Description: In a major work that caps decades of observation and study, historian Diane Ravitch traces the origins of America's permanent debate about standards, curriculum, and methods in our schools. She explains why American schools undertake reform after reform, based on unproven and unworkable theories, without really changing. Our schools have been diverted from their essential mission, which is teaching and learning. Ravitch describes the educational ideas that have undermined our children's achievement: programs designed for children according to social class and race, the abandonment of a common academic curriculum, training for the workforce, the warehousing of students in huge schools, allowing pupils to follow their "natural" interests instead of liberal arts instruction.

Ravitch addresses head-on the most enduring and important but least understood issue in the United Stares. She argues that the one, true purpose of the school is the intellectual development of every child.

Please Wait