Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Diane Ravitch writes of those who have privatized the schools, the Disrupters, who believe America's schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized with threats and bonuses, and schools that need to enter into the age of the gig economy in which children are treated like customers or products. She writes of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many more, on the right and the left, as well as corporations, foundations, etc., intent on promoting the privatization of one of our most valued public institutions.
Ravitch lays out, in extensive detail, the facts showing that the ideas put forth by school privateers have failed; that their promises of higher test scores have not come to pass; that the "great hope" of Common Core has been a dud.
Arrayed against these forces, Ravitch writes of the volunteer army--"the Resisters"--that has sprung up from Seattle, Texas, and Colorado, to Detroit, New Orleans, and Buffalo, New York--parents, teachers, grandparents, students, bloggers, religious leaders, brave individuals, who, spurred on by conviction, courage, determination, and the power of ideas and passion, are fighting back to successfully keep alive their public schools.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-318) and index.
Disruption Is Not Reform! -- The Odious Status Quo -- What Do the Disrupters Want? -- Meet the Resistance -- The Beginning of the End of Disruption -- The Resistance to High-Stakes Standardized Testing -- Rewards and Punishments Are Not Good Motivators -- Bait and Switch: How Liberals Were Duped into Embracing School Choice -- School Choice, Deregulation and Corruption -- The Resistance Fights Back -- The Resistance Goes National -- Dark Money in Massachusetts and Connecticut -- The Miracles That Weren't: New Orleans and Florida -- Common Core and a Gaggle of Other Failed Reforms -- The Teachers Revolt -- Goliath Stumbl
"An in-depth look at the failed efforts to privatize public schools and the victories of those who have fought to save America's public school system"--
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
In this incisive, meticulously researched book, Ravitch (education, New York Univ.; The Death and Life of the Great American School) argues persuasively that the U.S. school privatization movement has resulted in poor test scores, the closure of public schools, and attacks on the teaching profession. Ravitch blames the so-called school reformers, whom she renames the disruptors, such as Bill Gates, Alice Walton, Michelle Rhee, Mark Zuckerberg, and Eli Broad, who spend millions to replace public schools with charter schools and private institutions that are run like businesses. Though disruptors view themselves as opposing the status quo, Ravitch contends that they are doing everything they can to maintain it. She devotes most of her book to the resisters, or the teachers, parents, and union leaders who have taken on the disruptors and are working to keep their local public schools open. Through this lens, Ravitch discusses the Common Core teaching standards, standardized testing, the Obama administration's Race to the Top grant program, and Teach for America. VERDICT This extensive analysis is required reading for anyone concerned about American education. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/19.]--Jacqueline Snider, Toronto
Publishers Weekly Review
NYU education professor Ravitch (Reign of Error) argues that corporate-driven school reform efforts have failed in this fiery takedown of the movement's "strategies of high-stakes testing, standardization, and privatization." According to Ravitch, "Corporate Disruptors" including New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have met their match in a grassroots resistance that has "facts" on its side. Ravitch, who once supported the No Child Left Behind Act, claims that since its passage in 2001, "school choice" reforms have funneled money away from public schools without raising test scores or closing the achievement gap between white and black students. She cites evidence that charter schools increase segregation, criticizes the "bizarre" notions behind Common Core standards, and argues that evaluating teachers based on student tests scores is "nonsensical." Among those fighting the "philanthrocapitalists," Ravitch identifies a Rhode Island student group that protested a state plan to require high school seniors to pass a standardized test in order to graduate (the plan was scrapped when failure rates proved too high). Vituperative and somewhat repetitive, Ravitch's polemic nevertheless succeeds in making the case that "the root cause of poor performance in school is not 'bad schools' or 'bad teachers' but poverty." Public school advocates will take heart in Ravitch's assessment that they've turned the tide against privatization. (Jan.)
CHOICE Review
Ravitch (New York Univ.), a leader in the field of education, showcases the work of parents, teachers, and activists in their fight against the privatization of American public schools. Believing that schools have been severely disrupted by privatization, Ravitch finds current reform initiatives align with privatizing schools or running them like businesses. These initiatives purport that anyone can be a teacher or run a school using sound business practices and de-professionalize the work of schools and teachers. Overall, these reforms have been unsuccessful yet have cost taxpayers billions of dollars. True reform, the author argues, must uplift, improve, and move schools forward. Accordingly, the parents, teachers, and activists of the resistance movement work tirelessly to uphold public schools because of deep concerns that the destruction of public school education seriously damages the nation and democracy, a notion Ravitch seconds, contending that public schools are key to the survival of democracy. This timely, thought-provoking, compelling book should be read by a wide audience. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. --Josephine Collis Agnew-Tally, formerly, Missouri State University
Kirkus Book Review
An urgent appeal to prevent the privatization of our public schools.In her latest, education expert Ravitch (Education/New York Univ.; Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, 2013, etc.) documents the failures of the "disrupters" of public educationthose who wish to privatize the public systemand celebrates the work of grassroots activists resisting the push for charter schools and vouchers at the expense of the nation's schools. "The purpose of public schools," writes the author, "is to encourage students to think and act as citizens of a democratic society, prepared to do their part in making it better for everyone." In addition to the curriculum, public schools teach "integrity, honesty, civility, industriousness, responsibility, and ethics." Such schooling is undercut by poverty, inequality, and racial segregation as well as by the draining of financial resources away from public schools toward charter schools and vouchers for primarily religious schools. Throughout, Ravitch shows how the disrupters' emphasis on standardized testing narrows the curriculum, encourages test preparation over instruction, and treats all students as if their needs are the same. The move to privatize public schools has been "funded by billionaires and financiers" who oppose "accountability and transparency." This lack of accountability has led to numerous examples of financial corruption, all well documented by the author. Privatization, in Ravitch's estimation, is wrong for any number of reasonse.g., it involves public funds with private management; it promotes segregation (race, social class, religion, etc.); it takes away funding that rightly belongs to the public schools; it "is a direct assault on democracy" in that it is not answerable to elected school boards. Furthermore, there is little or no evidence that charter schools or the voucher system have resulted in higher test scores. In response to this assault on public education, there have been successful grassroots struggles, many examples of which are chronicled by Ravitch.A fervent defense of public education with abundant examples of how privatization has failed to deliver on its promises. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.