Rating: 
Summary: Part of the Problem in our Schools!
Review: It would be very simplistic to blame all of the problems in America's schools on the textbooks. However, it is realistic to say that the textbooks are a big part of the problem.Many teachers rely heavily on the textbook to create their course. This is due either to lack of ability or to state law. Certain states (California and Texas among them) mandate the adoption of specific books or, at least, limit the options. Good books are necessary in such an environment. We need books that the intelligent student can learn from and which will engage the less able student. Unfortunately, our textbooks are almost universally poor. There are many reasons, and Ravitch has limited her discussion to the writing style of the texts. She focuses mainly on History and Literature. In order to avoid offending groups at both ends of the political spectrum, textbooks have become heavily sanitized mush. Offensive words or concepts are eliminated. The right wing conspiracy (of which I'm a member) has complained for years about left wing censorship while happily engaging in the same sort of activity. The left wing mandates multiculturalism to ridiculous extremes. There must be gender and racial balance in illustrations, stories, authors, and illustrators. At the same time, the right wing demands stories that show children always obeying their parents, no evolution, no sorcery, and other such things. Taken together, the flavor and interest of textbooks is gone. My students tell me how boring the books are to read, and they're right. I have taken the extreme step of writing my own textbooks because there are so few decent texts out there. Ravitch has identified and articulated what I had felt instinctively. Furthermore, she has provided the research and the facts to back herself up. This book provides evidence of the problem. It is for this that I rate it five stars. No one can argue with it. The facts are plain. We can argue over whether it is a bad thing. She claims it is, and I agree, but that is an opinion. That it is happening is a fact.
Rating:
Summary: Informative and unfortunately all too true!
Review: As an English and Literature teacher , I believe that Diane Ravitch is trying very hard to bring attention to the fact that much of what teachers are being told to expose to their students, is dull, boring,and watered down. In today's culture of instant gratification through the media, students find images of violence, pleasure, or whatever , graphically depicted for them. But they do NOT have to use their own imaginations. One of the joys of reading literature is to imagine what the author is trying to depict.But if a lot of literature that stimulates that imagination has been "censored" for all kinds of reasons, it does not provoke anything at all but boredom.I have seen this happening in the texts schools have been forced to purchase for years.
One reviewer seemed to think that teachers unions would be offended by "The Language Police" . Actually ,it has been excerpted in the American Federation of Teachers magazine, "The American Educator".
I see no end to the activities of the "real life" language police.After reading that many parents have angrily denounced
J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels because they glorify witchcraft (even though like few other books they have stimulated children to read), I am positive that it will become harder and harder to actually get children to pick up a book and read it.
I really think "The Language Police" is highly informative , and unfortunately all too true.
Rating:
Summary: essential insight for modern times
Review: The targeted corruption of our language by people with axes to grind, and the disappearance of free speech in their wake is a fearful blight, and she lays it all out. (Niggardly is a perfectly fine old word meaning stingy, but is forbidden in schools because it sounds as if it might mean something else.) The book does make the same points over and over again, as others have noted, but they may have to be hammered home. The only matter on which I disagree with her is that she has some hope for the future, while I have lost mine. The downhill road rarely turns up. Gresham's law in economics notes that if good money and bad money are in circulation at the same time, the bad money will drive the good money out of circulation. In this case the deliberately corrupted meanings of words are the bad money. Read it and weep, and then applaud her for the courage to say it.
Rating: 
Summary: this book is dangerous
Review: By "dangerous," I mean that you will never look at children's literature the same way again. I read The Language Police a few weeks ago, and ever since then, I have spotted SO many things in children's books that the public school system would never ever get away with that it's not even funny anymore! And the idea that what our kids read in textbooks is pretty much dictated by California and Texas scares ... me--and I live in one of the states that Ravitch actually commended for having a clearer designation of literature that all students should be reading! I've long been interested in censorship and politically correct language, so naturally I was drawn to this book and read it eagerly, but I agree with those who say that all parents who have kids in the school system should read it--especially if they care about literature in any way. I honestly don't think many people realize how bad it is. When I started telling my boyfriend about this book, he scoffed at me, thinking that his own small children probably should have their reading matter appropriately screened. Then I told him about Ravitch's personal examples of the censorship process at the beginning of the book. His hair stood on end--and since it comes to the middle of his back, that was quite the feat. I think we'll both be looking at what the kids read--and how we can teach them to create their own "filters" and critical thinking skills--much more closely now, and I'm already planning to use Ravitch's "canonical" reading list with them as they grow up (after I catch up on reading many of those titles myself!). Ravitch is going on my list of heroes for her ability to cut through the b.s. and provide a well-judged perspective on what's happening to our education system. Wish we had more like her.
Rating:
Summary: a 5th column attack
Review: As a teacher, I see this in our meetings and in our workshops. (The union workshops are the worst for this!) America should be scared. We should fear that we are more like "1984" than we even think we are. I would like to say I am shocked, but I am not. I would like to say it isn't or shouldn't be a concern to parents,BUT IT SHOULD BE! This will have a greater affect on our future than anything else....it should scare you! If it doesn't, then it's too late and you have become a Politically Correct Speaker of "New Speak".
Rating:
Summary: Stop in the name of the law!
