Book Review: New books make argument for arts and humanities
By Jay Furst
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
Two new books by well-known educators make passionate arguments for the arts and humanities as an essential — and neglected — value of American public education.
One of the authors, Diane Ravitch, has been a champion of No Child Left Behind, school choice and other efforts that have been priorities of the conservative political agenda, but she writes in "The Death and Life of the American School System" that public education is "in peril...efforts to reform public education are, ironically, diminishing its quality and endangering its very survival."
While both Ravitch, who worked in the Department of Education under President George H.W. Bush as well as President Clinton, and Martha C. Nussbaum, a professor at the University of Chicago, lay out a powerful indictment of No Child Left Behind and other initiatives, they come up short with specific, actionable proposals for improving student performance, closing the achievement gap and making the arts and humanities a vital part of curriculu