Renowned public education expert to speak on campus

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—A leading national advocate for public education will speak about her plan to preserve and improve the country's public schools during a free lecture on the campus of Western Michigan University.

Update: This event has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in 2000 Schneider Hall.

Dr. Diane Ravitch, author and renowned research professor of education at New York University, will speak on "Education Reform and the Promise of Education" as part of WMU's Center for the Humanities Promise of Education speaker series. She will be introduced by WMU President Edward Montgomery. No tickets or registration is required.

Ravitch

Drawing on more than 40 years of research and experience, Ravitch is the nation's leading advocate for public education. She has published more than 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications. Her blog, which has received more than 30 million page visits since 2012, is one of the primary destinations for American educators.

She is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools," and her previous book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." In those books, Ravitch maintains that 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, she teaches what is working in U.S. education and how policy makers are failing to address the root cause of educational failure. Finally, she shows readers how it can, in fact, be fixed.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/humanities.

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