Diane Ravitch on public school “national threat”
If you take the time to read Diane Ravitch’s latest book review, “Do Our Public Schools Threaten National Security?” you will be rewarded with one of her best critical summaries of corporate reform propaganda.She recaps several generations of alarm-raising about public education, concluding,
Somehow, despite the widely broadcast perception that educational achievement was declining, the United States continued to grow and thrive as an economic, military, and technological power….How is it possible that this nation became so successful if its public schools, which enroll 90 percent of its children, have been consistently failing for the past generation or more?The current red-flag-waving book is a report by the Council on Foreign Relations headed by former NYC schools Chancellor Joel Klein and former Bush Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. According to Ravitch,
What marks this report as different from its predecessors, however, is its profound indifference to the role of public education in a democratic society, and its certainty that private organizations will