An in-depth, impeccably researched examination of the education-reform movements that have swept America over the last several decades, as well as the obstacles they've faced.
The last 20 years have seen drastic changes to the American public-education landscape. For the first time, the United States is not the dominant player on the global scene, and in fact is lagging drastically behind most developed nations. Graduation rates are dropping and, even more disturbingly, students that are graduating are often not proficient in basic skills. Which much of this has been blamed on factors such as poverty and lack of community motivation, most reformers agree that it can be almost directly tied to teacher performance. The problem is clear, but the solution is anything but, as teachers are represented by one of the country's fiercest and tightest unions. Public school teachers are locked into lengthy contracts protecting them but, many argue, often neglecting the students. A bevy of passionate individuals, organizations, philanthropists and even politicians have cropped up with innovative solutions to these problems, and Brill (Journalism/Yale Univ.; After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era, 2003, etc.) follows their efforts closely. From his account, patient zero in the reform movement seems to be Teach for America (TFA), founded in 1990 by Princeton senior Wendy Kopp, which sends outstanding recent college graduates to needy school districts for a two-year stint. Not only has TFA grown exponentially, but it has also produced several other leaders of the reform movement, such as Michelle Rhee, the former controversial Washington, D.C., school superintendent, and David Levin, founder of the massive network of KIPP charter schools. With Obama's election, the reform movement saw a major boost, as the president championed a plan called Race to the Top, which awarded states with unprecedented funding in exchange for reform. The problem with all this reform, however, is determining whether it actually works. Brill appears to be pro-reform and anti-union, though he concedes in the final pages that real change has to come not from band-aids like TFA and charters, but from the regular teachers that reach the vast majority of students across the country. The author tackles this beast of a topic admirably, creating a lucid, often riveting history that will be invaluable to the next generation of reformers.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1199-1
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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