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.”

Ralph Ratto teaches elementary school. In this review of “Reign of Error,” he writes:

“Ravitch provides the proof, that our schools are not failing, the achievement gap is closing, we are not falling behind other nations, high school and graduation rates are at all time highs, poverty is being ignored, test scores are not the way to evaluate teachers, merit pay is a failure, and the importance of tenure. Ravitch exposes the audacity of Michelle Rhee, charter schools, parent trigger and virtual schools. Ravitch also lays out a clear concise course of action towards the essentials of a good education. Challenging our nation to reverse the reformists aims towards destruction.

“The reformers are already attacking Ravitch’s masterpiece with rhetoric fueled by ad hominem attacks. That’s the first clue, Ravitch has it right. Opinion does not stand up to facts.

“The thousands of educators that follow Ravitch’s blog, will realize that Ravitch has only fed us a daily appetizer with her multiple postings. Reign of Error is the much anticipated main course, served up on a silver platter with all the trimmings.

“This is a must read for all those who value our nation’s most valuable assets, our children and their public schools. Arm yourself with the facts.”

The blogger EduSanity has written an open letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, urging him to read “Reign of Error.”

In the interests of finding common ground, as Sam Chsltain has urged, Secretary Duncan should take a few hours and learn what is in my book.

We know very well what Secretary Duncan says and believes. It is reported regularly in the national media.

True dialogue requires a two-way conversation. That means that Sectetary Duncan should listen as well as talk and issue mandates.

Without dialogue, common ground is impossible.

How would the Secretary’s policies change if he were to read “Reign of Error”?

Would he recognize that schools “fail” when they are overwhelmed with needy children and lack the resources to give them the help they need?

Would he abandon test-based evaluations of teachers and principals in response to the evidence or lack thereof ?

Darcie Cimarusti, aka Mother Crusader, reviewed “Reign of Error” for public radio WHYY.

She explains how she got involved in the battle to save her community public schools:

It wasn’t long ago that I had never heard of Diane Ravitch.
I had kids in New Jersey public schools, a teacher husband, and even worked a brief stint in the for-profit education world as the Director of two different Sylvan Learning Centers in New York City, but my depth of knowledge about public education was embarrassingly shallow.

All that changed in 2010 when an application for a charter school was submitted in my small New Jersey town. At first I was dimly aware of what a charter school would mean to the schools my daughters would attend. But the more I learned, the more concerned I became.

Then in April of 2011 I happened to catch WHYY’s Terry Gross’ interview Diane Ravitch on Fresh Air.

And suddenly everything made sense.
She explained that charter schools had veered significantly from their original intent. She warned that charters had morphed into “an enormous entrepreneurial activity” and that charters no longer saw “themselves as collaborators with public schools but business competitors.”

This was exactly what was happening in my town. A charter was moving in and it seemed there was nothing we could do to stop it.

I reached out to Dr. Ravitch via social media for help and advice. With her encouragement, I rallied my entire community, and neighboring communities as well, and before I knew it we had defeated the charter.

It was an incredible journey from everyday parent to public education advocate. I am quite certain that were it not for Dr. Ravitch, and her belief that ordinary parents have the power to turn the tide on the corporate reform movement, my daughters’ schools would now be financially devastated by a charter my town didn’t need or want.

Ravitch’s new book
In Reign of Error, The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Our Public Schools, Dr. Ravitch makes it clear that the current reform agenda, consisting of high-stakes standardized testing, charters, vouchers, parent trigger legislation and school closures, does little more than privatize our public schools and the money that flows through them. The reform agenda does nothing to address the actual problem plaguing large, urban districts like Philadelphia.

It does nothing to address poverty.

Dr. Ravitch makes it quite clear that school reform alone will not lift children out of the cycle of poverty that plagues their communities. “The reformers’ belief that fixing schools will fix poverty has no basis in reality, experience, or evidence,” Ravitch writes in Reign of Error. “It delays the steps necessary to heal our society and help children.”

She presents real solutions, not only to improve our public schools, but also to improve the lives of the children who walk their halls. She focuses on the whole child, calling for prenatal care for women to reduce pre-term births, high-quality early childhood education, a rich curriculum for all children, smaller class sizes, and the elimination of high-stakes standardized testing.

These are all common sense reforms that resonate for parents. This is the kind of societal shift that parents truly want to see for their children, and their children’s children.

Reformers have sold parents a narrative of public school failure that has allowed them to seize control of the conversation regarding how to “fix” our children’s “broken” schools.

But Dr. Ravitch demonstrates quite clearly in Reign of Error that our schools are actually stronger than they’ve ever been, with higher achievement and graduation rates for children across all demographic groups.

“Public education is not broken” she says, “It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong.”

The current state of the Philadelphia school system should serve as a testament to the fact that the last decade of corporate reform has left the majority of Philadelphia’s public school children without the resources they need to succeed. Without a doubt, it is time for a more balanced approach.

“The public is beginning to understand, to see the pattern on the rug, and to realize that they are being fooled into giving up what belongs to them.”

Parents, don’t be fooled by the rhetoric and empty promises of the reform movement. We intrinsically know that strong, healthy children thrive in a safe, clean neighborhood school with small classes and a rich curriculum. This is what all children deserve, and we as parents should accept nothing less for our own children, and want nothing less for each and every child.

Dr. Ravitch’s appearance this evening at the Philadelphia Free Library coincides with the release of Reign of Error. I encourage parents to go hear her, to grab a copy of her book and to read it from cover to cover. If you are concerned with the current state of the Philadelphia public schools, and want to do something to effect positive change, then really listen to what she has to say.

I can almost guarantee that if you do, she will awaken the “sleeping giant” within.
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Darcie Cimarusti is a former member of the Highland Park Board of Education in New Jersey. She is a member of Save our Schools NJ. She writes the blog Mother Crusader.

David B. Cohen is a high school teacher in Palo Alto and a leader of “Accomplished California Teachers.” He describes his reactions to the book and concludes:

“In exposing the hoaxes and offering solutions, Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error is on solid ground, cogent and well-supported, exposing widely divergent views of how to secure a viable future for kids and schools. For the past decade or more, we’ve tried blaming schools for their own neglect and injecting all sorts of policy and governance disruption into the education ecosystem. Most of that hasn’t worked, and maybe Ravitch’s book will help bring some people around to embracing a truly radical idea: start taking better care of children, families, communities, schools and teachers.”

Peg Robertson is a busy teacher, mom of two active boys, and a leader of the national Opt Out movement. Yet she made time to read Reign of Error. She reports that she appreciates that it is written without academic jargon. The chapters are short. The points are well documented. Every teacher and parent will find useful information to help support their public school.

She writes: “As an activist I find myself continually filing away research, quotes and sound bytes in my head;  the Reign of Error has all of these things to support citizens in educating their communities.  I can use the Reign of Error to make my message clear and support others in creating action. It is my new Activist Handbook.”