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The Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education Diane Ravitch 9780465014910 Books

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The Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education Diane Ravitch 9780465014910 Books

Everyone has an opinion about K-12 education. Maybe that's because everyone has been a student, a parent, or both; has sat in a classroom, has studied with a teacher--a good one or a bad one. But it is in the nature of education that it will be as imperfect as the humans who teach and learn, as the parents who raise the students. It will never accomplish everything, be all things to all citizens. Over time there have been a million utopian projects to reform education, to make it fit the politics, the economic and technological plans of as many different "stakeholders" as there have been generations of students. The one thing that all these plans share is their overweening comprehensiveness, the arrogance of their belief that those with the political power or the money know better than the professionals--their sheer contempt for what the American public school system has accomplished in spite of its warts and blemishes.

Near the end of this powerful book, Diane Ravitch, one of the premier educational historians of our time, makes this somewhat understated observation -- "American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas" -- and asks the question "Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?" Ravitch may mean this as a rhetorical question, but the answer is obvious: Diane Ravitch will stand up to them. And that is what she does in this magnificent book.

Because our country has not had the stomach to thrash out WHAT should be taught in our schools -- to work our way through to a basic curriculum -- the focus of reform has been on the HOW: on high-stakes testing of limited basic skills, on accountability and results without understanding of what those results signify, on school size, vouchers, school choice, on "blueprints" for improvement informed by fads like "balanced literacy" or "whole language." Such focus on form over content leads to cynicism and gaming the system to achieve mandated results, however unrealistic, to teaching to the test, and to the micro-management of education professionals by outsiders qualified only by political office or wealth. Chapter by chapter Ravitch tells the story of one after another such fiasco. Not only do these grand plans turn into pitiful, predictable flops but, in the most tragic cases, they destroy viable community schools, both public and private (see the evisceration of a Catholic private school system that was an avenue to the middle class for generations of urban children). Both right and left are guilty, and no political party nor entrenched interest escapes Ravitch's wilting exposure.

My favorite chapter is "What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?" We all remember the extraordinary teacher, the one whose passion turned on whole classrooms--the teachers who became the voices in our heads that set standards of logic, grammar, accuracy, integrity for all our lives. For Ravitch, one of these was her English teacher "Mrs. Ratliff." I remember Miss Jans and Miss Schultz. My children were ignited by the purple pen of the amazing Mrs. Goddard. Like Ravitch, and in the name of Mrs. Ratliff, we must all square off against educational reforms that make it harder for the wonderful idiosyncratic brilliance of the master teacher to flourish in the neighborhood school. Those schools can take only so much abuse from the arrogant do-gooders, the reformers who think they know more than the parents, the uninformed hard-liners. The virtue of this book is that it is not a "blueprint." But it should give courage to all of us who truly love our children and our schools: the courage to resist and to speak "common sense" to power.


Tags : The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education [Diane Ravitch] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>A passionate plea to preserve and renew public education, The Death and Life of the Great American School System</i> is a radical change of heart from one of America’s best-known education experts. Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience,Diane Ravitch,The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,Basic Books,0465014917,EDU001000,Administration - General,Educational accountability;United States.,Educational tests and measurements;United States.,Public schools;United States.,Decision Making & Problem Solving,EDUCATION Administration General,EDUCATION Educational Policy & Reform General,EDUCATIONAL POLICY,EDUCATIONAL REFORM,Education,Education Teaching,Educational Policy & Reform,Educational accountability,Educational tests and measurements,GENERAL,Non-Fiction,Public schools,ScholarlyUndergraduate,United States

The Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education Diane Ravitch 9780465014910 Books Reviews

This book is a sorrowful confession and an attempt at atonement by Diane Ravitch for her part in the seduction of power exercised by 'policy making/makers' in Washington and how her participation in this process resulted in gross errors in directing public school reform. Her introduction describes her heady inclusion during the last few decades in directing public school policy toward a corporate model and beyond. In the book, Ravitch admits her error in supporting accountibility through testing and school choice via voucher and how these policies were and are not appropriate for the structure necessary to provide good public education to theour American children. She admits that public education policy must strive to improve the social and ecomonic lot of the disadvantage, attempt to maximize the potential of every student, to provide the best support to the classroom teacher possible, and to focus on the classroom - not on some grand scheme from the corporate world that has little understanding of what goes on in the nation's classroom. Ravitch details other reform policies gone amuck including the billionaires' foundatiions that have influence public education policy through their own specific flavor of predjudices. With her tail between her legs, Ravitch sheepishly proffers the hope that somehow these mistakes can be rectified to once again put our priorities on children and teachers in the classrooms. Oh, how sad she would be if it is too late.
This book will move you to action regarding the incompetent job our policy makers and political system as a whole has done in educating our children through the American school system.
In "The Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," Diane Ravitch provides a comprehensive, incisive, and fervent critique of the current decades long No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top reform movements.

Ravitch produces conclusive data to support her transformation from an early supporter of test-based teacher accountability and the trend toward privatization of public schools to becoming a fervent critic and an advocate for education professionals. Her support for the No Child Left Behind Act gives her the unique perspective of someone who know and understands the good intentions and laudable goals of this crop of education reformers. Her career as a education historian makes her uniquely qualified to put this movement into perspective. Having seen NCLB fully implemented, she understands the negative impact of simplistic top-down bottom-line business models. With standardized tests as their underpinning, teaching becomes data collection. While the teacher is collecting the data, the student is learning to take tests.

