Just in Time for Your Holiday Shopping: Slaying Goliath!
IT WON’T BE OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED UNTIL JANUARY 21, BUT YOU CAN PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY FROM YOUR BOOKSELLER OR AN ONLINE BOOK DEALER (PLEASE PATRONIZE INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES, IF YOU STILL HAVE ONE NEAR YOU!).
I PROMISE YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED!
IF YOU COME TO THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION IN PHILADELPHIA MARCH 28-29, I WILL PERSONALLY INSCRIBE YOUR COPY OF THE BOOK!
Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools
Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight To Save America’s Public Schools
Knopf. Jan. 2020. 352p. ISBN 9780525655374. $27.95. ED
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In this incisive, meticulously researched book, Ravitch (education, New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School) argues persuasively that the U.S. school privatization movement has resulted in poor test scores, the closure of public schools, and attacks on the teaching profession. Ravitch blames the so-called school reformers, whom she renames the disruptors, such as Bill Gates, Alice Walton, Michelle Rhee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Eli Broad, who spend millions to replace public schools with charter schools and private institutions that are run like businesses. Though disruptors view themselves as opposing the status quo, Ravitch contends that they are doing everything they can to maintain it. She devotes most of her book to the resisters, or the teachers, parents, and union leaders who have taken on the disruptors and are working to keep their local public schools open. Through this lens, Ravitch discusses the Common Core teaching standards, standardized testing, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant program, and Teach for America.
VERDICT This extensive analysis is required reading for anyone concerned about American education. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/19.]
