Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views:

Ravitch versus Rhee; a Solid Comparison of Books and Views

From the New York Review of Books comes a comparison review of Diane Ravitch's new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools and Michelle Rhee's book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First.  (Ravitch's book just came out and is now #1 in sales at Amazon.  Ravitch will be speaking this week, Thursday the 26th, at UW's Kane Hall  from 7-8:30 p.m.)            
             
What is striking about this review comes almost at the end when the reviewer, Andrew Delbanco, gives them each a fair pro/con assessment.

You would think it possible to take ideas from both sides and put them to work together. In order to agree that America’s schools ought to be better (Ravitch), we don’t have to believe that they are worse than ever (Rhee). We don’t have to think, as Rhee does, that “great” teaching is a magic bullet in order to agree with Ravitch that the training of teachers ought to be more rigorous and that our nation needs “a stable workforce of experienced professional educators” who