So happy to have everyone here. Of course we are here to listen to Diane Ravitch. I have a couple housekeeping items, can a retired social studies teacher from San Francisco talk here at one time, is passing out cards on which you can write questions. So our format will be diane and i are going to talk for a little while. And then we will open the floor to questions from the audience. And the questions will come from the cards and that way we will know if a lot of people are asking the same question we have the cards and will know to ask that question. So i would like to give a little introduction i know a lot of people have been following Diane Ravitch for long time. Diane ravitch as a champion for schools around the country drawing on over 40 years of research and experience ravitch is one of the nations leading advocates for Public Education. Her years of experience, working in the government shaped her approach to education and gave her a unique and powerful perspective which she brings into all aspects of her work. A prolific writer and Renowned Research professor of education at New York University ravitch has published more than 500 articles and reviewed for scholarly and popular publications. Her blog is one of the primary destinations or make it educators and more than tens of millions of views since 2012. That would be more. 34million is a lot of millions. Ravitch produces solutions she doesnt just admire the problems. In her books ravitch provides a clear plan for how to preserve and improve our Public Schools. Her New York Times bestseller, reign of error, the hopes of the Privatization Movement and the danger to American Public schools, begins her previous book the death and life of the American School system left off. Ravitch continues to show the crisis in American Education is not the result of a crisis of academic achievement. But a result of the destruction of Public Schools. In a chapter by chapter breakdown, ravitch teaches what is working in u. S. Education and how policymakers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure. Finally, ravitch shows readers how it can in fact be fixed. Ravitch shares the hard message that we as educators enter students families and our communities need to support Public Schools or else basically society ultimately will fail all children. She is a Public School graduate herself, and developed a powerful argument against the privatization of Public Schools so we, as united educators of San Francisco, are excited and honored to have her in San Francisco tonight to discuss our collective next step to protect and promote quality Public Education for all. Slow start with the first question, so, dan, why did you write this book and why now . Guest i thought i had finished my job and i was working on my memoirs, which i was about a third of the way through, and then it became february of 2018. And of every 202nd, every teacher in West Virginia walked out of their schools. And every school in West Virginia was closed down because the teachers went on strike. Its illegal to go on strike in West Virginia. There are 50 districts there are 50 districts in every superintendent close the schools so the teachers were actually not on strike because the schools were closed. They had made arrangements for the children and Community Organizations and churches and different kinds of agencies to make sure the children were cared for, and they marched on the state capital. Their action, their strike was incredibly energizing, not just to me but to teachers all across america. And so as i watch the movement moved to oklahoma to colorado, to arizona, i ended up just last january at marshall with utla in the rain. I felt this tremendous energy. It was very exciting and i realized i had another book i had to write. And that book was the red for ed movement has changed the national narrative. The national narrative, the one weve heard since a nation at risk in 1983 was our schools are failing, theres a rising mediocrity, and we have to do something about the failure of our schools and bad teachers. And so weve heard this refrain again and again and it has led to really destructive government policy. Our secretary of education said we have failing government schools. In fact we have failing government policy. And the failing Government Policies have hurt our schools, hurt our children, hurt our communities and hurt families. This is been going on for a long time. So what happens in the spring of 2018 and continued to the full and into the next year . I think it is not over. It is the teachers showed that they have power, and teachers demanded respect. And teachers were, turns out to be immensely popular. People like teachers. I felt this. [applause] [cheering] when i joined the strike, picket line last january, in los angeles, there were a number ever was carrying signs and i cant member what mine said but everybody had signs and some of them said honk if you love teachers. Honk if you support the strike. Everybody is honking. There are these big 18 wheelers going by with big horns and little sedans going both little horns. Every way shape and form of transportation, people were honking to say im with you. And you could feel the energy was very exciting. I think teachers everywhere understood that. And what happened was all of the negative publicity of the previous 20 years started shifting we began to see the Mainstream