Diane Ravitch’s ‘error’ on privatizers vs. innovators
Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools will undoubtedly be the best-selling book on school reform released in 2013. Ravitch’s 2011 bookThe Death and Life of the Great American School Systemwas a bestseller, turning on the compelling story of her own apostasy as a former assistant secretary of education under George Bush the elder and a former supporter, now vital opponent, of testing and choice.
The new book contains no such personal story and few surprises, especially for those who have been reading Ravitch’s blog and following her on Twitter and in themedia these past two years. Her argument can be summarized as follows:
1. Testing, accountability and choice together constitute a single “corporate reform movement” whose underlying aim is “privatization” of America’s public schools a laMilton Friedman; the dismantling of public schools and teachers unions and their replacement with charter schools and vouchers to the direct enrichment of a variety of private actors.
2. Contrary to the corporate reform narrative of failure, American schools are actually doing just fine.
3. “We must work both to improve schools and to reduce poverty, not to prioritize one over the other or say that schools come first, poverty later.” Racial segregation, like poverty, should be tackled directly.
4. Improving education means going back to basics. Chapters 21-32 are a long list of solutions,
