When I read Gary Rubinstein’s review of SLAYING GOLIATH: THE PASSIONATE RESISTANCE TO PRIVATIZATION AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS, it literally took my breath away.
Gary read the book with care.
I can’t summarize what he said.
Please read what he wrote.
I can only say that I have long admired his candor, his fearless integrity, and his insistence on accuracy.
To get praise from someone with such high standards is indeed an honor for me.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hello Diane We also need to call what you and so many others are doing something like, for instance:
A Renaissance in Public Education. CBK
A good idea! I suggested something like that in The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Some mistakenly called it “Life and a death,” not realizing that I was prophesying the rebirth of public education. Not its dear, but a new life.
great word for what is needed: reBIRTH — bring back long years of teacher respect and curricular sanity
I just copy/pasted the three page quote and sent it, with my comments, to Senator Niemeyer [R-IN] and Representative Chyung [D-IN].
I did say that politicians in Indiana are the destroyers of public education…directing my comments to the GOP dominated Congress and Republican Governor Holcomb.
“But you get all federal holidays and summers off….”
I sitting here at Starbucks working on lesson plans on a Sunday morning that is also a holiday weekend. It looks like there is a teacher in front of me with her work laptop and textbooks sitting in front me doing the same thing. I could be at church.
Of course, we are choosing to do this. But for me, this upcoming week will be a disaster if I don’t get this done now.
Yes, exactly, that was similar to my experience when I was teaching. There was always massive amounts of paper work to be attended to: lesson planning, (lesson plans for the principal, lesson plans for me), grading papers, record keeping in the all important grade book and preparing report cards. Grading papers was a daily duty and obligation, on the weeknights and into the weekend.
A wonderful review, Mr. Rubinstein! Great job!
You are indeed the master, the “‘Michelangelo” who has painted a ‘masterpiece” with the details that tell the story.
You have always been my hero. I have read everything you have written, and I have read your blog for many years, and collected links to all the important articles that you post, as and posted many of them at the news-site where I write, so I am not surprised that you have nailed the deform movement.. I remember when you introduced the power-elite as the ‘billionaires boy’s club’ (now joined by not so sweet Betsy DV)
I linked to your 2018 blog post which said it so well.
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/This-is-What-Privatization-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Corporate-Fraud_Education_Fraud_Privatization-Of-Schools-180810-276.html
I am delighted that your latest book can bring to the public, at last, a genuine look at their tactics. I read every blog post, and I post many to OEN…like this one which offered so much information and should have been front page news… https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Schools-in-Context–The-in-General_News-Diane-Ravitch_Schools_Society-150120-105.html&series=511
No one I meet knows how the legislatures are taking over — system by system — because there are almost 16,000 separate school systems ripe for the picking.
My series is based on YOUR blog:
https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
https://www.opednews.com/Series/legislature-and-governorsL-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-816.html
No one I meet, realizes that the monied elite has marketed education, like they did to healthcare. my series with some of your posts which address this https://www.opednews.com/Series/Access-the-POWER-of-MONEY-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-273.html
But then no one knows WLLL what learning looks like, so they were bamboozled by the media and its loud horn trashing teachers, and touting Bush and his cadre of snake-oil salesmen, selling tests and the common core crap. I wrote “BamboozleTthem” in 2011 where I used your links.
https://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html&series=399
https://www.opednews.com/Series/The-truth-about-Testing-i-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150212-950.html
I would like to buy copy of your book and send it to my Senator… but Senator Schumer is busy right now.
Kudos, Diane. You are one of a kind, and I consider it a great privilege to know you!
Thank you, Susan!
This is a well written review of “Slaying Goliath.” Rubenstein’s review is full of beautiful imagery. You are one of the main reasons that David even stands a chance to slay Goliath. Starting NPE was one of the smartest moves for public education in the past decade. NPE and the grassroots chapters provide much needed organization and focus for activism and resistance to mass privatization. You are the grandmother that corporatocracy fears with good reason. We are many, and they are few. We do not have their resources, but we have resolve, facts and social justice on our side.
