Diane Ravitch is an author, a professor of Education at New York University (NYU), and a historian of education who sits on the board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress . She has been an important influence in the fields of education and history in America and has served as Assistant Secretary of Education. She is also a non-resident senior scholar at the Brookings Institute.

She has written many books, some criticizing left-wing attempts to stifle the study and expression of views deemed unworthy by the left (see political correctness, multiculturalism).

Though she began as an investigative journalist, she has been criticized as a conservative and even a neo-conservative because of her attacks on multiculturalism and calls for higher standards in public life, a central part of the neo-conservative social program.