Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Monday August 30, 2010
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THREE BOOKS ABOUT EDUCATION REFORM
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ISBN NA
NA pages
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Reviewed by Diane Ravitch
Now that the Obama administration has invited the states to compete for $5 billion in stimulus funds, the winners will not be those that come up with the best reform ideas, but those that agree to do what the administration wants: create privately managed charter schools, evaluate teachers by their students' test scores, and close low-performing schools. Since so much power and money are arrayed on one side of the issue, it is useful to consider some dissenting views. These three books have the power to change the national discussion of what now passes for "school reform."
Linda Darling-Hammond's "The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future" (Teachers College, $21.95) contains a valuable lode of practical and research-based advice about how to improve our schools. Darling-Hammond does something that the Obama administration has failed to do: She reviews what the top-performing school systems around the world do to get great results. Their highest priorities, she shows, are building a strong, experienced staff and making sure that every school has access to a rich, well-balanced curriculum in the arts and sciences. Finland, the highest-performing nation, has not relied on testing and accountability to achieve its current status.
Barbara Torre Veltri's "Learning on Other People's Kids: Becoming a Teach for America Teacher" (Information Age; $29.99, paper). If American education has a sacred cow, it is Teach for America, which recently won $50 million from the U.S. Department of Education. The organization recruits bright college graduates to work for two years in the nation's poorest schools. Veltri has taught many of these recruits in her job at the University of Arizona, and she interviewed hundreds for this book. While she admires the young people who join the program, she raises important questions about the value of placing unprepared teachers in classes with the nation's neediest children.
If I were assigning reading to staff members at the U.S. Department of Education, I would ask them to study Richard Rothstein's "Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right" (Teachers College and Economic Policy Institute; $19.95, paper). Rothstein and his colleagues explain in plain language why current accountability policies, which focus only on basic skills, are making education worse, not better, by narrowing the curriculum. With apt examples, they also show how the pursuit of numbers distorts more important goals and how schools may get higher test scores without supplying better education.
Diane Ravitch is a former assistant secretary of education. Her latest book is "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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BABY, WE WERE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER: In Praise of Adoption
Scott Simon
Random House
ISBN 978-1-4000-6849-4
180 pages
$22
Reviewed by Sarah Halzack
Scott Simon's first night as an adoptive parent wasn't an easy one. Holed up in a hotel on a rainy night in Nanchang, China, he and his wife tried everything to comfort their new daughter as she cried. "Her eyes were dull, defiant, and blistering. Her small cheeks burned so, I wondered if her tears would sizzle," he writes. Still, the hysteria could not mitigate the deep feelings Simon and his wife felt for the child. "Our baby had opened new chambers in our hearts," he writes.
That sense of completeness and unconditional love is what anchors "Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other," Simon's memoir about adoption. Simon weaves together his own experience adopting two daughters from China with the stories of other adoptive parents and adopted children. Simon, an NPR host, and the families he interviews are strikingly candid about the challenges of adoption and the events that lead to it -- the suspense and heartbreak of unsuccessful fertility treatments, the nosy questions from neighbors about how much a child costs, the decision of whether to respond to overtures from a biological parent. Simon's unvarnished portrait is nonetheless an ode to adoption and the joy it can bring to both parent and child. It's clear that each family Simon highlights, including his own, is bound by a strong sense of generosity, empathy and love.
Sarah Halzack can be reached at halzacks(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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