How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools
MARCH 22, 2012
Diane Ravitch
Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?
by Pasi Sahlberg
Teachers College Press, 167 pp., $34.95 (paper)
A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All
by Wendy Kopp with Steven Farr
PublicAffairs, 229 pp., $25.99
Matt Roth
David Donaldson, a high school teacher in the Teach for America program, with his students at the Maryland Academy of Technology and Health Sciences, Baltimore, December 2009
In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed that teachers should “stop teaching to the test” and that the nation should “reward the best ones” and “replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.” This all sounds sensible, but it is in fact a contradictory message. The president’s