·UCLA Weeding 101·

Diane Ravitch isn’t in need of an introduction to the faculty members of our nation’s university education departments.  And those students who haven’t heard of her have nonetheless likely had their educational experiences shaped at least in small part by her many years of work in universities and education’s public offices.

More recently, Ravitch, long known as a conservative education historian, discarded her equally long-standing disdain for America’s public education system and is now one of its most prominent advocates.  In fact her recent review of the union-bashing/pro-privatization movie Waiting for “Superman” in The New York Review of Books (11/11/10) displays such deft “left” skills that it can also be seen as a short demonstration of how very well versed she is within the extremely narrow range of ‘acceptable’ debate on education issues—so that her "cataclysmic" move from “the right” to “the left” can be seen as covering no more ground than a single, quick side step.

To show this, I’m posting here (and below) Diane Ravitch’s brief email reply to my first message to her concerning my termination from UCLA, and my reply to her message.  As I state in my reply, her message demonstrates in possibly the most succinct way an inability to even correctly frame a central issue of public education.  And like several other academics who’ve responded to my inquiries regarding this case, Ravitch shows here she apparently cannot understand that this case is about how a major public university functions—and not simply a decision on whether “to help me” (or not) in this “situation.”

Rather, as a prominent public spokesperson now loudly championing public education, she should immediately understand that this public university will not operate as a viable (and valuable) public institution without her strong voice.  More specifically, Ravitch should be extremely concerned with this case because she should have the highest regard for facts and the academic and ethical principles that “the most popular campus in the nation” uses to advertise itself to the public; and the public no doubt wants truth in advertising—so that a review of this UCLA student dismissal decision (and my reinstatement pending its completion) would be no more than a side effect of the public forcing this public university to operate as the University of California proclaims in its own Statement of Ethical Values and Standards of Ethical Conduct (and UCLA’s own Mission Statement).

Too, it apparently isn't clear to Ravitch that publicizing the facts of my termination is done in the interest of students and universities around the nation (and the world), and that without this effort we might well be left to believing the propaganda offered in the guise of "education" that university education departments (like UCLA's) are pumping out in a veritable deluge washing over the public on a daily basis.