A History of Public School Governance in New
York City
Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. From 1996-2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Policy at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy.

Ravitch is a member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Albert Shanker Institute of the American Federation of Teachers, Common Good, the James B. Hunt Leadership Institute, and the Core Knowledge Foundation. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, to which she was appointed by Secretary of Education Richard Riley.

From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education responsible for the Offi ce of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and she was counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Her most recent book is Edspeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon (2007). In 2006, she and her son Michael Ravitch published The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know, an anthology of classic English literature. In 2003, she published The Language Police (2003). She has written seven other books, including Left Back (2000); The Troubled Crusade (1983); and The Great School Wars (1974) and edited fi fteen books. In addition, she has written nearly 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications.

In 2005, she received the John Dewey award from the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and the Uncommon Book Award from the Hoover Institution.

She was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education, the Society of American Historians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and PEN International.

She has received honorary degrees from Williams College; Reed College; Amherst College; the State University of New York; Ramapo College; St. Joseph’s College of New York; Middlebury College Language Schools; and Union College.

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.

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