The Skimmer

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

By Diane Ravitch

Basic Books; 283 pages

It's always fascinating to see someone renounce previously held beliefs. Such unabashed 180s are a rare sight both in politics--where an opinion once stated is by necessity an opinion forever defended--and in academia, which is only slightly less afflicted by the cult of the certain. Diane Ravitch, a prominent education historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education, stands at the intersection of the two spheres. Once a proponent of charter schools, standardized testing and merit pay, Ravitch now uses Death and Life to proclaim her ardent opposition to the seemingly unstoppable engine of the education-reform movement, which she believes is too quick to demonize teachers and unions in its attempts to improve the quality of the nation's schools and close the achievement gap. With scathing looks at the influence of private money in public schools and the national obsession with testing over learning, Ravitch's critique is an essential one--passionate, well considered and completely logical.

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