'We have so many kids in school today, who are very poor,' says former Assistant Secretary of Education

(KFTK) – Former Assistant Secretary of Education, Professor Diane Ravitch joined Dr Tobler recently for a discussion of the current state of the education system.

The author of, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools, says the educational needs have changed. Not only are there, "so many of kids in the schools today who are, very poor, who have tremendous needs. Many of them have disabilities.  When I went to public school in Houston, many years ago, there were no children with disabilities in the schools at the time."

Other challenges face teachers every day, says the Professor of Education at NYU, "I hear from teachers every day, becasuse I blog every day," says Ravitch.  "They talk about the challenges they face and the kids who come from homes where their brother was murdered, their father is in jail. This kind of thing I never saw when I was a kid."

Ravitch says those circumstances should be eye-opening, "I think instead of complaining about how bad our public schools are, we should appreicate that they're, right now, the first line of defesne for our kids.  It's still the case that about 90%  of our kids in this country are in public schools."

"When people rant about the public schools, they're really ranting about, first of all, the schools that educated US," says Ravitch, "and also the schools that are educating, in most cases, 85-90% of American children."

Read her latest piece in TIME

Read Professor Ravitch's blog posts HERE

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