Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, spoke for the first inaugural Education on the Edge speaker series in Northridge Center of the USU Wednesday, and discussed her views on the problems within American education and what should be done to fix them.

Matt Damon, Academy Award-winning actor known for such films as “Good Will Hunting” and the “Bourne” movies, introduced Ravitch, who is acquainted with Damon’s mother.

“I’m very honored to have the opportunity to introduce Diane tonight,” Damon said. “She’s somebody that I have admired for a very long time. She’s an amazing person. She’s America’s foremost historian in the areas of education policy, she’s a champion of public education, she’s a courageous speaker and she’s a truth-teller.”

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Ravitch emphasized the problem of poverty, calling it a “barrier to greater progress” and lamented that others have said it was an excuse for bad teachers.

“The hardest problem that we face is the biggest problem, and that is that the cause of low test scores, the cause of low academic performance, the cause of almost everything negative that happens is poverty,” Ravitch said. “We must reduce poverty in this country.”

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