Review: Diane Ravitch gives an account of the "regime of censorship that has quietly spread throughout educational publishing in response to pressure groups from both the left and right." Readers will discover the power of "bias and sensitivity reviewers", and will be disturbed to find historical accuracy is routinely sacrificed for political correctness. Ravitch attempts to provide a balanced account of censorship by giving examples from the extreme right and extreme left. Unlike bias guidelines, which are often secretive, this text is well referenced. Readers will find a valuable bonus in the two appendices. In the first appendix Ravitch provides a glossary of banned words, usages, stereotypes, and topics. While some may find the glossary somewhat amusing (examples range from the ridiculous to the sublime, including a section of foods to avoid in textbooks), the lists also elicit deep concerns as one becomes aware of the degree and extent of censorship so readily practiced. Parents and educators alike will find the second appendix to be particularly helpful as it provides a compilation of leading classics in literature, broken down by grade level, ranging from grade three to ten. While she somewhat belabors her points, the points are worth making. Having read her book, like Ravitch, "I could not shake the feeling that something important and dangerous was happening in American education that few people knew about."
Rating:
Summary: The Language Police - A Must Read
Review: The Language Police is a must read for anyone interested in the education of today's youth. This book might well be subtitled 'Losing Our Culture' as it clearly documents how school textbooks and tests are developed by politically motivated special interest groups, the result of which is a content sterilized and empty textbooks and tests for our nations teachers and students. This book shows how texts and tests virtually eliminate anything written before 1970 because it would be too controversial, and how it is done in ways hidden from public knowledge and scrutiny. I give the book four stars because it does not include an appendix of proposed state history and literature teaching standards. Nonetheless, this is a valuable book.
Rating:
Summary: I'm *so* glad I got my education before p.c. came to my area
Review: Abraham Lincoln is once supposed to have said, "The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of
government in the next." If this is so, then things look grim for the next crop of leaders. According to Ms. Ravitch, pressure groups have turned school textbooks into consensus monsters, inoffensive as gruel and just as light in content. I don't think I could face twelve years of school if I knew I was going to have to swallow this much pabulum in place of solid information. What distinguishes this book from the usual laundry list of educrats at play is Ms. Ravitch's insider status. She was present when these "guidelines" were hatched, and shares her dismay at the enshrinement of liberal hypersensitivity in the school curriculum. What's also different is that she details attacks from both the right and the left. She comes down hard on both, but makes it clear that publishers are more cowed by left-leaning watchdogs. "Racist" carries more sting as an reproach than "immoral". Interestingly, we see in one instance the Frankensteinish nature of textbook censorship. One social studies book was written by a leftist academic of impeccable anti-American credentials. Yet his book was still flayed by complainers of all conceivable stripes. Thus did censorship break loose from the control of its creators, and turn on them instead... Ravitch includes a very useful reading list of her own. Most of the books are old--which is to say, they have stood the test of time--but she is not trying to build a better yesterday. Rather, she is trying to help concerned parents and teachers take their child's education back from the chronic takers of offense, who have somehow gotten veto power over the textbook publishing business. One can only hope this book's message spreads far and wide.
Rating:
Summary: Well Written, grounded, and accessible
Review: I just recieved this book as a gift and couldn't put it down! It is hard to top the reviews the author has already recieved. Nonetheless, I would like to add that other authors have covered similar ground; HOWEVER, what this book offers is language that is accessible to those outside of education. Nearly all concepts are well explained before hand as she makes her points clearly and with a bit of pragmatic wit (especially in regard to texts). Perhaps due to her efforts to keep the text accessible, Prof. Ravitch's work regarding the reading passages for standardized tests seem to miss the mark in a one crucial area (and rarely mentioned in these reviews). Clearly she is discussing achievement tests - those used to guage what students have learned. The use of the SAT or ACT to strengthen her arguement is less clear since they differ from achievement tests in that they need to PREDICT future achievement in postsecondary institutions -- which is mentioned in brief. They are not designed to drive curriculum. One could argue, for instance, that comprehending dry, difficult, and boring text is a good predictor of college acheivement (and if this were the case the SAT would be doing a great job). Kidding aside, she does a great job explaining the statistical procedure of DIF in terms of how it may influence what children learn on state tests but fails to differentiate the SAT and ACT from other tests...and this is an important distinction. It is easy to lose sight of this issue in her chapter that addresses tests. All in all, I enthusiatically give her 5 stars for her work with texts and 4 stars in regard to testing issues...if 4.5 were possible...this would be the book.
Rating:
Summary: Combat The Censors -- Read And Think And Learn For Yourself
Review: I'm not giving this book five stars for the manner in which it is written. I am, however, giving this book five stars because I learned a lot about what I always had a nagging suspicion of what was wrong with current and conventional methods of education in our country. After having read this book, I now know why so many of my textbooks in elementary and in junior high school were so boring and so far removed from any practical methods of learning that would be interesting for me. I also know now why students that were in a college course I took, when asked to make a choice between one written work or another, they simply could not do it. The way they learned removed methods of decision making and critical thinking from their education. Being able to read, think and learn for yourself is the most important method to sustaining any democracy. This includes having access to materials from different viewpoints, whether they are considered the norm or controversial, from one perspective or another, or if they are written in a manner that compares and contrasts one group, idea or method from another. It is when the censors take over and decide what children shouldn't know is what fosters ignorance, which fosters prejudice, which fosters a society of people who can no longer think for themselves. People who must rely entirely upon what others control, filter and subvert what they learn and think are, in effect, uneducated people. Ever wonder why when Jay Leno does his "Man on the street" interviews, and it seems that no one can answer simple questions about history, our nation, or current events? This book gives a pretty good insight into why this is happening.
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