'Reign of Error,' by Diane Ravitch
Glenn C. Altschuler
Published 4:51 pm, Friday, December 27, 2013
Reign of Error
The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools
By Diane Ravitch
(Knopf; 396 pages; $27.95)
Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, think tanks, philanthropic foundations and the mass media agree that America's public schools are in crisis. Through two pieces of legislation, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, reformers have promoted (and sometimes mandated) a new regime of common standards, testing, accountability and competition (through the establishment of charter schools and for-profit schools).
According to Diane Ravitch, the reformers are wrong on all counts. Although public schools are underfunded, lack well-trained teachers and need a deeper, more diverse and more rigorous curriculum, she maintains that despite these challenges (and the responsibility of educating a heterogeneous population, including many students whose "first language" is not English), they are actually performing rather well, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the most authoritative gauge of student achievement over time) and high school graduation rates. Ravitch also claims that the demand for testing, accountability and privatization "is akin to bringing a blowtorch to put out a fire." It does nothing to address the realities of poverty and inequality, "the root causes of poor academic performance." And it has put public education, "an essential institution," responsible for producing a democratic citizenry and providing equality of opportunity,