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Monday, September 9, 2013

The Anti-School-Reform Canon | National Review Online

The Anti-School-Reform Canon | National Review Online:

The Anti-School-Reform Canon 
A barrage of new books attacking school reform are being published this year. 

Diane Ravitch, the prophet of education’s anti-reform crowd, has a new book out on September 17.Reign of Error, the sequel to her hugely successfulDeath and Life of the Great American School System(2010), continues her assault on contemporary school reform. That makes this a moment of celebration for those who oppose school choice, accountability, merit pay, and the rest.
Sounding notes sure to be heard repeatedly this fall, David Kirp, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, on Wednesday penned a piece for Slate, in which he argued that Ravitch and other authors of new books “decimate” the case for school choice and accountability. In his piece, Kirp name-checks first Chris Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski, who, in The Public School Advantage, use data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to argue that public-school students outperform private-school students. Kirp also mentions a new volume by University of Michigan professor David Cohen and coauthors, who in Improvement by Design argue that some really lousy schools have found ways to get better over