Review of An Education: How I Changed My Mind about Schools and Almost Everything Else, by Diane Ravitch

Authors

  • Michael W. Apple University of Wisconsin, Madison

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/er.v33.4471

Author Biography

Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, unions, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice. Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform, on the relationship between culture and power, and on education for social justice. Among his recent books are: Can Education Change Society?; The Struggle for Democracy in Education: Lessons from Social Realities; and the enlarged 4th edition of his classic text Ideology and Curriculum. Professor Apple has been selected as one of the 50 most important educational scholars in the 20th century. His books Ideology and Curriculum and Official Knowledge were also selected as two of the most significant books on education in the 20th century.

 

References

[Book reviewed] Ravitch, D. (2025). An education: How I changed my mind about schools and almost everything else. Columbia University Press.

Apple, M. W. (1996). Being popular about national standards: A review of National standards in American education: A citizen's guide. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 4(10). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v4n10.1996

Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Apple, M. W. (2010). Challenging one’s own orthodoxy: Diane Ravitch and the fate of American schools. Educational Policy, 24(4), 687-698.

Apple, M. W. (2013a). Can education change society? Routledge.

Apple, M. W. (2013b). Knowledge, power, and education. Routledge.

Apple, M. W. (2014). Official knowledge: Democratic education in a conservative age (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Apple, M. (2021, May 26). Education and working-class biographies. An essay review of A. C. Benoit, J. S. Olson & C. Johnson, Leaps of faith: Stories from working class scholars. Education Review, 28. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v28.3263

Apple, M. W. (2024, August14). On being a scholar/activist: Personal history and acquired wisdom. Acquired Wisdom Series, S. Lee & F. Erickson (Eds.). Education Review, 31. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v31.3863

Apple, M. W., & Beane, J. A. (Eds.) (2007). Democratic schools: Lessons in powerful education (2nd ed.). Heinemann.

Hannah-Jones, N. (Ed.) (2024). The 1619 project: A new origin story. Random House.

Lynch, K. (2022). Care and capitalism. Polity Press.

MacLean, N. (2017). Democracy in chains. Viking.

Ravitch, D., (1995). The search for order and conformity: Standards in American education. In D. Ravitch & M. A. Vinovskis (Eds.), Learning from the past: What history teaches us about school reform. The John Hopkins University Press.

Ravitch, D. (2014). Reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America's public schools. Vintage.

Ravitch, D. (2016). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. (3rd ed.). Basic Books.

Ravitch, D. (2020). Slaying Goliath: The passionate resistance to privatization and the fight to save America's public schools. Knopf.

Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford University Press.

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Published

2026-01-28

How to Cite

Apple, M. W. (2026). Review of An Education: How I Changed My Mind about Schools and Almost Everything Else, by Diane Ravitch. Education Review, 33. https://doi.org/10.14507/er.v33.4471

Issue

Section

Book reviews