Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Knopf, (2013)
Description
"From the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, "whistleblower extraordinaire" (The Wall Street Journal), one of the foremost authorities on education and the history of education in the United States, author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System; The Language Police ("Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating" --The New York Times); and the now-classic Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools--an incisive, comprehensive look at today's American public schools that argues persuasively against those who claim our public school system is broken, beyond repair, and obsolete; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the rising "privatization movement" draining students--and funding--from our public schools, a book that puts forth a detailed plan of what needs to happen to schools and with public policy to insure the survival of this American institution so basic to our democracy"--… (more)
Media reviews
In her new book, Reign of Error, Ravitch attacks the central narrative of corporate education reform, which goes like this: test scores prove that US schools have failed, sinking in relation to measures of aptitude in other countries. High school dropout rates are on the rise, and our economy and
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security are at risk. At the heart of the problem are lazy, incompetent and undemanding teachers. For this reason, unions and teacher job protection must go. Schools need evaluating so that we can close the failed ones and open charter schools in their place. For-profit charters, along with vouchers and online schools, will provide better education for children at a cheaper price. Business leaders and foundations are helping us move in the right direction, toward innovation and school reform.
Reign of Error is both a manifesto fueled by righteous indignation about this narrative and a policy wonk’s memo crammed with charts and footnotes refuting it. ... She extends the arguments of her previous book by claiming that the American public is the victim of a “hoax” in which purported free-market solutions have worked as distractions from the truly pressing problems of poverty and segregation by race and class, which impede learning and therefore should be the actual target of education and social reform. Show Less
“Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation,” which make for a “toxic mix.” Public schooling in itself, she emphasizes, is “in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.”
In her
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zeal to deconstruct that narrative, Ravitch takes on almost all the well-known private-sector leaders and political officials — among them Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, Bill Gates, Wendy Kopp and Michelle Rhee — who have given their encouragement, or barrels of their money, to the privatizing drive. It isn’t likely they’ll be sending her bouquets. Those, on the other hand, who have grown increasingly alarmed at seeing public education bartered off piece by piece, and seeing schools and teachers thrown into a state of siege, will be grateful for this cri de coeur — a fearless book, a manifesto and a call to battle. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Sullywriter
If you are like me and follow developments in education reform, you will be familiar with the many issues Ravitch confronts in this excellent book, but there is plenty here that will enlighten and infuriate. Ravitch convincingly reveals how the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind and the
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Obama administration's Race to the Top initiatives have had catastrophic impacts on public education. She effectively eviscerates the language of the corporate reform movement and reveals initiatives like charter schools, merit pay, parent triggers, school choice, value-added assessment, virtual schools, and vouchers for the frauds and cynical money-making rackets they are. She reveals the real motives of foundations like Broad, Gates, and Walton, organizations like ALEC, Students First, Teach for America and "star reformers" like Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, and Joel Klein which are to privatize public education and destroy America's public schools. ESSENTIAL READING FOR EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION. Show Less
LibraryThing member VGAHarris
If you are interested in education and the damage the " reformers" are doing with their relentless push for more testing and privatization, you will find this informative. It is dense with data so the reading is tedious at times.
LibraryThing member iowabooker
Amazing research and data revealed about the education system. I couldnt break away from this and look at the educational system the same.
LibraryThing member JRCornell
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Ravitch puts forth a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of what can be done to preserve public school education, making clear what is right with our education system, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and
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discussing in detail how to fix these problems. Show Less
Language
Original language
English