Education historian Diane Ravitch, an outspoken critic of the movement to reward or penalize teachers based on student test scores, will speak to hundreds of teachers at a public event organized by the Sacramento City Teachers Association.

Nine teachers unions pooled resources and money to arrange for Ravitch to speak at the Sacramento Convention Center on Jan. 20. The goal: to give public school teachers some backup.

"She's the other voice to the corporate influence in education," said Erik Knudson, SCTA second vice president. "We've experienced some of those problems in our own district in the last few years, so we thought it would be good for teachers to get an uplifting message."

Ravitch is critical of reform measures pushed by Michelle Rhee and her Sacramento-based StudentsFirst advocacy organization. Rhee made headlines while running Washington, D.C., public schools, where she fired hundreds of teachers, attacked teacher-seniority rules and pushed for merit pay. Rhee's organization still advocates for the same things and also promotes the growth of charter schools.

Rhee is married to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who founded a nonprofit, St. HOPE, which runs two charter schools in the city. The schools, Sacramento Charter High School and PS 7, employ nonunion teachers.

"I think this is being seen as an epicenter because of everything going on in our area and whose presence is in the room," said Alice Mercer, a fifth-grade teacher at Hubert H. Bancroft Elementary School in Sacramento. "It should be an exciting time. I'm glad we pulled this off."

Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University in New York City, is best known for turning her back on the testing culture she helped create. Ravitch was assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education during the George H.W. Bush administration. President Bill Clinton appointed her to the National Assessment Governing Board.

Her critics paint Ravitch as an opportunist on the payrolls of teachers unions. Ravitch, 73, is touring the country speaking at teachers union events and attending book signings for her best-seller, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."

Knudson said Ravitch waived her $10,000 speaker fee, instead asking for a donation to a memorial fund in honor of her son, Steven, who died of leukemia.

At her speaking events and in her active Twitter account, Ravitch says the reform strategies she once advocated – charter schools, vouchers and test-based accountability – are undermining public schools and creating test takers, not well-rounded students.

Sylvia Rodriguez, a teacher at Alice Birney Waldorf-Inspired K-8 School, said Ravitch will bring to Sacramento a message of support for educators fighting a narrowing of the curriculum promoted by test-centric reforms.

"Because of the testing craze going on, it has become so two-dimensional in many schools," said Rodriguez, the 2009 Teacher of the Year for Sacramento County. "Diane Ravitch is saying teachers are professional and should develop curriculum that is relevant to their students."

Editor's Note: The headline on this story was changed from an earlier version to correct an error. Corrected on Jan. 13, 2012.

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