The Real Audience for 'Won't Back Down' May Not Have Been Moviegoers

[Igel]

3. I respect Ravitch. She has a healthy respect for the facts.

So much so that she's more than happy to change her opinion when the facts require it. She did so in the '90s. And she did so in the '00s.

On the other hand, the facts are in dispute or subject to change.

So she was wrong in the late '90s and early '00s. Absolutely, totally. But she was only cited by some people because others couldn't accept the facts as they were then. The facts were wrong, but being fact-based is still a good thing

Now Ravitch is cited by those who viewed her an as enemy because she says bad things about what she used to say good things about. Problem is that that's not defending the status quo. She can be selectively cited and made to appear that way, but she's really anti-high-stakes testing and against so many charters that the generalization is that she's against charters. One thing at a time is okay by her, it seems--dispose of what's wrong and then building what's right is easier.

But the approach she likes is based on her analysis of a kind of charter school, one that the successful charter schools use and which has been common in this one kind of charter school since before she was born. The public school system is antithetical to that kind of approach. And she's seldom cited for this because, well, those who cite her to bash charters and high-stakes testing really don't want the other things she wants, however fact-based it is.