Reign of Error

Starred review from July 22, 2013
Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System) offers a vital nonpartisan critique of the policies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and the school privatization movement. Backed by abundant data, she distinguishes between these policies and their enactment, which demands that students master achievement tests, while educators face decreased funding, firings, and school closures. Meanwhile, unprecedented amounts of tax dollars flow into private charter school chains. Ravitch convincingly analyzes the rhetoric of Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, and other private/public school-choice advocates, whose campaigns and lobbying efforts for charter schools have created a network of corporations funneling millions of earmarked educational dollars into administrative salaries, rents, test-prep consultants, and textbook publishers. As Ravitch argues, the mission of public education—preparing young people to take part in a democracy—cannot be fulfilled by competition between private corporations and public schools to increase test scores in reading and math at the expense of other subjects. Her practical solutions include a return to localized school control, early-childhood education for all, better teacher training, mentoring, and retention, as well as better achievement metrics for students and teachers. Categorizing current policy as “educational malpractice,” Ravitch concludes with the suggestion that “protecting our public schools against privatization and saving them for future generations of American children is the civil rights issue of our time.” 41 graphs. Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers’ Representatives.

August 1, 2013
A noted education authority launches a stout defense of the public school system and a sharp attack on the so-called reformers out to wreck them. We've been misinformed, writes Ravitch (Education/New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, 2010, etc.), about the state of our public schools. Test scores are higher than ever, the dropout rate is lower, and achievement gaps among races are narrowing. The only "crisis" is the one ginned up by government bureaucrats, major foundations, an odd coalition of elitists and commercial hustlers intent on privatizing education. They've made inflated claims about the virtues of vouchers, charter schools, virtual schools, standardized testing (and its efficacy for identifying excellent teachers) and merit pay. With no supporting evidence, they insist poverty has no correlation to low academic achievement, that abolishing tenure and seniority will improve schools, and that overhauling the entire system along business lines is the way to go. Ravitch makes her own proposals for genuine improvement, and if they are as unsurprising as they are expensive--e.g., prenatal care for all expectant mothers, high-quality early education for all, reduced class sizes and a full, balanced curriculum, medical and social services for poor children--they at least leave responsibility for the public school system where it belongs: in the hands of our elected representatives. When it comes to education, notoriously plagued by fads, it's always difficult to determine truth. Ravitch, however, earns the benefit of the doubt by the supporting facts, figures, and graphs she brings to her argument, a lifetime of scholarship, and experience in and out of government. She's as dismissive of George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind as of Barack Obama's Race to the Top and as critical of former Secretary of Education William Bennett as of the current Arne Duncan. For policymakers, parents and anyone concerned about the dismantling of one of our democracy's great institutions.

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April 1, 2013

A former assistant secretary of education, Ravitch has been at the forefront of educational debate for more than 40 years. Her 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, sums up her loud-spoken opposition to test-based measurements of teacher success and the entire charter movement. Here she counters doomsday claims regarding test scores and dropout rates and highlights class as the cause of inequality today.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2013
Education scholar Ravitch follows The Death and Life of the Great American School System (2010) with a well-researched and insightful critique of current efforts at public education reform. Putting the current privatization movement in the broader historical context of public school reform, Ravitch argues that there never was an ideal time when social inequities didn't fall hardest on poor and minority students. Instead of focusing exclusively on fixing what is considered wrong with public schools, policy makers should enact antipoverty initiatives to reduce racial and socioeconomic inequality reflected in inadequate health care and preschool learning even before children enter school, she contends. Though she concedes historic and current shortcomings, Ravitch debunks myths regarding declining high-school graduation rates and challenges the validity of standardized tests results, international test scores, and teacher accountability measured by students' test results. Ravitch tackles hot-button issues, including charter schools, and takes particular aim at Teach for America and school reform leader Michelle Rhee, questioning the sincerity of conservative foundations backing the movement in an effort to dismantle public education. Ravitch advocates for more rigorous preschools, smaller class sizes, better teacher training, and comprehensive social services, among other initiatives, in this passionate plea to protect the nation's public schools from privatization.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)