I reviewed Dale Russakoff’s “The Prize” and Kristen Rizga’s “Mission High” in the current issue of the New York Review of Books.
Both authors spent four years embedded in the place and situation they wrote about.
Russakoff does a good job of showing the waste, fraud, and abuse that followed Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Newark. The goal was to raise every single student in the district to excellence and to create a model of education reform for the nation. Perhaps corporate-style reformers will moderate their claims in the future.
Rizga’s book shows in quite wonderful detail why a so-called “failing school” is not a failing school at all. She goes deep in her portraits of struggling students, dedicated teachers, and a stellar principal. Her book is a counter-narrative to the reformers’ narrative.
I recommend both.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Excellent narrative before the book reviews. This caught me off guard, from
America’s business-inspired obsession with prioritizing “metrics” in a complex world that deals with the development of individual minds has become the primary cause of mediocrity in American schools.
The primary cause…that kind of straight thinking from Kristen Rizga is good to see in print, even if it not new news.
Great review. I read it.
What you wrote.
😎
I ordered these two books for my high school teachers and students. My badass book collection is growing every year.
The Zuckerbergs are now taking a more direct approach in local education by opening up a private school in East Palo Alto, one of the poorest cities in the SF Bay Area. It plans to serve 700 low-income students from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, which is expected to decimate the Ravenswood Unified School District that serves 3,500 students – 90% low income and 67% English Learners.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_29007119/facebooks-zuckerberg-wife-chan-start-private-east-palo
As is typical with all “educational reformers”, while there may be some benefit for the few students that receive these “reforms”, it is devastating for the majority of students.
Diane–I would love to see your review of The End of Average by Todd Rose. Rose directs the Mind, Brain, and Education at Harvard…and got there despite dropping out of high school with a 0.9 GPA and a warning to his parents about his aggressive behavior. Rose traces the myth of “average” back to it’s 18th and 19th century roots, providing compelling evidence that systems designed around the “average” or “standard” learner serve no one.