I liked this book and would have given it a higher rating if not for the repetitiveness. The author gave a lot of good points, had a lot of research and was very thought provoking, but on more than one occasion I found myself wondering if I had misplaced my bookmark because I remembered reading the EXACT same point, reworded time and time again. It is a subject that certainly needs to be brought to light but a more consolidated version would have been better.

A very thought-provoking look at how an over-emphasis on standardized testing and school choice has caused great harm to the American school system. I already knew about how the emphasis on testing, which became tied to teacher accountability and school survival, was a huge problem because it only can give tiny snap-shots and encourages cheating in order to get the numbers up rather than actually educating. But I'd always assumed that having school choice through charter schools or vouchers would create healthy competition. But this book points out that while competition for customers works in economics, it isn't as good with education. School and learning is about cooperation, and this is actually leaving the students worse off as already-privileged and motivated student go to other schools, leaving the public schools with everyone else, which makes it look like the public schools are failing. (I also did not know that charter schools are supported in part by public funds; I'd always assumed they were privately funded like Catholic schools.) The book doesn't offer a panacea, and in fact warns against it. Education is a complex thing and there are no simple, short term solutions. It's just a shame that at least two generations of kids will suffer for these experiments. Very interesting read for anyone interested in the debate over public education and the role of the state and government in schools.

An amazing read. Anyone interested in education policy should check this one out. This book delves into data and research to point out the American obsession with "education reform" trends: school choice, standardized testing, and charter schools. MUST READ for educators.

Can a book be both boring and interesting at the same time? I'm very interested in the subject matter of this book, and it's a wonderful history of the American educational system from the 1960's and on. Think you've got a good way to save education? It's probably been tried (and failed) before. The first half went by quickly, but somewhere along the way, I had problems reading more than a few paragraphs at a time, and could barely bring myself to finish it. Still, I took copious notes, and will probably refer back to the book in the future. It's a disheartening book -- when you consider the way our country likes to operate (free market capitalism, etc), the future of public schools doesn't look good. If you want to know more about how our educational system has been falling apart for decades, this is a good selection.

Heavier in critique than it is solutions. Very detailed, very well explained, and Ravitch has the credentials and clearly knows her stuff.. but I wish a bit more focus were paid to ideas on how to fix the problems instead of simply pointing out how the current system fails. I also wish she'd taken the focus of our schools to task a bit more. We're still teaching in a box for the most part, because everyone needs to pack presidential factoids in their heads that they'll soon forget, and meanwhile computer coding isn't offered in many schools. Long division is still taught, web design is not. Idk, Ravitch does a fine job of critiquing the system in great detail, but I guess I wish the overall focus of our schools was addressed a bit more. Martha Nussbaum's "Not for Profit" does a fantastic job of addressing those concerns on the liberal arts side of things, I wish I could combine Ravitch's detailed study with Nussbaum's more philosophical approach. Still a really good read, really good info on exactly where the issues lie, but it could use a bit more in terms of "here's how we solve our teaching philosophy and here's how we make that into a workable system across the board."

Good, but exceptionally frustrating, as public education supporters have been criticizing the high stakes testing approach since it was first pushed on us.

See my column on this for a full review:
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8043

This book was really valuable, and also really terrifying. Ravitch really clearly explains how many of the programs and reforms that are supposed to improve our education system are actually sabotaging it. Examples: 1. No Child Left Behind demands that all American students are proficient in Math and English by 2014 (according to standardized tests. This is impossible, so the states are lowering the standard of "proficient" so that more kids fall under that umbrella. 2. Charter Schools claim to get higher test scores than traditional public schools, but unlike traditional public schools, charters can avoid, reject, or "counsel out" students who would have low test scores. these students end up back in the traditional public schools, who then get punished for having lower test scores. It's really disturbing and frightening that I'm going into a profession where big choices effecting my livelihood will be made by hucksters and businessmen with no idea about classrooms.

Best, most comprehensive and balanced book on education policy of 2010. Good as primer, fine for selecting talking points, excellent explanations for how we got where we are. The one book I'd recommend for all audiences interested in education. A true five-star book.

This was a hardcover edition my parents gave me as a gift for the holidays that I read during SSR.