I make a huge point in SLAYING GOLIATH about a difference between the Disrupters and the Resistance. Everyone who works for them is paid. Everyone who works for the Resistance is a dedicated volunteer. We work because we are dedicated and passionate. They are passionate so long as they are paid.
Looking forward to reading the book!
Reading Rubinstein’s review reminds me that the reform movement is two parts. The first – right wing Republicans – want to privatize all education and close public schools and have the government pay tuition for religious schools. They are often ideologues.
The second is the less ideological movement. They don’t actually have the same philosophical desire to privatize schools or to promote religion. Their motivation is “winning” and the advantages that come from that — often financial. They are the people at KIPP, Success Academy, and other big charter networks who don’t particularly want to shut down public schools since they only want to cherry pick the profitable students to teach and they need to dump the kids they refuse to teach somewhere else. Their motivation is simply to “win” by whatever means necessary — “winning” is defined as having the highest percentage of students proficient on the state tests — but they sometimes convince themselves that they are running charters “for the kids”.
Those charter CEOs see winning as a zero-sum game. But you don’t have to destroy some children to save others. And when you are doing something good, you don’t have to constantly lie to justify it. Eva Moskowitz, the children who win the lottery for your schools whose parents jump through every hoop you put in front of them first are NOT disproportionately violent. The parents who win the lottery for your schools and agree to do everything you ask to enroll their kids are NOT disproportionately uncaring parents who suddenly “changed their mind” and decided they preferred an underfunded public school to the richest and highest performing charter chain in NYC. The parents who have testified before the NAACP and who have filed lawsuits because of how you train your “model” teachers to humiliate and punish kids for not bring the glory to your school that you demand are NOT liars.
At least the right wingers in the reform movement are honest about their goal of privatizing all public education. It is the charter leaders who cherry pick students while blatantly denying that they do so who blatantly lie. And that lie doesn’t help any children — those charters could be run without lying — it only enriches the adults.
And Eliza Shapiro is the Judith Miller of education reporters. She is clearly more interested in reporting whatever those in power tell her is true than doing the hard work of a journalist and digging and researching. Judith Miller made a very nice career out of doing that until the truth finally came out and people went back and looked at how awful her reporting was. I suspect that Eliza Shapiro will eventually be shown up and the nasty and ugly way she treats Diane Ravitch and others who are not the favorites of those in power will look just like the nasty and ugly way that Judith Miller treated anyone who warned her that her many articles insisting there was tons of evidence that Iraq had WMD were false. Like Miller, Shapiro only hears the voices of the most powerful and the parents they put in front of her that they tell her are the only people who are worth talking to. Like Miller, who attacked critics who pointed out the serious flaws in her pro-war reporting, Shapiro denigrates and attacks those who disagree with how she writes her “fair and balanced” pro-charter articles.
Shapiro seems to be as arrogant as Judith Miller in her certainty that only the powerful people tell the truth. Judith Miller also reported what powerful people said with the occasional disclaimer (like “an anti-war advocate disagrees”) but when the totality of her stories were seen, it was clear that she was presenting the false narrative of the side of the powerful.
And it is clear that the totality of what Eliza Shapiro wrote this year presents the false narrative of the side of the powerful. Shapiro’s July article about how charter CEOs are now listening to the mildest of criticisms and have completely changed their ways is what Shapiro believes is “the other side”. Shapiro’s stories exclude the side of public school parents to the same degree that Judith Miller’s stories excluded the side of those who didn’t believe in the so-called “evidence” that Iraq had WMD. In both cases, the reporters had no interest in doing due diligence to see if maybe those in power might be wrong. That came back to haunt Judith Miller when people finally learned the truth. If Eliza Shapiro continues to model her reporting after Judith Miller, and dismisses all criticism instead of acting like a real journalist and checking into whether some of the criticism might be valid, she will likely write another nasty attack on Diane Ravitch and dismiss everything in her book because rich and important people tell her otherwise.
If we are to save public schools we must present a vision for the future.