Media change its tune. I was thinking back to the covers of lets a Time Magazine, back in 2008 when they had a photograph of michele rhee in washington d. C. Looking very mean and saying michele rhee knows how to fix American Schools and the implication wishes going to sweep out all the bad teachers. Shes gone. She is gone. [laughter] [applause] she retired to sacramento. Then they had another cover on Time Magazine for this at a Silicon Valley investor has figured out how to fix American Schools. Evan seems to be having this idea they know how to fix American Schools. This Silicon Valley investors. If you could take away teachers due process rights, dont take away teachers due process rights. If you could take away their tenure, their seniority, the right to a fair hearing, then no one would get low scores and everybody would have high grades and so forth. So that was another case. The illustration on the cover of time was for apples. One of which was rotten. The cover said something about broughton apples in the classroom. This is all very discouraging, as saying kids get low scores because teachers have due process rights. This is insane because there are teachers with tenure in high school highscoring districts in lowscoring districts. There is a cover where they showed a black border or a white board covered with the phrase he must fire bad teachers, we must fire bad teachers over and over again. This is been a long period of blaming teachers for whatever the problems of the schools were. And all of this change, with the red for ed movement. I will take Time Magazine as an example. They had in one issue three different covers and is three different teachers one teacher said my salary is slow i have to sell my blood plasma to make ends meet, i am a teacher in america. Another said i live in a onebedroom apartment and sherbet of my child, i cant afford anything more, im a teacher in america i carried the third covered was but teachers are not paid enough theres many stories of teachers working two and three jobs, sometimes more. Im shaking the tin stand for American Schools. We began seeing studies saying at least the states have cut their budgets on 2008 because of the recession had never restored the budget, even to the level of 2008 or had not raised it in a decade. The whole story change, people stop saying its bad teachers and sing underinvestment. To me that was huge. At the same time, we began seeing over these past two years a pushback against Charter Schools, against vouchers, and i think betsy devos had something to do with that. She has presented her case so starkly she forgets that about 90 of kids in Public Schools. And even in red districts, people like their teachers and they like the Public Schools. They did not like the idea of putting down the schools that the children go to. So i think we have seen a seachange, and i wanted to celebrate the reasons for this. Not just the teachers straight, but the examples of people, ordinary citizens who stood up and said no you will not close my school. And so i have lots of stories and their about parents with no funding standing up to billionaire funded organizations who are pushing either Charter Schools or vouchers. Host it sounds like youre moving into telling us what you hope to accomplish. Youve laid the groundwork weve seen a change in the last couple of years what you hope to accomplish by writing this book . Guest id two goals one was i wondering hope and encouragement to teachers who are in the trenches. I have always been impressed by the incredible dedication, the hard work, the education, the caring about children that i have seen in the teachers i have met. And i have met teachers all across the country in my travels. I am always impressed by how smart they are and how hardworking they are. I wanted to say to them the tide is turning and you are turning it. You have the power to turn it even more. And when you stand up and fight, you win. Thats an Important Message to put across. The other message i wanted to put a cross which is slightly more subtle, is that i wanted to say to the people who are funding all of the attacks on Public Education, that they have lost. And they have not stopped. [applause] so when i called the book slaying goliath, i didnt mean to say goliath is dead. I meant to say goliath is braindead. [laughter] its up important distinction. I have a whole chapter devoted to the billionaires and the corporations and the very right wing organizations want to privatize education. They are not giving up they are still there. They dont have anything they are putting forward that works and improves education and in particular improves the lives of children and family. So lets move into that so first of all the full title of the book is slaying goliath the passionate resistant to privatization and the fight to save americas Public Schools. The first cast of characters you describe are the disruptors tell us who they are and what do they want . Guest i dont read go to the Reform Movement for this reason. Reform is a very honorable word and at least the last ten years ive been writing about the subject it has bothered me that people who want to destroy Public Education and to undermine the teaching profession called themselves reformers. Because if thats an honorable word and i think to myself they mustve had a meeting with the high powered branding organization and