With precision and soul, Diane Ravitch shows why our present-day education reforms are likely to do more harm than good: they are based on ideas extraneous to education and too often ignore its content. Closure, breakup, privatization of schools, rigid pedagogical models, teacher evaluations based on test scores--none of these reforms addresses why and what we are teaching in the first place. The Race to the Top grants are just one example. Ravitch provides an easy to understand history of the most important events in education reform that have led us to where we are today.
It is a thoughtful, steady gaze that articulates what many educators have believed and felt in these dark decades of education "reform" where teachers and principals have been reduced to managers on an assembly line system. Thank you, Dr Ravitch, for expressing your belief in and support for teachers and principals!
Ms Ravitch raises some important issues. In a democratic society, public institutions that absorb public funds are normally held accountable to the people.
Every policy-maker in the field should read it, from DC to state capitols and local school boards. The corrosive effect of the "creative destruction" that is the marketplace on our national culture -- whether in the popular media or the classroom -- is also something we should all worry about. Do yourself a favor. If you doubt anything she says, follow her references.
In fact, these things have virtually no positive impact at all as far as I can tell. Standards and curriculum that aren't driven by tests, teachers who are free to teach the curriculum and hold students to account for the material, and administrations who ensure the curriculum is being taught.
This is the true legacy of NCLB. As for the charter schools, the rage of the moment, like parasites they live at the expense of the public schools they pillage for desirable students. Ravitch's book has hit close to home for our district, which has been in what CA calls Program Improvement for 7 years. We have been forced to restructure schools, displace students from their neighborhood school, and test excessively.
The heavy emphasis on testing as inspired by NCLB is also taken to task. By placing so much emphasis on reading and mathematics, students are left with gaping holes in their education when it comes to subjects such as science and social studies. We need parents need to work WITH as opposed to AGAINST teachers in the schools. These are the things that will improve education. Tax cutting is also involved here; steady pressure to reduce taxes, and to cut education spending as the first line of doing so, is obvious, but less obvious is the degree to which it lies behind the reforms. Most of them are about saving money, not about helping kids. For the first time, I understand how we got into the current perilous situation and what must done to reestablish the public schools as the foundation of our democratic system. As promised, I am replacing my brief summary with my full review now that it has been published in a major metropolitan newspaper. This book should long outlast the reforms criticized in its pages. Its prose and principles stand strong against the times.
It is a thoughtful, steady gaze that articulates what many educators have believed and felt in these dark decades of education "reform" where teachers and principals have been reduced to managers on an assembly line system. Thank you, Dr Ravitch, for expressing your belief in and support for teachers and principals!
Ms Ravitch raises some important issues. In a democratic society, public institutions that absorb public funds are normally held accountable to the people.
Every policy-maker in the field should read it, from DC to state capitols and local school boards. The corrosive effect of the "creative destruction" that is the marketplace on our national culture -- whether in the popular media or the classroom -- is also something we should all worry about. Do yourself a favor. If you doubt anything she says, follow her references.
In fact, these things have virtually no positive impact at all as far as I can tell. Standards and curriculum that aren't driven by tests, teachers who are free to teach the curriculum and hold students to account for the material, and administrations who ensure the curriculum is being taught.
This is the true legacy of NCLB. As for the charter schools, the rage of the moment, like parasites they live at the expense of the public schools they pillage for desirable students. Ravitch's book has hit close to home for our district, which has been in what CA calls Program Improvement for 7 years. We have been forced to restructure schools, displace students from their neighborhood school, and test excessively.
The heavy emphasis on testing as inspired by NCLB is also taken to task. By placing so much emphasis on reading and mathematics, students are left with gaping holes in their education when it comes to subjects such as science and social studies. We need parents need to work WITH as opposed to AGAINST teachers in the schools. These are the things that will improve education. Tax cutting is also involved here; steady pressure to reduce taxes, and to cut education spending as the first line of doing so, is obvious, but less obvious is the degree to which it lies behind the reforms. Most of them are about saving money, not about helping kids. For the first time, I understand how we got into the current perilous situation and what must done to reestablish the public schools as the foundation of our democratic system. As promised, I am replacing my brief summary with my full review now that it has been published in a major metropolitan newspaper. This book should long outlast the reforms criticized in its pages. Its prose and principles stand strong against the times.
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