor beneficial.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “When you succeed at keeping almost everyone in school, you must figure out ways to educate everyone you keep in school.”

19. “When you succeed at keeping almost everyone in school, you must figure out ways to educate everyone you keep in school.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department.”

20. “Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.”

21. “The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Of course, all students should learn African history, as they should learn the history of other continents and major civilizations. But this history should be taught accurately and based on the best scholarship, not ideology or politics.”

22. “Of course, all students should learn African history, as they should learn the history of other continents and major civilizations. But this history should be taught accurately and based on the best scholarship, not ideology or politics.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Research does not support any part of Race to the Top.”

23. “Research does not support any part of Race to the Top.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children.”

24. “What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit’s first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.”

25. “We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit’s first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “NAEP is central to any discussion of whether American students and the public schools they attend are doing well or badly. It has measured reading and math and other subjects over time. It is administered to samples of students; no one knows who will take it, no one can prepare to take it, no one takes the whole test. There are no stakes attached to NAEP; no student ever gets a test score.”

26. “NAEP is central to any discussion of whether American students and the public schools they attend are doing well or badly. It has measured reading and math and other subjects over time. It is administered to samples of students; no one knows who will take it, no one can prepare to take it, no one takes the whole test. There are no stakes attached to NAEP; no student ever gets a test score.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Most people believe that schools were good enough when they were children and that they are good enough now. But the dynamic growth of our system of education has spawned serious problems of educational quality.”

27. “Most people believe that schools were good enough when they were children and that they are good enough now. But the dynamic growth of our system of education has spawned serious problems of educational quality.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change...”

28. “One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change...”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “Critics may find this hard to believe, but students in American public schools today are studying and mastering far more difficult topics in science and mathematics than their peers forty or fifty years ago. People who doubt this should review the textbooks in common use then and now or look at the tests then and now.”

29. “Critics may find this hard to believe, but students in American public schools today are studying and mastering far more difficult topics in science and mathematics than their peers forty or fifty years ago. People who doubt this should review the textbooks in common use then and now or look at the tests then and now.”

— Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch Quote: “It defies reason to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. would march arm in arm with Wall Street hedge fund managers and members of ALEC to lead a struggle for the privatization of public education, the crippling of unions, and the establishment of for-profit schools.”

30. “It defies reason to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. would march arm in arm with Wall Street hedge fund managers and members of ALEC to lead a struggle for the privatization of public education, the crippling of unions, and the establishment of for-profit schools.”

— Diane Ravitch

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