Balancing act: an education historian argues that too much focus on testing may send schools on a race to the bottom.

• Position: Diane Ravitch - Interview

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Diane Ravitch must like to swim upstream. The education historian and prolific author does not take the easy route when it comes to the sharp elbows debate about the right path to reform the nation's schools.

Ravitch was an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush and led federal efforts to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. During the Clinton administration, she was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal testing program.

But her perspective has changed and she has had some biting observations about both Bush's No Child Left Behind approach and the Obama administration's ideas for K-12 education reform.

"President George W. Bush signed a law called No Child Left Behind, which required constant improvement" in schools, she wrote in a March article on The Huffington Post. "The Obama administration wants to rename the law but they too reject any excuses for low performance and low graduation rates."

She was reacting to the news that the school board in Central Falls, R.I., had fired all 93 staff members at their low-performing high school, a move applauded by both the president and Education Secretary Ame Duncan.

"The strategy of closing schools and firing the teachers is mean and punitive. And it is ultimately pointless. It solves no problem. It opens up a host of new problems. It satisfies the urge to purge. But it does nothing at all for the students."

This evolution of her views on education is spelled out in her most recent book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education." A largely laudatory review in The Washington Monthly noted that Ravitch has become a leading critic of relatively centrist ideas such as charter schools, testing and merit pay for teachers.

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It also references her tart retort to critics who question why she has moved away from conservative educational policies. She, in turn, points to the response of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who, when asked why he had reversed himself on an issue, responded: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Ravitch spoke with State Legislatures about current federal education efforts.

STATE LEGISLATURES: Do you support the common core standards movement?

DIANE RAVITCH: I have taken a wait-and-see...