Left Back by Diane Ravitch

A Century of Failed School reforms.

And how. This book is dense. It contains generous helpings of the words of ideologues themselves. Reading it, one feels pounded on the acme anvil...but it is no joke.

Yet, it reminds me of the little children's rhyme, "The Ten little Indians." And this is how it goes.

Over and over again the ten little indians fall out of bed, each with a slightly different war cry.

Test, test the children, said the first. Let's find out what each child is capable of doing before we send the child into higher learning. He may not need it. Never mind that the new intelligence tests did not (and do not now, nor ever will they) measure a fixed innate intelligence.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us therefore be efficient, cried a man named Bobbitt.

Why teach about ancient history and the literature of other ages? "These deal with a world that is dead...."(p. 165)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

The interests of the children must drive the curriculum, said Dewey. Learning must happen naturally, freely. Teachers must not teach, but facilitate. (p.169)

and so they all rolled over and one fell out--

We need education without schooling, cried a man named Rugg, and he took subject matter with him. (p. 225)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

A new world order--that'll be the ticket, they cried in the thirties, dazzled by the light of the Soviet project schools beaming down upon the ruins of the depression. History crumbled and was replaced by Social Studies, and fewer and fewer children who could have studied higher mathematics didn't.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Activities, by jove, the children ought to learn with activities! Not those dratted old, moldy subjects.

When the teachers were as gifted as those in the Lincoln school, the activity movement engaged children in stimulating projects, which helped them learn reading, science, mathematics, and history. In the hands of less skillful teachers the activity movement kept children busy on aimless projects without
teaching them the knowledge and skills that they needed.
(p. 252)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Readers begone! cried the inventor of the Dick and Jane series, William Gray:

"The problem of teaching pupils to read has been clearly differentiated from the traditional effort to cultivate appreciation for classical literature." (p. 256)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us integrate the student into his own society! Socialization, that's what's important, not knowledge!

It was a short step from the radical idea that the schools should build a new collectivist social order--which the public schools had plainly rejected--to the distinctly non-radical idea that schools should teach students to conform to the group. (p. 261)

and they all rolled over and rest fell out--

Integration, Summerhill, The Open School movement, the sixties, the absence of both parents and in loco parentis, the call for standards; after taking us slowly and painstakingly through the history of Education ideology (and idiodicy) Ravitch turns her focus outward: to the schools and the world in which they exist with all its competing factions.

Competing? Sadly, yes. The ideologues had redefined "education" to such an extent that those whom you would have thought to have one goal in mind, the parents, students, and teachers invested in the educating of children couldn't even begin to read from the same page.

But what did happen? They did effect societal change. Children were educated--but to what?

Changes in curriculum in the pursuit of relevance accentuated narcissistic themes. Social studies courses focussed on immediate personal and social issues; chronological history and civic knowledge, which required students to think about worlds larger than their own aquaintance, were relegated to minor roles in social studies departments. Values clarification courses...proliferated. English became "English Language Arts," with more attention to self-expression and social issues than to classical literature. The study of heroes once popular among students in search of models to emulate, fell into disfavor. In an effort to promote self-esteem and group identity, schools reduced their once customary attention to the values of self-restraint, self-education and humility. p. 407.

If you can't quite manage the whole book; do read the Conclusion.