The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education - Softcover

Ravitch, Diane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465036589 ISBN 13: 9780465036585

Publisher: Basic Books, 2016

Synopsis

An urgent case for protecting public education, from one of America's best-known education experts
In this landmark book, Diane Ravitch - former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum - examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today's most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, the Common Core, standardized testing, the replacement of teachers by technology, charter schools, and vouchers. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril and includes clear prescriptions for improving America's schools.
The Death and Life of the Great American School System is more than just an analysis of the state of play of the American education system. It is a must-read for any stakeholder in the future of American schooling.

About this title

About the Author:

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the former Assistant Secretary of Education and a former member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. The author of ten books, including Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools. Ravitch lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Review:

"Ms. Ravitch...writes with enormous authority and common sense."―New York Times

"In an age when almost everybody has an opinion about schools, Ravitch's name must be somewhere near the top of the Rolodex of every serious education journalist in this country."―Nation

"Ms. Ravitch [is] the country's soberest, most history-minded education expert."―Wall Street Journal

"Ravitch's hopeful vision is of a national curriculum--she's had enough of fly-by-night methods and unchallenging requirements. She's impatient with education that is not personally transformative. She believes there is experience and knowledge of art, literature, history, science, and math that every public school graduate should have."―Christian Science Monitor

"The book intelligently and readably addresses today's education controversies, using a combination of anecdotes, case studies, and statistics.... [I]t's a must-read for education policymakers at all levels of government."―National Review

"Ravitch's critique is an essential one--passionate, well considered and completely logical."―Time Magazine

"Diane Ravitch is arguably our leading historian of primary and secondary education."
―Andrew Delbanco, New York Review of Books


"Ravitch is our best living historian of education. In my view she is the best ever."―Jay Matthews, WashingtonPost.com

"The book that follows is, if not a mea culpa, perhaps something more valuable--a fiercely argued manifesto against fads in education reform and for public schools, and the teachers and students who inhabit them."―Boston Globe

"The Death and Life of the Great American School System may yet inspire a lot of high-level rethinking."―Los Angeles Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0465036589
• ISBN 13: 9780465036585
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 400