Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Educated Reporter: A review is not the book.

The Educated Reporter: A review is not the book.


A review is not the book.

Yes, I am overdue in saying something about Diane Ravitch's book, and I intend to. But in the meantime I will just say this: The reviews of a book are not the book. Especially when I wrote Tested, I was amazed at how people misinterpreted what I wrote; later I would learn they did not read the book but only reviews of it. So an offhand comment by Sandy Kress in National Journal's conversation about how the feds would hold states accountable on RtTT hit a raw nerve for me.

Kress was disappointed with Ravitch's opposition to RtTT. He wrote, "I searched through all the reviews I could find of her new book. My goal was to climb the mountain of all the