The Death and Life of the Great American School System
How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education
Diane Ravitch
Basic Books / 2010 ( just published )
Diane Ravitch, the nation's foremost historian of education, warns that
national education policy is on a path to wrecking our cherished tradition of
public education. In this remarkable book, she describes how such
strategies as accountability schemes based on questionable standardized tests,
merit pay for teachers based on gains on the same unreliable tests, vouchers,
and charter schools have been oversold as solutions for our educational
problems. Ravitch explains why she became persuaded by accumulating evidence
that policymakers are on the wrong track in pushing a market model of reform
that ignores the realities of the classroom. The more they push these
policies, she writes, the more they will harm our nation's school system and
undermine the quality of education.
Ravitch shows how President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind program
("NCLB") has failed to improve education. The main result of NCLB has been
to turn our schools into testing factories. While children are trained to
take standardized tests, they do not gain the knowledge and skills that are
necessary components of a good education. The federal "sanctions" and
"remedies" now mandated across the nation have unfairly stigmatized thousands
of schools and put them at risk of being closed and privatized. The Obama
administration has now adopted the same approach as the George W. Bush
administration, despite the lack of evidence that these "reforms" will improve
the quality of education.
Ravitch reviews the record of districts that claim to have achieved
"miracles," and finds that the alleged "miracles" vanish on close examination.
Not only are test scores in many states and districts inflated by statistical
game-playing and lowered standards, but the over-emphasis on testing has
all but eliminated the essential elements of a solid education, including
history, civics, science, the arts, geography, literature, physical
education, health education, and foreign languages.
Ravitch shows that privatization and deregulation of schools solve no
problems. Charter schools choose their students in lotteries, then have the
freedom to exclude (or "counsel out") those who don't test well. Many do not
accept a fair share of students with disabilities and those who are English
language learners. The regular public schools, by contrast, have to educate
everyone. Meanwhile, many charter managers pay themselves handsomely for
their services. Ravitch demonstrates that charters on average do not get
better results than regular public schools.
The currently fashionable idea that teachers should be evaluated by their
students' test scores, Ravitch finds, is wrongheaded. She explains that the
research for this proposition is deeply flawed. The main consequence of
this approach, now a keystone of the Obama administration education plan,
will be to drive good teachers out of public education.
Ravitch argues that what is at stake is nothing less than the future of
public education, especially in our urban districts. Every student should
have a solid, well-balanced education that prepares them for the future. A
democratic society, she concludes, needs a healthy, vibrant public education
system, with good public schools in every neighborhood. On our current
course, the schools will be privatized, deregulated, and turned over to
entrepreneurs. Based on a careful review of the evidence, Ravitch says that
this
course of action is unlikely to improve American education.
This is a classic and riveting story of good intentions gone terribly
wrong.
"Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education with over 40 years of
experience in educational policy, provides an important and highly readable
examination of the educational system, how it fails to prepare students for
life after graduation, and how we can put it back on track. Ravitch was once
a passionate advocate for the conservative policies of testing and
accountability, school choice, privatization, and business-style management,
all
of which she here powerfully shows leave students trained to take tests but
not prepared to participate in the 21st-century economy. Changes she
suggests include curricula that emphasize what students need to learn over
test
scores, having professional educators rather than politicians, business
leaders, and philanthropists run the system, and using charter schools to help
students most in need instead of allowing them to siphon off the best
students from public schools. VERDICT: Anyone interested in education should
definitely read this accessible, riveting book." — Mark Bay, Library Journal
===========================================
Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University.
She is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including THE LANGUAGE
POLICE: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Children Learn, LEFT BACK: A
Century of Battles Over School Reform, and THE AMERICAN READER: Words That
Moved a Nation. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education
and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration
of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As
Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of
state and national academic standards. Before entering government service, she
was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College,
Columbia University. She was appointed to the National Assessment Governing
Board
by President Bill Clinton, on which she served from 1997 to 2004.
She is also the author of NATIONAL STANDARDS IN EDUCATION: A Citizen's
Guide (1995), WHAT DO OUR 17-YEAR-OLDS KNOW? (with Chester Finn, Jr., 1987),
THE SCHOOLS WE DESERVE (1985), THE TROUBLED CRUSADE: American Education,
1945-1980 (1983), THE REVISIONISTS REVISED (1978), THE GREAT SCHOOL WARS: New
York City, 1805-1973 (1974). In addition, she has edited sixteen books,
including THE ENGLISH READER (with Michael Ravitch, 2006); THE DEMOCRACY
READER (with Abigail Thernstrom, 1992); LEARNING FROM THE PAST (with Maris
Vinovskis, 1995); and NEW SCHOOLS FOR A NEW CENTURY (with Joseph Viteritti,
1997). She has written more than five hundred articles and reviews for
scholarly and popular publications. She has lectured in Poland, the former
Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the former Soviet Union, Hungary,
the
former Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, and throughout the United
States. Her lectures on democracy and civic education have been translated by
the USIA into many languages, including Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian,
Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian. Her books have been translated into many
languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Swedish, and Japanese. In 1989,
she advised Teachers Solidarity and the Ministry of Education in Poland.
In 1991, the Polish Government awarded her a medal for her work on behalf of
Solidarity. She was elected to membership in the National Academy of
Education (1979), the Society of American Historians (1984), and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985). She was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa
Visiting Scholar in 1984-85, the first person chosen from the field of
education studies. She was awarded the Henry Allen Moe prize in the humanities
by
the American Philosophical Society in 1986 and received the Wellesley
College Alumnae Achievement Award in 1989. She was honored as a Literary Lion
by
the New York Public Library in 1992. The Library of Congress invited her to
deliver lectures in 1993 in honor of the 250th birthday of Thomas
Jefferson. She is a member of PEN International. She is an honorary life
trustee of
the New York Public Library and a former Guggenheim Fellow. She was
awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, by the following
institutions: Williams College; Reed College; Amherst College; the State
University
of New York; Ramapo College; St. Joseph's College of New York; Middlebury
College Language Schools; Union College.
She received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1960 and a Ph.D. in history
from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1975.
Ravitch is a native of Houston, Texas, and a graduate of the Houston public
schools.
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