Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform

Rating:
Summary: Without reference, merit, or scholarship
Review: I read this book and others including Tinkering Towards Utopia (Tyack and Cuban, Elusive Science (Lagemann), Teaching in America (Grant and Murray), and Reconstrucing American Education (Katz). I strongly recommend all of these other texts, but NOT this one. Out of nearly sixty books I've read for my qualifying exams -- I can easily say this one was a loss and waste of time.

Ravitch's book is a poorly written history. It foremost displays a lack of significant understanding of existing literature in history of education and American history. In particular she shows an absolute misunderstanding of the development of progressive thinking as can be found more clearly in Tyack and Hansot's Managers of Virtue. She clearly mis-interprets John Dewey's philosophy, place in American philosophy and thinking, and most certainly his role in education.

In short it reads like the USA Today version of American history. Inaccurate, misleading, poorly researched, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, better to think of this a history of progressivism
Review: I'm a math teacher, and I decided to read this book because I'd like to have some strong background on the history of school reform as I try to understand the national debate on policies such as No Child Left Behind. Also, I'm deeply interested in creative answers to the issue of democratically educating the Underclass. This book met some of my needs, but I can't give it an unqualified recommendation.

Really, Ravitch devotes most of her efforts to giving a history of Progressivism in education. Consdierable time is spent on Dewey, Kilpatrick, and their followers. The book starts around the time of Eliot's Committee of Ten Report detailing how all should receive a college preparatory education and discusses how progressivism chipped away at this democratic ideal. There is a little bit of respect for Progressivism's desire to make classroom less dependent on rote memorization. But Ravitch gives an accurate critique of Progressivsm's ultimate consequences: in an effort to make the child's experience the center of the classroom and the focus of learning, the academic content of the curriculum was diluted. Ravitch clearly holds Progressivism to be largely responsible for why our nation lags behind other nations in most international evaluations of school quality. I learned from this book that Progressivism's core concepts have remained the same under different rhetorical incarnations. I also learned that ultimately, Ravitch considers Progressivism to be antidemocratic because it made college preparatory content optional; only the children of elites or the most highly motivated students opted for the rigorous college preparatory track. For those immigrants and minorities who desperaely needed college to gain access to the American mainstream, Progressivism's goal to satisfy the desires of the students [but not their parents!] had tragic consequences.

I have a few criticisms of this book. I don't think that much original scholarship was done for this book. Cremin and Krug, two noted historians, are often referred to. I think Ravitch's emphasis is different than prior scholarship in that she gives more room for the opponents of Progressivism. But I don't know how much is new.

I'm really critical over the focus on the educational establishment. So much of this book describes rhetorical debate between proponents and critics of reforms in the educational schools. As a teacher, I know that much of what ed schools desire doesn't get put into practice. I wanted to hear more of the voices of the students and the teachers who were most affected by the reforms.

Lastly, for a book that claims to focus on "a century" of school reform, the 60s were covered too quickly for my tastes. Brown
v Board of Ed is not introduced until page 367 and it gets about 15 pages. The debate over school busing is barely mentioned. Charter school issues and school choice, a key complement to the standards movement of the 90s is also barely mentioned. These were some of the issues that I care most about. The relative lack of discussion on these areas reveals that Ravitch is more interested in Progressive curriculum reform than reform efforts in school structure [introduciton of junior high schools is an exception to this]. Also, for those who seek to understand contemporary debates, the last 20-30 years is covered in a rather cursory fashion.

This book was a quality discussion of Progressivism and how it hijacked democratic rhetoric for covert and overt antidemocratic ends. It falls short of being a total history of school reform and it misses a valuable opportunity to introduces more voices of teachers, parents, and students into the traditional histories that usually emphasize the debates in the ed schools and the history of the bureaucrats.

I learned some stuff, but wanted to learn a lot more.

