Diane Ravitch’s new education book — an excerpt
Education historian and activist Diane Ravitch’s new book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools,” just went on sale and it’s bound to be the biggest — and most controversial — education book of the year.“Reign of Error” is the natural followup to her 2010 best-selling book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” which revealed that she had abandoned long-held views about how to improve public education. Since that book was published, she has emerged as the leader of the growing movement against corporate-influenced reform that has at its core standardized test-based accountability systems, charter schools and other “choice” initiatives, and the Common Core State Standards.
Once an assistant education secretary in the administration of president George H.W. Bush and a supporter of the No Child Left Behind law, Ravitch began looking at how reform was affecting schools and saw that the evidence clearly showed that the test-based accountability movement was hurting, not helping schools, by turning them into test-prep factories.
The title of her new book leaves no doubt about where she stands in the current reform debate. She blasts the Obama administration for reform initiatives she says have