To borrow a line from another blogger I enjoy, were both of us not already married, I'd like Diane Ravitch to be my girlfriend. Sure, there's a bit of a forty-some odd year age difference, but I like her grit and tenacity so much that it's something I'm sure our mutual affection could overcome. Ravitch has been a historian for education since the 1960's and served under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in the Department of Education. Ravitch's central argument, if the subtitle doesn't already give it away, states that the so-called reform movement supporting charter schools at the expense of public ones and tying teacher pay to test scores is a move that will ultimately destroy the foundation of education much the same way that deregulation of Wall Street irrevocably damaged the economy.

While it's a dense 242 pages that relies heavily on facts, figures and studies to back up the thesis, I still found myself plowing through the book, mostly because I could relate so thoroughly to the subject matter. If a person is deeply invested in the American educational system, then this is the definitive look at its current state, what's being done and what needs to be changed. For most, it's going to be a dry read, and those uninvolved with education may find it difficult to trudge through. For those folks, I suggest reading the preface, opening chapter and the final concluding chapter to get the best overview because the specifics of each chapter are clogged with minutiae.

That minutiae, though, is fascinating to me, what with having the whole high school teacher thing going on. Teachers, especially recently, have shouldered plenty of undue punishment with many thinking that the way to fix an admittedly antiquated system is to make it more like a business. Take away regulation, pay attention only to the bottom line and let the schools compete for every last penny is the focus of society's latest pendulum shift as everyone waits for Superman.(*) Judging by the state of the economy and how well those fixes have worked in the private sector (read: not very), I'm surprised how well they're taking hold now in the debate on education. Ravitch explains how this turnaround in thinking has taken hold and goes into great detail about how it's damaged education.

(*) Can I just express how much I despise what that lying, biased work of fiction known as Waiting for Superman has done to the good Superman name? Superman is something to which everyone should aspire. He's not something for whom anyone should wait around. Each and every person should be working towards becoming Superman in their own life instead of waiting around for him to pull everyone out of the fire. That's the point of Superman. You look at all of the things he can be; dictator, absolute ruler, dominator of all he surveys; and know that he chooses to do good, to do the best he can, because that's the right thing to do. What better example can there be to aspire to? Instead, his name gets sullied by a film that complains that Superman hasn't come to save them yet.

Look at the poverty rate, parental involvement (or lack thereof), and the fact that the focus of educational reform has only served to create a generation of test-takers. So much time and energy has been invested in making the various standardized tests the be-all and end-all for schools and teachers that we're now creating an environment that doesn't teach students to think for themselves, only how to eliminate the least likely answer of the four possible provided. And, don't forget, these students aren't accountable for the scores on these tests that measure a school and an individual teacher's effectiveness, but we have to make sure they try on them anyway.

And my absolute favorite thing in the world comes at the beginning of the book when Ravitch explains her position on testing. She was one of the chief proponents of No Child Left Behind, legislation she rails against over the course of many chapters that has led to the vaunted and valued test becoming the only thing used to measure the effectiveness of teachers and schools. Ravitch says she believed in testing and thought it would work as a way to properly measure all of those things, but then, over time, she saw that it didn't. So she changed her mind. She carried a position, saw its implementation, did not like the results, applied some rational thought and decided that her position was incorrect so she changed it. THIS IS AMAZING. When did we become a nation that allowed rational thought and the changing of one's opinions based on evidence to be a sign of weakness? More than anything, this idea of changing one's mind endeared me to Ravitch, so I'm glad she decided to put it at the beginning of the book.

The longer I let this get, the more trouble I feel I might be causing for myself as I write myself into a frenzy of "...and another thing!" type of statements. The fact is that Diane Ravitch has written a book that details the real problems schools, teachers, government, parents and, most importantly, students face should the reforms looming on the horizon take hold. It is important. And she's right.

A must read for anyone who is currently teaching or who wants to think critically about education in the U.S. Outstanding big picture view. I understand my own teaching experiences better after having read this book. Also, full of paragraphs expressing what I have wanted to say but had not put so articulately!

It is definitely an academic book, by which I mean that it is sometimes slow and hard to get through. But also fantastic. Skip the slow parts -don't let them stop you from reading it.