3 stars

--SD

Rating:
Summary: HOW THESE THINGS GET STARTED
Review: If you want to know how acquisition of knowledge moved from being the locus for the educational mission to a curious sidebar on the school calendar, this is your ticket. Ravitch traces the rather lumpy development of the misnamed " Progressive Education" movement and its high-minded utopian commitment to keep reinventing the educational wheel. From the modest tinkering with implementing vocational education at the turn of the 20th century to the more egregious "Child Centered", self-esteem pablum of later years, edu-crats have produced much theory and little substance. Tragically, as Ravitch forcefully argues, they weren't content to just bring innovation and productive revision to the table, they insisted on chopping the legs off the table. It was out with The Classics, out with history, out with language skills; to be replaced by activities, feel good counseling, and floating objectives, subject to the whim of the reigning reformist guru of the moment.
Anyone who has been in the trenches and attended conference after conference of the yawn inspiring promotions of the newest educational fads will find Left Back compelling reading. It is a comprehensive examination of how these things got started, how things went astray, and hopefully how to avert the next plunge into pedagogical folly.

Rating:
Summary: A must for those interested in the history of education!
Review: Once again, historian Diane Ravitch shows with great articulation how our educational system has failed our children under false pretenses. She illustrates how progressive movements and certain loud voices such as Dewey's and others have "dumbed down" our educational system.
This book is an eye-opener for those who have been misinformed by other sources. It vividly portrays how our students have been guinea pigs of educational fads which did not provide reasonable solutions to the problems they were attacking.
Kudos to Diane Ravitch for not being afraid to expose how education reforms have failed for over a hundred years.

Rating:
Summary: Educational Reform: Start Here!
Review: Ravich's book is sharp and focused. As an historian, Ravich has proven her skills time and again. As an educator, she brings the lens of history to a very close examination of how it all happened, all happened, all happened again and again. A more detailed history would certainly comprise a tome, but Ravich's intent, I surmise, is much more than a history lesson. She answers the questions most critical for substantive, sustained school reform: "How did this happen?" "Why did this happen?" "Where did we go wrong?" "Where did we go right?" and "Where do we start to fix this historical mistake called Progressivism?"

I highly recommend this book to school principals faced with whole school reform and for executive educational administrators who have a deep and committed interest in success for all children. This is essential foundational reading for all educators engaged in instructional/school reform.

Rating:
Summary: Educational Reform: Start Here!
Review: Ravich's book is sharp and focused. As an historian, Ravich has proven her skills time and again. As an educator, she brings the lens of history to a very close examination of how it all happened, all happened, all happened again and again. A more detailed history would certainly comprise a tome, but Ravich's intent, I surmise, is much more than a history lesson. She answers the questions most critical for substantive, sustained school reform: "How did this happen?" "Why did this happen?" "Where did we go wrong?" "Where did we go right?" and "Where do we start to fix this historical mistake called Progressivism?"

I highly recommend this book to school principals faced with whole school reform and for executive educational administrators who have a deep and committed interest in success for all children. This is essential foundational reading for all educators engaged in instructional/school reform.

Rating:
Summary: A good history of education in America
Review: This book does a good job of covering the last hundred years of the debate about education in America. A seemly simple question has been at the root of this debate: "What is the purpose of education?"

Through the 1800s for most teachers the answer was to teach children how to read, write, and do arithmetic. This was called the academic curriculum. By the late 1800s there was almost universal schooling.

Starting in the early 1900s, some education leaders thought it was best to prepare children for the job market, and especially once the IQ tests become popular, children were tested and slotted for a college track, or other tracks, as early at age six and seven. Some people pushed to improve self-esteem as the only real goal of education. Additionally many leaders of education started seeing schools as a place to "improve" society, and they wanted to go behind the backs of the parents and mold the children.

Over the years there has been a wide variety of programs, some of which have been a bit useful or effective, most have been destructive. For example in the 1920s and 1930s there was a push to be efficient in education, and that by figuring out where children would be working as adults and giving them only the education they would need, the schools could be good use of resources. There was a belief by some of the experts that students had little ability to transfer knowledge. As an extreme example of what this belief mean, just because students had been taught the basics of addition, they would have to learn from scratch the basics of subtraction. Because of this belief there was little interest in teaching children more than they really "needed" to know.

