Jersey Jazzman connects the dots in his review of “Reign of Error.”

He sees the connection between school and society. He writes:

“There is one chapter in this part of the book that caught me by surprise: “The Toxic Mix,” as frank a discussion of race, inequality, and segregation as I have read in some time. Ravitch’s candor stands in stark contrast to the bromides of the corporate reformers, who have pretty much left any attempts at integration out of their schemes:

(Quoting the book:)
But the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination cannot be healed by testing, standards, accountability, merit pay, and choice. Even if test scores go up in a public or charter school, the structural inequity of society and systematic inequities in our schools remain undisturbed. For every “miracle” school celebrated by the media, there are scores of “Dumpster schools,” where the low-performing students are unceremoniously hidden away. This is not school reform, nor is it social reform. It is social neglect. It is a purposeful abandonment of public responsibility to address deep-seated problems that only public policy can overcome.****

“This may be Ravitch’s best accomplishment in Reign of Error: in defending public education, she forces the conversation back toward the structural deficiencies of our society. Real education reform can only happen when we reform America itself.””””””

I had an online interview today on the national broadcast, NPR’s “On Point.”

We had a very good discussion about the state of American education, the false claims of failure, and the solutions I proffer. We were then joined by a young woman whose name I don’t recall who used to work for Michelle Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP). She went into the familiar “attack the messenger” mode, saying that I was polarizing, that I needed to compromise, that she (or her organization) had interviewed 50 D.C. insiders, and they agree there is too much testing but are comfortable with the other corporate reform policies.

I pointed out to her that everything in my book is carefully documented, that my data is right from the US Department of Education website. She insists that charter schools are public schools, and I pointed out that when they have been taken to federal court for violating employee’s rights, they insist that they are private corporations acting as contractors and not subject to state laws.

After the program, I was forwarded some questions from listeners, and I answered them.

Paul Thomas reviews “Reign of Error” in the context of what he calls Ravitch 1.0, Ravitch 2.0, and now Ravitch 3.0.

He connects it to earlier works:

“The first twenty chapters of Reign continues a tradition of other important, but too often ignored by politicians and the media, works confronting the false narratives perpetuated about U.S. public education—The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On America’s Public Schools by David Berliner and Bruce Biddle, from the mid-1990s, and Setting the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education in the U.S. by Gerald Bracey, which followed Berliner and Biddle about a decade later.”

After describing my alternatives to the present failed policies, Thomas writes:

“Toward the end of her plan for alternative policies to reform education, while discussing the problem with privatizing schools, Ravitch sounds what I think is the most dire point confronting the U.S. and our commitment to democracy:

“The issue for the future is whether a small number of very wealthy entrepreneurs, corporations, and individuals will be able to purchase educational policy in this nation, either by funding candidates for local and state school boards, for state legislatures, for governor, and for Congress or by using foundation “gifts” to advance privatization of public education. (p. 310)

“And the problem is not “whether” this can occur, but that it is happening now.”

Many years ago, Deborah Meier and I used to be antagonists. She was a progressive and I was a conservative. But in 2004 or 2005, we started blogging together, exchanging posts each week in which we practiced “Bridging Differences.” She (and events) turned me around. I have often said, half in jest, that anyone who spends five years blogging with Debbie Meier will eventually be converted.

I was thrilled to receive Debbie’s wonderful review of the book. Her response means a great deal to me. I look up to her as a champion of children, a lover of education, and a true apostle of democracy.

Here is a sample:

Reign of Error lays out step by step the relentless thirty year drive to ether centralize the education of the young—on one hand—or divest it entirely into privatized hands on the other. Finally, the two sides have joined forces on a strategy that simultaneously does both. While this coalition has many old roots, in its current form it began with the fanfare around the publication of A Nation at Risk (1983). Ravitch was, at that time, a supporter of this bold statement that more or less accused America’s teachers and school boards of a plot to undermine American health and welfare onthe international scene….

And in the past few years Diane’s change of mind has been a particular blessing. She hasn’t, as her preset opponents claim, done a complete switch at all—she was always pro-union, pro-public education and always for standards. Fairly traditional ones. (In fact, her criticism of Progressive educators was that so many had abandoned all standards, she believed.)

Then lo and behold: no one has pulled it all together better than Diane—over and over again in the past few years she has led the challenge to the corporate reformers—right , center and left.. Her last two books Reign of Error and The Death and Life of the Great American School System (2010) pull it altogether…..

Thanks, Diane. We all need to keep this book handy so we can whip out the citations to make our case for the kind of reform America really needs, in your own words: “to prepare citizens with the minds, hearts and character to sustain our democracy into the future.”