they figured i would love to find the book where they have all of the words that they agreed to use that made them sound progressive. When they are not progressive at all. To me, when i think of reform and im a historian of education, i think of people who wanted more funding for Public Schools, who wanted more public support, who wanted to make sure class sizes are small enough and reasonable enough for teachers to do the job, who wanted better prepared teachers, they wanted better and more. They wanted integrated schools, they fought against the penny pinchers who wanted to undermine the schools. Those were real reformers. And throughout the course of the book i wrote about Reform Movements and they were always meant to make the Public Schools better. So this current crop of socalled reformers, now led by betsy devos, dealt with to make schools better they want to replace him with privately managed schools which are charters. I knowing california theyre called public charters i do not believe that charters are Public Schools they are privately met schools. There also these reformers went vouchers. That is something that divides the line between church and state. As a graduate of i strongly believe it Public Education does is it brings committees together. Its an opportunity for parents had their First Experience of any Political Action and Community Action and they learn about working with other parents and children learn with children who are different from themselves. They are not with just people who are exactly same race, religion, or economic background. So i call these people disruptors, because that is in fact what they do. They disrupt the communities, they disrupt School Districts, and they seek to they will say i want to disrupt the schools. I would to reinvent the schools. Im always amused when i see story to business magazine about a Hedge Fund Manager who is to reinvent the schools or billionaire wants to reinvent the schools. All these people have never taught have never been in the Public Schools i know a little bit about how to reinvent a school and they have no reasonable basis to put these plans forward other than for disruption purposes. In the Business World disruption is considered a very good thing. I remember some years back i was about to be interviewed on a tv program, actually was a charlie rose show and the person right before me was the ceo of a big tech company. I heard him say to charlie rose we reinvent ourselves every two years. And i thought thats fine, but you dont do that to children and families. When the child goes to school, they want to know the person who is her teacher yesterday is still there today. And the person who was their teacher last year is still in the classroom they were in last year end they can go in and say hello. There certain value to stability. [applause] we have a lot of family problems yet no one says we should take the children away and rotate families. But that would be reinventing families i suppose. We just dont do that. Children need to know they are stable adults in their lives to care for them. And who are there for them day after day. Host a few years ago here in San Francisco, our unions what we did is our campaign for contract was for stable, safe and supportive schools. To your point thats exactly what we want to provide. Guest when you ask the other half your question who are the disruptors . First about the book i wrote in 2010 the death and life of the American School system, i described the billionaire boys club. At that time there were three foundations that were part of the boys club. The Walton Foundation, which owns walmarts bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the eli Rhodes Foundation is made a lot of trouble in los angeles and throughout the country for that matter. So those were the big three. What i discovered in writing this book was i began researching and discovering there were dozens more members of the billionaire boys club. Making it a boys and girls club. The waltons are still number one, they are worth 150 billion. The three of them collectively. There is also charles and david coke and david coke recently died so theres charles cook. There are many other billionaires besides them. Some of them are democrat most are republicans. And they have behind them a particular is not even a think tank its called the bill mill called alec and i think everyone should be what it is. Being informed is a crucial part of being part of the resistance. The alecs the American Education exchange council. It was formed in 1973, basically to push a very far right wing agenda. Enter put government in the bathtub and drown it. They are against gun control, they are against environmental controls, they are against Public Schools, they are against unions, they are against any standards for teachers. They are against certification you can list all the since they are against and what therefore is deregulation and complete freedom for profit making. And the only Government Program that i know of they support his government aid for religious schools. The one thats interesting exception to be made. Guest and there are many corporations who support that so ive listed those corporation some of the biggest ones in america because they stand to benefit by having lower taxes. The whole point of this of the right wing agenda is lower taxes, therefore fewer Public Services. Of c