G.F. Brandenburg is a retired math teacher who taught in the DC public schools for many years. He also has a star turn in “Reign of Error.” Here is his review
And here is part 2.

He writes:

“This book gratifies me because it lays out in a concise and organized manner much of what I and a number of other education bloggers have been trying to point out for the last four or five years. Ravitch’s clear prose is a masterful summary of the evidence that the bipartisan “reforms” being committed against public education are not only ineffective by the yardsticks held up by these ‘reformers’, but are also resegregating our schools and foisting an inferior education onto our poorest kids.”

EduShyster is typically hilarious and arch. In this review, the only funny part is when she tells the tale of being required to entertain me for two hours in 2010 while pretending she had read my latest book.

In this review, she shows that she read “Reign of Error” carefully. She actually devoured it in less than two days, then overnight ed it to her sister, an elementary school teacher.

She writes:

“Fully half of the book is devoted to solutions, and it’s a measure of how quickly the worm is turning on the reform debate that Ravitch’s vision reads less like pie-in-the-sky than real policy recommendations. Income inequality, at its most extreme since 1927, seems likely to replace the achievement gap as the fiercely urgent cause of our time, particularly as the gap between rich and poor students now dwarfs the race gap. And poverty, which we now know is not an excuse, seems much harder to ignore when everyone is talking about it.”

When we met last spring, she was “struck by how upbeat she was. While I poked fun at the corporate reform movement on my blog, offline I often despaired. But she could already see that the movement was beginning to groan beneath the weight of its many contradictions, and that a day of reckoning wasn’t far off….

“Ravitch also expressed confidence that her then forthcoming book would succeed in changing the terms of the debate and refocusing attention back onto what public schools and the children they serve need to succeed. I found this almost impossible to fathom, an opinion that I maintained (albeit never expressed) until last week when I turned Reign’s final page, roughly a day and half after I’d started reading.”

Jose Vilson wins the prize for the best, most original title of a review of “Reign of Error.”

Sort of like that phone company where the guy moves to a new spot and says “Can you hear me now?” Only the language is saltier. Jose knows I curse in private, not in public.

Or it might be “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

Did you hear me now?

Steve Streiker is a teacher and a proud union member who lives in Janesville, Wisconsin. He has felt the brunt of “reform,” where teachers, unions, and public education are the targets.

Here is his review of “Reign of Error.”

He writes:

“Today, Ravitch’s much-anticipated new book, Reign of Error, hits Kindles, Nooks, mailboxes, libraries, schools, and bookstores across the country. While the title smacks of sensationalism, Reign of Error is actually a methodical dismantling of the many myths degrading public education and a detailed historical account of the privatization movement fueling the myths. Ravitch was soul searching in The Death and Life of the Great American School System. In Reign of Error, Ravitch has found her voice. She is unapologetic in her defense of public schools and takes on the reformers intent on injecting their free market ideology into public education.

“While Ravitch is a superhero to many discouraged public educators, she rejects superhero solutions to public education problems. “I have no silver bullets–because none exist–but I have proposals based on evidence and experience,” writes Ravitch. A life lived looking at schools certainly affords her this perspective. Reign of Error spells out the comprehensive, community-wide solutions required to support public schools plagued with socioeconomic problems larger than what public educators can handle by themselves.”

NicholasTampio, a political science professor at Fordham University, asks:

“How did parents lose the right to educate our own children or, at least, have a meaningful role to play in our school districts? How can we reclaim this right?

“Enter Diane Ravitch, America’s foremost historian and theorist of education policy. In her new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (2013), Ravitch explains how foundations, venture capitalists, and politicians have seized control of America’s schools. She also highlights how parents and citizens may fight back against the corporate reform movement.

“Advocates of the Common Core sometimes say that they belong to the new civil rights movement. Ravitch replies: “It defies reason to believe that Martin Luther King Jr. would march arm in arm with Wall Street hedge fund managers.”

“Follow the money, Ravitch counsels. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent over a hundred million dollars to create and promote the Common Core. Joanne Weiss, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s chief of staff, says that the initiative “means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets.” America spends over 500 billion dollars a year educating children between the ages of 5 and 18. The Common Core, like charter schools or vouchers, helps privatize America’s public schools, in this case, by empowering educational vendors such as Pearson to “enjoy national markets.”

“Schools, Ravitch argues, follow a different logic than businesses. Businesses control their inputs and discard elements that don’t produce. Public schools, to the contrary, must accept and educate all children. New York State Education Commissioner John King applauds the fact that most students failed the new Common Core exams. According to Ravitch, America’s schools should be nurturing its future citizens, not branding them failures at an early age.”