Knowing that she is monitoring the world of American education should be a source of peace of mind for anyone who, in any capacity and from any angle, is part of it. Ravitch comment from Ric Loya (a former teacher and a former Mayor) for Amazon I bet my Mrs Custer left Ms Ratliff in the dust! When Reagan began pushing "school choice," it came as really no surprise he was endorsing ideas of the renowned Milton Friedman. Some studies showed there were no major differences between privatized voucher schools and regular public schools. Ravitch is equally critical about educational initiatives that were pushed during the Clinton administration, as well as those that were considered during the Obama campaign and are being shaped during the Obama presidency. As Ravitch states, NCLB was bipartisan legislation, and the idea of frequent testing, tying teacher salary to student test results, and the push for more charter schools is being advanced by Republicans and Democrats alike. I believe that they are major part of the problem. Not only do education schools not turn out enough first-rate teachers, but they also turn out reams of really bad research as President Clinton's reading panel has attested.
Read her book and then join us at and help us bring the demise of NCLB and Race to the Top to an even faster conclusion. This book is a must read for every teacher, administrator and anyone else interested in education. In short, Ravitch has crafted a book that serves as an excellent starting point for those delving deeper into the intricacies of education policy. For more reviews and a summary of Ravitch's main points, find us at Hand of Reason. Again, higher scores for charters and lower for public schools. Even under such conditions, the charters, on the whole, are statistically even with their public cousins. We were not in control of our own destiny - we no longer had the ability to enact our own reforms for our own unique school population. Too much change was mandated at one time.
I used to tell my staff that I was Alice wandering around in Wonderland where everything is topsy turvy. Nothing we did made any sense.
It takes a special person such as Dr Ravitch to admit mistakes while others stand by and create false research to defend their indefensible positions. I could go on and on about the attributes of this book but suffice to say read it and you will understand what I am trying to say. Ms Ravitch does well in the early part of the book to help the reader understand just how important it is that she has come from one side of the improving public schools debate to the other. I'm a public school administrator highly interested in and believe myself to be well read in arena of reform. But there's really nothing new here, and I don't expect this book to "convert" anyone who previously disagreed with Ravitch's views (which are clearly very similar to Dave Ellison's views and my own views). In fact, I didn't really perceive a "wrenching transformation" by the author; perhaps the transformation was so complete that she wasn't able to clearly articulate her earlier views.
Ravitch's book has hit close to home for our district, which has been in what CA calls Program Improvement for 7 years. We have been forced to restructure schools, displace students from their neighborhood school, and test excessively. When the bill passed in Congress, many educators, including myself, rejoiced because we really did need the extra funding. But we had unknowingly made a pact with the devil.
Ravitch laments that the charters are not serving as experimental labs to help public schools by trying new ideas. Instead, they are competing with and even cannibalizing the public schools as if it is a cut throat business model of competition.
Read her book and then join us at and help us bring the demise of NCLB and Race to the Top to an even faster conclusion. This book is a must read for every teacher, administrator and anyone else interested in education. In short, Ravitch has crafted a book that serves as an excellent starting point for those delving deeper into the intricacies of education policy. For more reviews and a summary of Ravitch's main points, find us at Hand of Reason. Again, higher scores for charters and lower for public schools. Even under such conditions, the charters, on the whole, are statistically even with their public cousins. We were not in control of our own destiny - we no longer had the ability to enact our own reforms for our own unique school population. Too much change was mandated at one time.
I used to tell my staff that I was Alice wandering around in Wonderland where everything is topsy turvy. Nothing we did made any sense.
It takes a special person such as Dr Ravitch to admit mistakes while others stand by and create false research to defend their indefensible positions. I could go on and on about the attributes of this book but suffice to say read it and you will understand what I am trying to say. Ms Ravitch does well in the early part of the book to help the reader understand just how important it is that she has come from one side of the improving public schools debate to the other. I'm a public school administrator highly interested in and believe myself to be well read in arena of reform. But there's really nothing new here, and I don't expect this book to "convert" anyone who previously disagreed with Ravitch's views (which are clearly very similar to Dave Ellison's views and my own views). In fact, I didn't really perceive a "wrenching transformation" by the author; perhaps the transformation was so complete that she wasn't able to clearly articulate her earlier views.
Ravitch's book has hit close to home for our district, which has been in what CA calls Program Improvement for 7 years. We have been forced to restructure schools, displace students from their neighborhood school, and test excessively. When the bill passed in Congress, many educators, including myself, rejoiced because we really did need the extra funding. But we had unknowingly made a pact with the devil.
Ravitch laments that the charters are not serving as experimental labs to help public schools by trying new ideas. Instead, they are competing with and even cannibalizing the public schools as if it is a cut throat business model of competition.
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If we "corporatize" our schools, and deregulate them just like our financial sector, will that improve the education of our youth and the future of our nation? red leather chair.
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