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Last week, a Teach for America alumnus, one-time KIPP teacher, and Harlem charter school founder declared that he does not believe in education “reform” — at least as it’s currently imagined. That’s despite the fact that Marc Waxman, who has moved to Denver since founding the Future Leaders Institute, is on the verge of opening a second charter school.

In the piece, published by Education News Colorado, Waxman said that the education historian Diane Ravitch’s public change-of-heart — in her book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” — moved him to make his own views public. He wrote:

It’s not that I agree with everything Ravitch says.  It’s just that I felt like it was a courageous act on her part to write it.  Frankly, it was inspiring and motivating.

Now, Diane Ravitch has responded to Waxman in a letter published in our Community section and on Education News Colorado. Read it here.

Also of note, from Ravitch’s stuffed speaking schedule, is news that she will address an audience of KIPP and Teach for America educators next month. Her calendar item:

October 14, 2010 (Houston): KIPP, Teach for America, and Rice Education Entrepreneurship Programs, Ley Student Center at Rice University, Grand Hall, 7:10–7:50 p.m. (open to the public).