She was the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution from 1995 to 2005, and she edited the Brookings Papers on Education Policy. She was an Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, before joining the government.
She is the author of the following works:/br> The Great American School System's Death and Life: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010) Edspeak: A Glossary of Educational Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon is a glossary of educational terms, phrases, buzzwords, and jargon (2007) The Language Police: How Students' Learning Is Restricted by Pressure Groups (2003) Left Behind: A Century of School Reform Battles (2000) A Citizen's Guide to National Standards in American Education (1995) What Can Our 17-Year-Olds Teach Us?
(In collaboration with Chester Finn, Jr.) We Deserve Better Schools (1985) American Education, 1945–1980: A Troubled Crusade (1983) Revised by the Revisionists (1978) New York City, 1805–1973: The Great School Wars (1974).
She has also edited fourteen books, including The American Reader (1991), The English Reader (2006, with Michael Ravitch), The Democracy Reader (1992, with Abigail Thernstrom), Forgotten Heroes of American Education (2007, with Wesley Null), Learning from the Past (with Maris Vinovskis), and New Schools for a New Century (with Joseph Viteritti).
She has over 500 papers and reviews published in scientific and popular journals. She has given talks in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, and the United States.
The USIA has translated her lectures on democracy and civic education into a variety of languages, including Polish, Spanish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. Her novels have been translated into Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese, among other languages. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow and an honorary life trustee of the New York Public Library.
From 1999 to 2009, she was a member of the Hoover Institution's Koret Task Force (Stanford University). From 1996 until 2009, she served on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. In 1989, she provided advice to Teachers Solidarity and the Polish Ministry of Education.
Her activism on behalf of Solidarity earned her a medal from the Polish government in 1991. She was elected to the National Academy of Education in 1979, the Society of American Historians in 1984, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences as the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow in 1989.
She was the first person from the field of education studies to be chosen as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 1984-85. The American Philosophical Society gave her the Henry Allen Moe prize in the humanities in 1986.
The State Legislature named her an "honorary citizen of the state of California" in 1988 in appreciation of her contributions to the state's history and human rights curricula. She was honored with the Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award in 1989. In 1992, the New York Public Library named her a Literary Lion.
In 1993, the Library of Congress asked her to give a talk in celebration of Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday. In 1994, she earned the Leadership Award from Teachers College's Klingenstein Institute, and in 1998, she got the Horace Kidger Award from the New England History Teachers Association.
The New York City Council of Supervisors and Administrators honored her with the Leadership Award in 2004. In 2005, she won the John Dewey Award from the United Federation of Teachers of New York City, the Breukelein Institute's Gaudium Award, and the Hoover Institution's Uncommon Book Award. She received the Kenneth J. Bialkin/Citigroup Public Service Award in 2006. Dr.
Ravitch received the Charles W. Eliot Award from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 2010, and the National Education Association named her a "Friend of Education" for the year.
In 2011, she received the Horace Mann League's Outstanding Friend of Education Award, the American Association of School Administrators' American Education Award, the National Association of Secondary School Principals' Distinguished Service Award, and the Teachers College at Columbia University's Distinguished Alumni Award. The American Academy of Political and Social Science awarded her the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize in June 2011.
Williams College, Reed College, Amherst College, the State University of New York, Ramapo College, St. Joseph's College of New York, Middlebury College Language Schools, and Union College all gave her an honorary doctorate in humane letters. She is a Houston native who attended Houston public schools. She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A.
in 1960 and Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with a Ph.D. in history in 1975.
