Slaying Goliath

November 11, 2019
NYU education professor Ravitch (Reign of Error) argues that corporate-driven school reform efforts have failed in this fiery takedown of the movement’s “strategies of high-stakes testing, standardization, and privatization.” According to Ravitch, “Corporate Disruptors” including New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have met their match in a grassroots resistance that has “facts” on its side. Ravitch, who once supported the No Child Left Behind Act, claims that since its passage in 2001, “school choice” reforms have funneled money away from public schools without raising test scores or closing the achievement gap between white and black students. She cites evidence that charter schools increase segregation, criticizes the “bizarre” notions behind Common Core standards, and argues that evaluating teachers based on student tests scores is “nonsensical.” Among those fighting the “philanthrocapitalists,” Ravitch identifies a Rhode Island student group that protested a state plan to require high school seniors to pass a standardized test in order to graduate (the plan was scrapped when failure rates proved too high). Vituperative and somewhat repetitive, Ravitch’s polemic nevertheless succeeds in making the case that “the root cause of poor performance in school is not ‘bad schools’ or ‘bad teachers’ but poverty.” Public school advocates will take heart in Ravitch’s assessment that they’ve turned the tide against privatization.

November 1, 2019
An urgent appeal to prevent the privatization of our public schools. In her latest, education expert Ravitch (Education/New York Univ.; Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, 2013, etc.) documents the failures of the "disrupters" of public education--those who wish to privatize the public system--and celebrates the work of grassroots activists resisting the push for charter schools and vouchers at the expense of the nation's schools. "The purpose of public schools," writes the author, "is to encourage students to think and act as citizens of a democratic society, prepared to do their part in making it better for everyone." In addition to the curriculum, public schools teach "integrity, honesty, civility, industriousness, responsibility, and ethics." Such schooling is undercut by poverty, inequality, and racial segregation as well as by the draining of financial resources away from public schools toward charter schools and vouchers for primarily religious schools. Throughout, Ravitch shows how the disrupters' emphasis on standardized testing narrows the curriculum, encourages test preparation over instruction, and treats all students as if their needs are the same. The move to privatize public schools has been "funded by billionaires and financiers" who oppose "accountability and transparency." This lack of accountability has led to numerous examples of financial corruption, all well documented by the author. Privatization, in Ravitch's estimation, is wrong for any number of reasons--e.g., it involves public funds with private management; it promotes segregation (race, social class, religion, etc.); it takes away funding that rightly belongs to the public schools; it "is a direct assault on democracy" in that it is not answerable to elected school boards. Furthermore, there is little or no evidence that charter schools or the voucher system have resulted in higher test scores. In response to this assault on public education, there have been successful grassroots struggles, many examples of which are chronicled by Ravitch. A fervent defense of public education with abundant examples of how privatization has failed to deliver on its promises.

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December 1, 2019
Ravitch (Reign of Error, 2013) explores the promises and failures of the charter school movement in this passionate polemic. Her well-sourced account tells the story of the coalitions of parents, students, teachers, and administrators who resist the efforts of rich and powerful individuals on both sides of the political divide to impose private control over public schools. Wealthy backers like Bill Gates and Alice Walton have poured millions of dollars into charter schools and voucher programs that refuse admission to disadvantaged students, undermine experienced teachers, and consistently fail to achieve improved student outcomes. But in spite of the power of school choice backers ( Disrupters in Ravitch's telling), supporters of public schools have fought back: Teachers strike for fair wages and well-resourced schools; school choice opponents run for school board against pro-charter incumbents backed by wealthy Disrupters in other states; and students launch campaigns to raise awareness about the injustice of high-stakes testing. With a strong balance of big-picture statistics with local case studies, Slaying Goliath will inform and energize readers interested in improving public education.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 1, 2019

In this incisive, meticulously researched book, Ravitch (education, New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School) argues persuasively that the U.S. school privatization movement has resulted in poor test scores, the closure of public schools, and attacks on the teaching profession. Ravitch blames the so-called school reformers, whom she renames the disruptors, such as Bill Gates, Alice Walton, Michelle Rhee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Eli Broad, who spend millions to replace public schools with charter schools and private institutions that are run like businesses. Though disruptors view themselves as opposing the status quo, Ravitch contends that they are doing everything they can to maintain it. She devotes most of her book to the resisters, or the teachers, parents, and union leaders who have taken on the disruptors and are working to keep their local public schools open. Through this lens, Ravitch discusses the Common Core teaching standards, standardized testing, the Obama administration's Race to the Top grant program, and Teach for America. VERDICT This extensive analysis is required reading for anyone concerned about American education. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/19.]--Jacqueline Snider, Toronto

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