The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I’m finished with this book before being finished with it. This book is very much the opposite of ‘Waiting for Superman’ but not just in position to charter schools. Diane, in her long career in education policy, never learned that the plural of anecdote isn’t data. Neither did she ever find a statistic she couldn’t cleverly use to support her side of the argument. Conclusions that ‘the average charter school isn’t better than the average public school’ don’t allow you to condemn all charter schools. Her stance on teacher unions is comically pro-union. Writing that unions in southern states are weak and those states don’t have better schools while unions in Massachusetts are strong and look how good those schools are doesn’t count as a critical argument. Correlation is not equal to causation except on Fox News. Earlier she praised the Bay State for having a strong curriculum, are we to forget this during your union cheer-leading chapter?
Surely we must agree that test scores aren’t the only way to judge teachers, but don’t rely solely on peer reviews as an alternative. Other businesses seems to find good ways to evaluate employees without falling back on standardized test scores.
I tried to hang in there, but when read critically many of her arguments fall apart. And when many of your arguments (meaning whole chapters) don’t hold water, maybe I should look harder at the others too.
View all my reviews
Review: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I’m finished with this book before being finished with it. This book is very much the opposite of ‘Waiting for Superman’ but not just in position to charter schools. Diane, in her long career in education policy, never learned that the plural of anecdote isn’t data. Neither did she ever find a statistic she couldn’t cleverly use to support her side of the argument. Conclusions that ‘the average charter school isn’t better than the average public school’ don’t allow you to condemn all charter schools. Her stance on teacher unions is comically pro-union. Writing that unions in southern states are weak and those states don’t have better schools while unions in Massachusetts are strong and look how good those schools are doesn’t count as a critical argument. Correlation is not equal to causation except on Fox News. Earlier she praised the Bay State for having a strong curriculum, are we to forget this during your union cheer-leading chapter?
Surely we must agree that test scores aren’t the only way to judge teachers, but don’t rely solely on peer reviews as an alternative. Other businesses seems to find good ways to evaluate employees without falling back on standardized test scores.
I tried to hang in there, but when read critically many of her arguments fall apart. And when many of your arguments (meaning whole chapters) don’t hold water, maybe I should look harder at the others too.
View all my reviews