The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

Realistic, Refreshing, Thought-provoking

Exposing the politics of education, sharing the important role that demographics play in learning, describing the real-life challenges that educators face, the sequence of the story.

The chapters on District 1 in NYC and the part about the failure of the San Diego public schools that recruited the business person to be their superintendent.

The author's admission that she was caught up in the accountability movement associated with NCLB and her revelation that the system is flawed and that it disadvantages low-wealth schools.

Great book for policy makers and educators!

I originally read this in hardcover and found Ravitch gives a detailed, well-thought-out and valuable critique of new "educational initiative." However, the highest credit goes to Eliza Foss who is superb at narrating a relatively dry text, filled with facts, statistics, etc. I am impressed at how well she aries her voice and holds the listeners interest in the fact based non-fiction work.

If you really want to learn about this topic, get the book from the library and skim it. The information is great, but this effort needs a better editor!

A short history of the American educational system, including an honest look at the causes and consequences of the current trends.

The woman who read the book was irritating. I think it took twice as long than if I had read the text myself. Too many long pauses.

The fact that the author seemed genuinely less concerned about party politics and more concerned about the welfare of the American student.

No

No

thought-provoking, statistical, research-based

The description of a business model for education, as though learning were a market commodity, and the damage that model does to useful learning in our schools.

The description of the New York educational "reform", and the flawed statistics that supported the results as effective.

No! Way too dense. One disadvantage of audiobooks is that a report like this, with reference to many statistics in the narrative, is difficult to follow--hard to remember what numbers were cited a few paragraphs ago. In printed books, you can just flip back.

I appreciated the fact-based investigation and arguments Ravitch offered, and will be watching our own schools to see if they can move away from "teaching to the test", a move that both of my daughters, both schoolteachers, find is an impediment to their ability to educate their students, especially in critical thinking and problem-solving.

While I admire Diane Ravitch's public service and her ability to admit to errors when she's wrong, I think she is missing the point about what has been successful in education. I agree with her that standardized tests and strict critiquing of teachers is not the solution (and probably more of the problem), she goes in the exact opposite direction as she wishes to inject more Federal oversight and legislation into a system that is rotten with it.

One need look no further than the university system in America to see the way a successful system should be run at every level. More choice, less legislation. That said, I think the University system is on the wrong path with interest free student loans flooding the system with loan bearing students that would otherwise be productive members of the economy. Just my two cents.