teacher, Anthony Cody, to create the Network for Public Education which is a foundation dedicated to fighting against educational corporate reforms. Since President Trump appointed Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, membership in NPE has increased from 22,000 to 330,000. Educational views Ravitch's first book The Great School Wars (1974) is a history of New York City public schools. It described alternating eras of centralization and decentralization. It also tied periodic controversies over public education to periodic waves of immigration. Her book The Language Police (2003) was a criticism of both left-wing and right-wing attempts to stifle the study and expression of views deemed unworthy by those groups. The Amazon.com review summarizes Ravitch's thesis as "pressure groups from the political right and left have wrested control of the language and content of textbooks and standardized exams, often at the expense of the truth (in the case of history), of literary quality (in the case of literature), and of education in general." Publishers Weekly wrote: "Ravitch contends that these sanitized materials sacrifice literary quality and historical accuracy in order to escape controversy." Ravitch's writings on racial and cultural diversity were summarized by sociologist Vincent N. Parrillo: Reading instruction Ravitch said that she "supports the teaching of phonics when appropriate". She was critical of the then New York mayor Michael Bloomberg who, after taking control over New York public schools, replaced phonics with balanced literacy helped by Joel Klein, the then chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Klein credited balanced literacy with raising the city’s fourth-grade reading scores. Ravitch rebutted that claim by noting that the rise in reading scores occurred in 2002—before Klein became chancellor and implemented balanced literacy. At the same time Ravitch said that she could not bring herself to believe in "the science of reading". According to her, "there is no 'science of mathematics,' no 'science of science,' no 'science of history'". School choice and testing Being initially a proponent of No Child Left Behind, by 2010 Ravitch renounced her earlier support for high-stakes testing and school choice. She critiqued the punitive uses of accountability to fire teachers and close schools, as well as replacing public schools with charter schools and relying on superstar teachers. She wrote, "I no longer believe that either approach will produce the quantum improvement in American education that we all hope for." On her blog, she often cited low-performing charters,