The questions people asked about the purpose of education are good questions to ask. It is helpful to know why children are going to schools. The author clearly feels that many of the leaders of education make big mistakes, and millions of children have suffered from an inadequate education. For example many people in the 1950s and 1960s felt that black children would grow up to have the menial jobs, so it was best to only teach them the basics; that it would be bad to try and force them to learn more than they would ever use.

And on the flip side, in the 1980s many experts felt that self-esteem was the only thing that matter, once children had good self-esteem, they would learn what they needed to know. So there were whole programs designed to help children have a strong positive self-image. Out of these schools came large numbers of children with little knowledge, but they felt good about themselves.

The author mentions program after program that were inflicted on children. The author goes over some of the various types of damage the children suffered. Then a group of education leaders would come up with a new program, lead another national movement, and a new group of children would suffer.

This is a good book for anyone who is trying to understand the current set of problems schools in our nation are facing. One of the fascinating things is how many of today's proposals have been tried in the past, and sometimes they have been tried several times.

Rating:
Summary: A good history of education in America
Review: This book does a good job of covering the last hundred years of the debate about education in America. A seemly simple question has been at the root of this debate: "What is the purpose of education?"

Through the 1800s for most teachers the answer was to teach children how to read, write, and do arithmetic. This was called the academic curriculum. By the late 1800s there was almost universal schooling.

Starting in the early 1900s, some education leaders thought it was best to prepare children for the job market, and especially once the IQ tests become popular, children were tested and slotted for a college track, or other tracks, as early at age six and seven. Some people pushed to improve self-esteem as the only real goal of education. Additionally many leaders of education started seeing schools as a place to "improve" society, and they wanted to go behind the backs of the parents and mold the children.

Over the years there has been a wide variety of programs, some of which have been a bit useful or effective, most have been destructive. For example in the 1920s and 1930s there was a push to be efficient in education, and that by figuring out where children would be working as adults and giving them only the education they would need, the schools could be good use of resources. There was a belief by some of the experts that students had little ability to transfer knowledge. As an extreme example of what this belief mean, just because students had been taught the basics of addition, they would have to learn from scratch the basics of subtraction. Because of this belief there was little interest in teaching children more than they really "needed" to know.

The questions people asked about the purpose of education are good questions to ask. It is helpful to know why children are going to schools. The author clearly feels that many of the leaders of education make big mistakes, and millions of children have suffered from an inadequate education. For example many people in the 1950s and 1960s felt that black children would grow up to have the menial jobs, so it was best to only teach them the basics; that it would be bad to try and force them to learn more than they would ever use.

And on the flip side, in the 1980s many experts felt that self-esteem was the only thing that matter, once children had good self-esteem, they would learn what they needed to know. So there were whole programs designed to help children have a strong positive self-image. Out of these schools came large numbers of children with little knowledge, but they felt good about themselves.

The author mentions program after program that were inflicted on children. The author goes over some of the various types of damage the children suffered. Then a group of education leaders would come up with a new program, lead another national movement, and a new group of children would suffer.

This is a good book for anyone who is trying to understand the current set of problems schools in our nation are facing. One of the fascinating things is how many of today's proposals have been tried in the past, and sometimes they have been tried several times.

Rating:
Summary: Eye opening
Review: What makes this book so interesting is Ravitch's documentation that "Progressive" education has been progressing in the same direction for over 100 years. The same ideas are rediscovered again and again, and those seeking to reform American schools have been fighting the same bogeymen (drilling, teacher as "sage on the stage") with the same rhetoric (teach the student, not the subject) for just as long. The book is at its best in showing that these ideas have been recycled numerous times.

The book does not devote much space to evaluating how successful various reforms have been. In some cases (e.g., the look-say approach to reading) the data have been quite clear. In other cases, the fact that enthusiasm for a reform waned seems to speak for itself. But this was not a goal of Ravitch's in this book--she seeks to lay out the history of progressive education, not to evaluate the success of various approaches to education.

Ravitch also does not make it her business to explore the *origin* of different reforms (in popular culture, in philosophy, economic changes, etc.) except when such origins are transparent. Again, this is an appropriate omission, given the goals of the book.

It's not a short book, but Ravitch is a clear writer with a lively style. If you have much interest in the topic, you'll be very glad to read it.