Public Employee Press

Book Review
Author reveals the charter school scam

Diane Ravitch, America's foremost historian of education and a true school reformer, debunks the hype of the privateers who have hoodwinked Americans into believing public schools are in crisis, teachers and unions are to blame and the solutions lie in high-stakes testing and privatization through charter schools and vouchers.

In her new book, "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools," Ravitch shows that the basic causes of America's school problems are poverty and racial segregation. She demolishes the mythology of crisis with thorough research that shows test scores improving steadily for decades, graduation rates at historical highs and more young people going to college than ever.

She blasts current efforts to chain teacher and student success to an altar of standardized test scores for bringing excessive focus on a few testable subjects that marginalize all else, expanding "teaching to the test" (once considered unethical), and causing massive school closings, student displacement and teacher firings nationwide. This so-called education "reform" has received bipartisan support in the Bush and Obama administrations, benefiting the corporate drive to sell educational products and hand public education funds to private management.

Alternative schools like charters boost their "success" rates by leaving out students with disabilities, immigrants just learning English, and others who might be a challenge and by adding big private donations to the tax money they get. Teachers' jobs and pay depend on the latest test scores or the whims of management. Their anti-union bias - no surprise among the Wall Street investors seeking profits in education-as-a business - is matched by an anti-professional bias that promotes the false idea that great teachers don't need academic training or teaching experience.

The defeat of Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and his school reform superstar Michelle Rhee, the Chicago teachers' strike and the election of Bill de Blasio have cut the momentum of these so-called reformers and what Ravitch calls their "deliberate effort to replace public education" with a privatized system.

We could write a new chapter for Ravitch's next book by implementing her proposals to strengthen public schools by attacking economic inequality in the society at large and using proven school-based efforts such as smaller classes, better health services, targeted programs for students with special needs and pre-kindergarten (a key element of de Blasio's platform). And she advocates better teacher training and greater parental involvement to put the public back in public education from the bottom up.

— Ken Nash