Reign of Error

Diane Ravitch's fiery assault on the so-called “school reform” movement. The book can be broadly divided into two primary sections. The first section addresses, individually, various myths about public education, and attempts to debunk them one at a time. The second lays out her proposed solutions.

The approach is sound, but the execution is not without problems. One of them resolves itself – I often found myself thinking that Ravitch had been making an assertion for quite a while with no evidence to support it. Typically the evidence did come a bit later, so if you find yourself unconvinced, you might give her a bit longer to make her case. She's also frequently repetitive.

One consistently discouraging observation is that her proposed solutions are vanishingly unlikely to be enacted, as things stand now. Pipe dreams are unsatisfying. But Ravitch is an education researcher, not a political strategist, and can hardly be faulted for that.


Nota bene: This book seems longer than it is, so much so that I got antsy wondering how it could possibly be padded out so long with the remaining material to be covered. As it turns out, it isn't – the back 30% is appendices and footnotes.

It get's a lot repetitive,. Still worth a read. There aren't a lot of mind-blowing revelations in here, but I definitely came a away with a few. If nothing else, it's an interesting perspective on the state and path of our public schools.

It reads more like a collection of essays than chapters of a larger work. I found it a good one to read in fits and starts. Otherwise you'll feel a little like you're being hit over the head.