Ken Previti, retired teacher, warns readers not to underline sentences in “Reign of Error.” He says it makes the book too messy and you will run out of highlighter anyway!
He says, agreeing with me, that the corporate reform project has used deceptive language to “brand” the junk food it is selling.
This is a quote he selects from the book:
“‘Reform’ is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy.“
This is his response:
The entire purpose of starting and naming my blog, Reclaim Reform, is based on this. The appropriation of the word “reform” was done intentionally by a well planned, well funded branch of the corporate education reform propaganda machine (think tanks). We must become aware of this, and we must reclaim reform.
We all know that the chemical poisons used as food preservatives and flavor enhancers are destructive to children but profitable to prepared food manufacturers, yet Americans are coerced into feeding their children this corporate education reform junk food if they expect to have their children take part in today’s American childhood pop-culture diet. High stakes testing has become the much advertised not-so-secret ingredient in the educational junk food that poisons our children. Parents and children sense this is not good for them.
Who is it good for? The billionaire vulture philanthropists and tax free villainthropist foundations who give hundreds of millions of dollars to their self proclaimed crusade to change the education of our children – as they continue to profit by billions of dollars. No matter how it is worded or spun, they have monetized children and depersonalized education – for profit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I laughed out loud when I saw the cover of Reign of Error. However, I haven’t been able to read it yet. My local indie bookstore had already sold out their entire display this previous Monday. They’re hoping for more copies by the end of the week.
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For so many years, when I began teaching in the 60’s, the private sector left us alone–I call these years the golden years of teaching. Beginning two decades ago, not only did the corporate sector see the public sector as a money source, but the political sector saw an easy target for making a public service—public schooling—the scapegoat for the larger problems of poverty, health care, child care, etc. Public schooling has been colonized by a vocabulary and practices that is antithetical to the reasons I entered the profession of teaching. The tragedy of contemporary schooling is witnessing a profession governed by officials, both at the state and national level, who have never taught in a class in a public school. My hope, which I do not see coming with this administration, are state and national officials who talk and act in ways that show some understanding of the kinds of support teachers require to make their classrooms interesting places to learn.
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I wrote all over my copy of the “Death and Life of the American School System”.
For “reign of Error” I am using those nifty sticky arrow notes.
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