{"id":1073,"date":"2010-03-02T13:44:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2010-03-02T13:45:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:45:37","slug":"diane-ravitchs-new-book-a-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=1073","title":{"rendered":"Diane Ravitch’s New Book – A Warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/a> I have eagerly anticipated Diane Ravitch’s new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education<\/a><\/strong> , for many months. I’ve recommended the book in this blog and at conferences since my copy arrived a few days ago.<\/p>\n

I remain excited that a noted education historian is openly criticizing the pandemic of standardized testing, union-busting, teacher-bashing, charter school expansion and heavy-handed policies being driven by political ideologues and corporate profiteers. Diane Ravitch can teach us a lot about school governance, policy and the history of public education. Just don’t expect to learn much about learning from her new book.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, I have only skimmed the book, but it is not hard to find evidence that Dr. Ravitch has not left all of her highly conservative views behind. She blames the familiar bogeymen of the religious right for many of the problems in American public education, notably constructivism and whole language with the selective citing of easily refuted research. Her naive understanding of learning theory or learner-centered pedagogy is like that of a teacher education student or mom who just returned home from a “Tea Party” rally.<\/p>\n

Ravitch dismisses research conducted by noted scholars Lauren Resnick and Richard Ellmore and seems to present the case that Anthony Alvarado is one of the villains whose embrace of balanced literacy (HARDLY a progressive idea) and “constructivist math” (oooh booga-booga) led to the destruction of public education.<\/p>\n

This assertion is not only wrong, but ignores the fact that Dr. Alvarado led many of the pioneering efforts in urban education including the “small schools” movement that resulted in the highly successful Central Park East Schools started by Ravitch’s colleague, Deborah Meier. Calling the reign of San Diego Superintendent and former prosecutor, Alan Bersin “left-wing”\u00a0 is laughable to anyone with the slightest awareness of his heavy-handed leadership style.<\/p>\n

Ravitch seems to revere A Nation at Risk<\/em> as gospel created by divine intervention, not the Reagan administration and caricatures efforts of the 60s and 70s to make classrooms more democratic, creative and child-centered. She remains a proponent of national curricula, a patently absurd solution in search of a problem.<\/p>\n

That said, I will read the rest of the book and share my thoughts as warranted. I just felt it was my obligation to warn my friends and colleagues that although I recommend\u00a0 The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0 you should read it with a fresh new battery in your BS detector<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have eagerly anticipated Diane Ravitch’s new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[437,427,435,428,526,434,426,436,424,425,431],"tags":[576,658,496,498,557,443,665,689,690,563,688,473],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-education-policy","category-featured","category-general","category-leadership","category-learning","category-merit-pay","category-news","category-obama","category-politics","category-teaching","tag-deborah-meier","tag-diane-ravitch","tag-eli-broad","tag-gates-foundation","tag-gerald-bracey","tag-herb-kohl","tag-joel-klein","tag-jonathan-kozol","tag-linda-darling-hammond","tag-neil-postman","tag-nyc-schools","tag-school-reform"],"yoast_head":"\nDiane Ravitch's New Book - 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