Jeff Bryant locates
Reign of Error within the context of a coming “education
spring,” a growing grassroots rebellion against a failing corporate
reform movement. Parents, students, educators, and citizens are
fighting back and winning, often in unexpected places, like Texas.
The mask is falling away from the faux “reform” movement, whose
main effect has been to demoralize teachers and impose a regime of
oppressive testing on children that has no purpose other than to
grade their teachers. The public is beginning to see the light. The
reformers’ house of cards is looking shaky. Yes, spring is coming,
and not a moment to soon. Bryant writes: Ravitch dispels
bromides of the reform movement – that public education is a
systemic failure, that American schools have made little progress
over the years, and that market-based approaches relying on test
scores will save the day – with fact-based
arguments. But it would be a mistake to
discount Ravitch as a purveyor of negativism. Like the voices from
the masses behind the Education Spring, Ravitch makes a clear call
for expanding opportunities in areas that really matter for schools
and students. Her eleven “solutions” for real
school improvement derive from what we already know works: better
care and education in the early years, essentials such as a
well-rounded curriculum and small class sizes, attention to
non-academic needs of students, and policies that support teachers
and schools and unite communities, students, and parents behind
education as a common good. No doubt Ravitch’s
words will become part of the rallying cries of people everywhere
who continue to call for the schools our students deserve. And the
Education Spring – a movement that truly is for all seasons – will
not stop.

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