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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Class Warfare: Fact checking pages 1 through 100 | Gary Rubinstein's TFA Blog

Class Warfare: Fact checking pages 1 through 100 | Gary Rubinstein's TFA Blog

Class Warfare: Fact checking pages 1 through 100

When the new book ‘Class Warfare’ came out, the story of the current ed reform movement featuring TFA and KIPP, I refused to buy it, since I didn’t want anyone to profit from passing fiction and fantasy off as non-fiction.

But when I received a complimentary copy as a gift from my frequent debate opponent, Whitney Tilson, I promised that I would, at least, read it.

Analyzing a short research paper or an hour long debate is one thing, but a 500 page book — well, I was hoping that I wouldn’t find much to say about it since I really don’t have the time, yet I can’t resist.

Page 1 starts innocuously enough, but then one of the most misleading sentences in the entire first 100 pages occurs on page 2. Jon Schnur is one of the protagonists of the book, designing Race To The Top and advising Clinton and others on education. Schnur is a very sophisticated