SJC Welcomes Author and Historian Dr. Diane Ravitch

October 03, 2010

BROOKLYN, N.Y October 4, 2010 - St. Josephs College is pleased to announce that Dr. Diane Ravitch, historian of education and author of the best-selling book The Death and Life Of The Great American School System will be the guest speaker for the Colleges annual Founders Day lecture, to be held on Monday, October 18 at 4:30 p.m. in the Tuohy Hall Auditorium, 245 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. This event is free and open to the public.

One of the most respected minds in education, Dr. Ravitch served as Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.  During her tenure at the Department of Education, she was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards.  From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program.

The author of ten books, Ravitchs most recent work, The Life and Death Of The Great American School System, addresses the role of testing and school choice in the public educational system and how the emphasis on these two trends have negatively impacted the quality of education in the United States, most notably in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act. Currently, she is Research Professor of Education at New York University and serves on the board of the Core Knowledge Foundation; Common Core, the Albert Shanker Institute of the American Federation of Teachers, and Common Good. She was a member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University) from 1999 to 2009, and was a member of the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation from 1996 to 2009.