Good points, although Ravitch speaks to many parents and parent groups.  Activist parents aren't always right, either; a fair number of them are all about my kid, my kid, and my kid and have unreasonable demands schools should not succumb to, although they often do.  A neighbor/friend activist parent of a special needs student acknowledged this during a dinner conversation with us a couple of weeks ago--that she needs to advocate for her kid, and did aggressively and unapologetically, but that she also knows it's right for the school to say no on some asks.  I would not attribute Ravitch's views on that to being in some sort of an "education world bubble".  

Re education courses, that sentiment about their low value is widespread.  The first year of teaching for most teachers is often brutal, especially for those teaching in low-income communities, a real trial by fire.  There is a common, widespread, and understandable feeling that "sheesh--no one prepared me for this!" Classroom management--basically, how to control a class and get it and keep it focused on learning--is the issue beginning teachers have the most trouble with.  That is something that can't be learned from a class; one has to do it, preferably with an experienced teacher mentor to get up the learning curve more quickly. 

The major thrust of improvement initiatives in these programs for the past decade at least--pushed by internal as well as external critics of these programs--has been to incorporate more clinical experience (working in schools, assisting teachers with students) before the teacher candidate leaves a program.  A common complaint about education school faculty is that they haven't been in a classroom in a very long time, if ever, and are out of touch. 

The unions have pushed hard for mentor and induction programs, which are not sexy, not many NBC News features on that.  Those programs are often under-funded, so that the mentor teacher really does not have adequate time to assist the mentee or they are working with a group that is too large for them to really be able to attend well to all of the mentees.  And they are often early up on the chopping block when budgets are tight.  We lose a lot of good people who might, with the help of a mentor in their first year, have been able to make it and become good teachers but leave in frustration and with a deep sense of guilt or anger over their inability to make the difference in their students' lives that motivated them to go into teaching in the first place.