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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Diane Ravitch on the great education-reform swindle - Sacramento News & Review - October 3, 2013

Sacramento News & Review - Diane Ravitch on the great education-reform swindle - Bites - Opinions - October 3, 2013:

Diane Ravitch on the great education-reform swindle

This country's schools aren't failing. In fact, students are performing better than ever.

By  
cosmog@newsreview.com

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Public-school advocate Diane Ravitch came to the Memorial Auditorium last Friday, supporting her new book, Reign of Error. The local press decided this wasn’t newsworthy. Sure, Ravitch is a major figure in education policy right now, and, sure, Reign debuted at No. 10 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
And, sure, there’s a strong local connection. The book includes a whole chapter on Sacramento’s own self-styled “radical” reformer Michelle RheeMayor Kevin Johnson appears in the book as well, when Ravitch explains how he pushed charter schools at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
The Sacramento Bee had more important things to cover last week, however. For example, Bites counted at least five Bee bylines all over Shaquille O’Neal’s visit to the Capitol. Rather than covering Ravitch, the Bee instead gave a chunk of opinion-page space to the CEOs of two charter-school advocacy groups, so they could pan the book and tell readers how great charter schools are.
Not surprising then, that Ravitch finds the media are mostly terrible at reporting on education issues. By her lights, they are actively perpetuating the hoax that “our schools are failing” and must therefore be turned around, shut down, privatized,