Jay P. Greene: Diane Ravitch’s Credibility Questioned

One could make a full-time job out of calling out Diane Ravitch for inaccuracies and hypocrisy. To the intellectually honest education folks, the problem with Professor Ravitch isn’t that she did an about-face on so many of the policy reforms she supported years ago — there can be plausible reasons for thinking some of those causes aren’t the best way forward. Unfortunately, Prof. Ravitch’s new approach to education reform isn’t built on sound logic, evidence, honesty, or much more than feelings — and it certainly isn’t built on honesty.

Jay P. Greene highlights the Professor’s latest foible in National Review Online (and it’s a biggie). In summary: Ravitch appeared with Rhode Island’s Deborah Gist at a live event. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Ravitch claimed that Gist treated her quite rudely, complaining of her treatment on her EducationWeek blog.

Unfortunately for Ms. Ravitch, no one seems to agree with her account:

On her Education Week blog, Ravitch accused a public official, Education Commissioner Deborah Gist of Rhode Island, of gross misbehavior during a meeting they recently had with Gov. Lincoln Chafee and some aides. She wrote:

Gist is clearly a very smart, articulate woman. But she dominated the conversation, interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time. Whenever I raised an issue, she would interrupt to say, “That isn’t happening here.” She came to talk, not to listen. It became so difficult for me to complete a sentence that at one point, I said, “Hey, guys, you live here all the time, I’m only here for a few hours. Please let me speak.” But Gist continued to cut me off. In many years of meeting with public officials, I have never encountered such rudeness and incivility. I am waiting for an apology.

Ravitch has not lived a short life; she’s a veteran of both the natural world and the education world. Gist must have gone out of her way to channel rudeness if she won such an award spanning Ravitch’s nearly-73 years.

It wasn’t just a rash, emotional blog post for Ravitch. Greene notes that The Providence Journal carried more of Ravitch’s disgust:

“Over the past half-century, I have met with many governors, state superintendents, congressmen, senators, Cabinet members, and every president since Lyndon B. Johnson (I met John F. Kennedy in 1958, when he was senator from Massachusetts),” Ravitch wrote in an e-mail to The Journal Tuesday afternoon. “I have never encountered such behavior.”

Gist denies Ravitch’s account. But we don’t have to depend on Ravitch’s or Gist’s testimonies; it seems that a filmmaker recorded the whole thing.

Welcome to the digital age, Professor Ravitch:

The filmmaker has agreed to release the video if those who were present give their permission. Gist has asked for the release of the video, but Ravitch has so far refused to give her consent.

We have good reason to suspect that the video would contradict Ravitch’s account, and not just because Gist’s willingness to release it was met with Ravitch’s refusal. Other people were present at the meeting. In particular, Governor Chafee, who has never been described as a wild-eyed education reformer, backed Gist’s account of the conversation:

I was very glad that Deborah Gist, our Commissioner of Education, was able to join me and several statewide labor leaders for a private conversation with Diane Ravitch during Ms. Ravitch’s recent visit to Rhode Island. We enjoyed a lively discussion about many aspects of education reform. From my perspective, Commissioner Gist comported herself in an appropriate and respectful way at all times during this discussion.

Ravitch has since changed course. Instead of demanding an apology from Gist, Ravitch offered one of her own:

I reflected on a blog I wrote recently about my visit to Rhode Island. In that blog, I wrote harsh words about state Commissioner Deborah Gist. On reflection, I concluded that I had written in anger and that I was unkind. For that, I am deeply sorry.

Like every other human being, I have my frailties; I am far from perfect. I despair of the spirit of meanness that now permeates so much of our public discourse. One sees it on television, hears it on radio talk shows, reads it in comments on blogs, where some attack in personal terms using the cover of anonymity or even their own name, taking some sort of perverse pleasure in maligning or ridiculing others.

Perhaps when Prof. Ravitch referred to that “spirit of meanness that now permeates much of public discourse,” she was referring to her own actions — such as purveying rude names for charter schools, such as the “W.A.S.P. Academy (Why Ask Stupid People)” and “Urban Preparatory for Youth-Oriented Uniform Robotic Systems (UPYOURS).”

Once again — and it would be folly to think it’s the last time — it’s “do as I say, not as I do” for Diane Ravitch.

Greene sums up the stakes:

While Ravitch deserves credit for apologizing to Gist, the apology does not clarify whether Ravitch’s account was accurate but hurtful or if it was manufactured and hurtful. What is at question is not whether Ravitch is perfect, but whether she is credible. Fabrication of events is a terribly serious charge for a historian to face, one that any honest scholar would rush to dispel.

Ravitch can easily restore her reputation if she consents to the video’s release and it confirms her account of events. If Ravitch continues to block the video’s release, or if the video obviously contradicts her allegations, her status as a credible expert will be greatly diminished.

Among honest observers on both sides of the debate, it has already been greatly diminished.

Release the tape, Diane.