George Schmidt's Review of The Mismeasure of Education
We are back home!, and I have to say it feels pretty good. The folks over at Chalkface are great, and we had a great time there, but you know there's no place like home, right?
So we will be here at SM until we win, and then we will continue to be here to defend democratic public schools until death do us part.
We are gratified to see that our followers have actually increased since we left and that readership of our archives has keep us way up in page views. Thank you for your continuing support.
Today George Schmidt, Editor of Substance News, offered the following insightful review essay of TMoE at SN. We thank George for this work and for placing the book within the context of Chicago's current struggle against CorpEd attacks. Thanks again, George.
The only change I have made is in the price of the book and the reference to its high price in the text. TMoE was originally priced at 42.00, but the publisher, Information Age, graciously agreed to lower the price at our request and the request of our readers. By the end of the month, the online book stores should be reflecting the lowered price of $27.50, which is now available only from IAP, where there is a dynamite processing department that gets books out most often on the same day.
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Mismeasure of Education' shows The Resistance is winning
[Editor's reviewer's note: This review began on September 1, 2013. As I was developing it and working through the historical, analytical and contemporary aspects of what the book says and what I wanted to say about it, the review expanded beyond anything normally considered for a "Book Review." Eventually, I told my colleagues here in Chicago that my "review" would be a kind of "New York Review of Books"-type essay, since so much had to be covered and recommended. What you have before you below is the result of those revisions, attempting to put Mismeasure of Education in the context of this amazing month, which includes the publication of "Reign of Error" and at least one other book which will help us all understand and build our struggle].
Everyone in Chicago knows that everyone in Chicago understand that REACH and PARCC are the latest sure-fire ways to make public schooling right. Yesiree! And just to be certain of that, Chicago last December hired this guy from Memphis to explain REACH and PARCC. Why a guy from Memphis? Because everybody doing "school reform" knows that nobody from Chicago or Illinois can do "accountability" better than guys from Tennessee.
And so John Barker's debutante Power Point stint at the August 28, 2013 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education wasn't really the latest in a long series of mumbo-jumbo doubletalking explorations of bamboozeling the public at great expense. And Barker wasn't the latest snake oil salesman of corporate "school reform" to take the pulpit once held by Phil Hansen, then Don Bugler, then Ginger