Privatized schools were sold to the American public as a cut above— an avenue to the best education, drawing from under-performing public schools that doomed children to lower standards. At the same time, says education authority Diane Ravitch, Common Core was touted as the best route to at least basic educational success for all young students.

Both, Ravitch says, have failed spectacularly. Privatization has turned schools into profit machines less concerned with student success than the bottom line. Public schools have been gutted in their wake. And Common Core has caused tremendous problems for students and teachers.

Diane Ravitch served in education posts under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Her latest book, Slaying Goliath, takes on what she calls the "Disrupters," intent on promoting the privatization of our struggling education system. Unafraid of naming names, she cites the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others, on the right and the left, as well as corporations, foundations, etc. sacrificing the public in favor of profit.

Join Diane Ravitch for an evening of our politics and culture series This Is Now, with our in-house journalist Angie Coiro. It's a conversation critical to the future of not only our schools, but the very philosophies guiding our principles as Americans.

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Photo of Diane Ravitch by Jack Miller, Miller Photography.