Interview: The Needs Of The Many

Throughout her career, education historian Diane Ravitch has relentlessly chronicled the ill effects that the progressive emphasis upon "meeting the needs of the child" has had on America's most disenfranchised children. Indeed, her new book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (Simon & Schuster), is an exhaustive look at the subject. In the 560-page tome, Ravitch argues that, while the white and well-to-do have always had access to what she calls "the good stuff"—rigorous treatments of history, mathematics, and English, for example—other students have been saddled with consumer math and exercises in self-esteem. Much of this tracking has been done under the auspices of "meeting needs." But educators who provide children with learning experiences that match their social situations are inadvertently promoting a form of educational predestination, Ravitch argues.

While serving as an assistant secretary of education during the Bush administration, Ravitch played a central role in launching a standards movement she hoped would give all students access to solid curricula. Despite her association with Republicans and a movement resented by some as authoritarian, Ravitch insists she's an independent, both in politics and in education. This is a credible claim. In Left Back, as well as earlier books, Ravitch clearly states that she is not attacking all progressivism; in fact, she praises contemporary educators such as Ted Sizer for focusing on the needs of individual students. She also notes, without embarrassment, that her children attended a progressive, albeit academically rigorous, private school in New York City.

Contributing writer David Ruenzel recently reached Ravitch, now a research professor at New York University and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, at her home in Brooklyn. She spoke of her new book, the vagaries of the progressive movement, and her hopes for American education.