Once again, politicians and wealthy businessmen have foisted yet another ill-conceived reform on educators. Perhaps because almost everyone has "gone to school" at some point in their lives, they feel they know what needs to be done to "fix" public education. But as may seem obvious, while we have all been students, we have not all become public school teachers and administrators. Ravitch gives voice to those education professionals. She provides line after line of quotable material that educators will find reassuring and absolutely true.

At times, the cumulative data and logic seemed repetitious; however, when repeated, it was for the most part included in a new context, applied to a different situation, and a careful reading rendered the data again relevant. As of this writing, aside from the inevitable attacks from right-wing ideologues, The Death and Life of the Great American School System How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education has accumulated hundreds of positive reviews in print and online. In skimming these reviews, I found one from a college student who was "required" to read the book. The student wrote that it was just "okay" and predictably gave it three stars, thus illustrating the difficulties in education. Of course students blanche at "requirements." You must "teach" it, make it come alive with life experience, make it relevant - good teachers do that. While the book may have been less than thrilling to the student, the learning experience becomes worthwhile. In the corporate business model, teaching means making sure the student passes an often unreliable standardized test. If the student does poorly on the fill-in-the-bubble test, then the teacher is "bad." This is obvious folly.

Coincidentally, I wrote an article, "The Essence of Teaching and Learning," just prior to reading Ravitch's book and was delighted and amused about the commonality of our views. (I have since revised to reference her work.) In my article, I wrote, "The essence of teaching and learning lies in the hundreds of moments a day when students learn something as a result of the teacher's actions. What they learn depends on teacher experience, temperament, and creativity, but also on administrative leadership, curriculum, political demands, and parental influences. Additionally, learning is affected by the wealth of the district, background of individual students, class size, classmates, social dynamic of the class, and the physical class environment. And much more of course. It's easy to see how the variables increase exponentially."

Additionally, because I have written fiction all my life, I logically use that medium to help shed light on an often misunderstood profession. My guess is that about ninety-nine percent of teachers are not overpaid laggards, as ultra right wing pundits want you to believe. As I try to show in my novel, "No Teacher Left Standing," this piling on of negative influences can create extremely tense situations that are overcome only by the devotion, tenacity and strength of teachers.

Jeff May (Jeffrey Penn May), educator and author of No Teacher Left Standing, married to a brilliant elementary school teacher.
Everyone has an opinion about K-12 education. Maybe that's because everyone has been a student, a parent, or both; has sat in a classroom, has studied with a teacher--a good one or a bad one. But it is in the nature of education that it will be as imperfect as the humans who teach and learn, as the parents who raise the students. It will never accomplish everything, be all things to all citizens. Over time there have been a million utopian projects to reform education, to make it fit the politics, the economic and technological plans of as many different "stakeholders" as there have been generations of students. The one thing that all these plans share is their overweening comprehensiveness, the arrogance of their belief that those with the political power or the money know better than the professionals--their sheer contempt for what the American public school system has accomplished in spite of its warts and blemishes.

Near the end of this powerful book, Diane Ravitch, one of the premier educational historians of our time, makes this somewhat understated observation -- "American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas" -- and asks the question "Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?" Ravitch may mean this as a rhetorical question, but the answer is obvious Diane Ravitch will stand up to them. And that is what she does in this magnificent book.

Because our country has not had the stomach to thrash out WHAT should be taught in our schools -- to work our way through to a basic curriculum -- the focus of reform has been on the HOW on high-stakes testing of limited basic skills, on accountability and results without understanding of what those results signify, on school size, vouchers, school choice, on "blueprints" for improvement informed by fads like "balanced literacy" or "whole language." Such focus on form over content leads to cynicism and gaming the system to achieve mandated results, however unrealistic, to teaching to the test, and to the micro-management of education professionals by outsiders qualified only by political office or wealth. Chapter by chapter Ravitch tells the story of one after another such fiasco. Not only do these grand plans turn into pitiful, predictable flops but, in the most tragic cases, they destroy viable community schools, both public and private (see the evisceration of a Catholic private school system that was an avenue to the middle class for generations of urban children). Both right and left are guilty, and no political party nor entrenched interest escapes Ravitch's wilting exposure.

My favorite chapter is "What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?" We all remember the extraordinary teacher, the one whose passion turned on whole classrooms--the teachers who became the voices in our heads that set standards of logic, grammar, accuracy, integrity for all our lives. For Ravitch, one of these was her English teacher "Mrs. Ratliff." I remember Miss Jans and Miss Schultz. My children were ignited by the purple pen of the amazing Mrs. Goddard. Like Ravitch, and in the name of Mrs. Ratliff, we must all square off against educational reforms that make it harder for the wonderful idiosyncratic brilliance of the master teacher to flourish in the neighborhood school. Those schools can take only so much abuse from the arrogant do-gooders, the reformers who think they know more than the parents, the uninformed hard-liners. The virtue of this book is that it is not a "blueprint." But it should give courage to all of us who truly love our children and our schools the courage to resist and to speak "common sense" to power.