Diane Ravitch Praises Randi Weingarten on Her Blog and All Hell Breaks Loose

[Igel]

5. Ravitch is a straight shooter most of the time.

A lot of people have concluded she's "one of us." Some were pleased when she saw reason and joined "our side."

She's on her side.

She was on her side when Kennedy and Bush II claimed her in supporting testing regimes and a more rigorous curriculum when NCLB was being gestated. She looked at the data she had and said, "This is what's needed."

At the time, she wasn't on our side. And the data we had was pretty wimpy. The data was clearly on *their* side--which is one reason Ted Kennedy was on that side.

She was on her side when she looked at the data and said, "No, some of my data were bad. And in any event, the data now show this was a mistake." Duncan has the data. But politically there's a question as to what to do with it.

She still has her side. She has policy recommendations and decided ideas on what is needed. By and large those aren't (D) ideas. However, before any new policy can be implemented the hard-core faith in the current poilcy has to be eroded. Odds are that if that actually happens then we'll suddenly find that she's gone crazy and stopped agreeing with us. Because that's what her data say is best.