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Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools
In a reporting tour de force that made national headlines and The New York Times bestseller list, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children—and points the way to reversing that failure. In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children—and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.
498 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 16, 2011
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August 26, 2011
I guess this is what you get when a journalist sells out to the mega-rich. (Perhaps it's no coincidence that "Brill" rhymes with "shill.") The book is riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and topped off with a dash of slander.
on page 7, we hear that 'teaching counted more than anything else.' WRONG. The single greatest factor influencing a student's achievement (and a school's achievement overall) is wealth. Teaching counts more than anything else within the school walls - but if you don't add that qualifier, the statement is inaccurate.
page 25, ooh look, international test results! Once again, a gross misrepresentation of the FACTS. Countries that score well on these tests have very low levels of child poverty (did you know that the US now leads the world? we have more children in poverty than any other developed nation! go us!) and when you compare those countries with US schools that have similar socioeconomic status, US SCHOOLS DO BETTER. In fact, if you compare our high-poverty schools with high-poverty schools in other countries, US SCHOOLS DO BETTER.
This manufactured crisis goes all the way back to the '60s (remember Sputnik?) when we were destined for ruin because we ranked not just in the middle, but DEAD LAST in international test results. Yet somehow the US remains a dominant force internationally.
page 113 references the so-called "Florida Miracle" without noting that all of the measures listed can be rigged by lowering standards. More students took AP exams? Great! What did those scores look like, again?
page 304 references Diane Ravitch's speaking fees (which at $10k per talk are a small fraction of Michelle Rhee's standard $50k per talk). Does Brill not realize that public speaking is WORK? Seriously, WTF, Brill? She is getting paid to speak TO them, not FOR them, which is what he seems to be trying to hint at.
This book is just SUCH a disgrace. I don't call myself a journalist, and I'm STILL embarrassed, simply on behalf of those who do.
On the other hand, it is well-written and I didn't notice any grammatical errors (though that may have been because I was distracted by, oh, EVERYTHING ELSE). Perhaps if it had been marketed as a novel -- or heck, even a memoir -- I wouldn't be so thoroughly disgusted.
on page 7, we hear that 'teaching counted more than anything else.' WRONG. The single greatest factor influencing a student's achievement (and a school's achievement overall) is wealth. Teaching counts more than anything else within the school walls - but if you don't add that qualifier, the statement is inaccurate.
page 25, ooh look, international test results! Once again, a gross misrepresentation of the FACTS. Countries that score well on these tests have very low levels of child poverty (did you know that the US now leads the world? we have more children in poverty than any other developed nation! go us!) and when you compare those countries with US schools that have similar socioeconomic status, US SCHOOLS DO BETTER. In fact, if you compare our high-poverty schools with high-poverty schools in other countries, US SCHOOLS DO BETTER.
This manufactured crisis goes all the way back to the '60s (remember Sputnik?) when we were destined for ruin because we ranked not just in the middle, but DEAD LAST in international test results. Yet somehow the US remains a dominant force internationally.
page 113 references the so-called "Florida Miracle" without noting that all of the measures listed can be rigged by lowering standards. More students took AP exams? Great! What did those scores look like, again?
page 304 references Diane Ravitch's speaking fees (which at $10k per talk are a small fraction of Michelle Rhee's standard $50k per talk). Does Brill not realize that public speaking is WORK? Seriously, WTF, Brill? She is getting paid to speak TO them, not FOR them, which is what he seems to be trying to hint at.
This book is just SUCH a disgrace. I don't call myself a journalist, and I'm STILL embarrassed, simply on behalf of those who do.
On the other hand, it is well-written and I didn't notice any grammatical errors (though that may have been because I was distracted by, oh, EVERYTHING ELSE). Perhaps if it had been marketed as a novel -- or heck, even a memoir -- I wouldn't be so thoroughly disgusted.
July 23, 2016
Traditional public schools are vital to a democracy but are fast becoming repositories for the poorest and most troubled kids. So what is up with our failure to educate kids? Steve Brill does his best to figure it all out in this compelling narrative.
The reformers that Steven Brill writes about are an insular and well-connected bunch (the anecdotal works so well here!). They square off with the unions who (they) claim protect a system that is all about the adults and victimizes the children. Brill mounts such a case against the unions failings that this reader was indignant and (quite) self-righteous when telling others ALL ABOUT IT.
Hmmm, about that:
In the last chapter of the book, Brill undercuts ALL with a truly about face and acknowledges that it is only by better collaborating with the unions (once they are reined in politically) that we can succeed in turning around education. Unions must have high expectations for their teachers and their message must be relentless. Reformers should not disband the unions but push back those that want to de-professionalize teachers. Reformers also need to push for a political climate that ALWAYS puts children first- NO negotiating contracts that allow teachers to be protected from poor performance.
The reformers that Steven Brill writes about are an insular and well-connected bunch (the anecdotal works so well here!). They square off with the unions who (they) claim protect a system that is all about the adults and victimizes the children. Brill mounts such a case against the unions failings that this reader was indignant and (quite) self-righteous when telling others ALL ABOUT IT.
Hmmm, about that:
In the last chapter of the book, Brill undercuts ALL with a truly about face and acknowledges that it is only by better collaborating with the unions (once they are reined in politically) that we can succeed in turning around education. Unions must have high expectations for their teachers and their message must be relentless. Reformers should not disband the unions but push back those that want to de-professionalize teachers. Reformers also need to push for a political climate that ALWAYS puts children first- NO negotiating contracts that allow teachers to be protected from poor performance.
March 25, 2012
As someone who worked extremely hard to get tenure, and valued the protections that it gave me (I have since made a career change from teaching to guidance), I have completely changed my views on the subject after reading this book, along with "Push Has Come to Shove." I also was very strongly against vouchers and wary of standardized testing -- until I read these two books.
Brill gives a tremendous overview of educational reform in this country: how unions began and how they have become a powerful force that is holding back educational progress. The book actually is not *against* unions - in fact, Brill argues that they should remain intact but be seriously reformed.
I recommend reading this book along with Diane Ravitch's to gain a balanced perspective. I have read both and have to say that Brill makes the much stronger case for what's needed to improve education in America.
Brill gives a tremendous overview of educational reform in this country: how unions began and how they have become a powerful force that is holding back educational progress. The book actually is not *against* unions - in fact, Brill argues that they should remain intact but be seriously reformed.
I recommend reading this book along with Diane Ravitch's to gain a balanced perspective. I have read both and have to say that Brill makes the much stronger case for what's needed to improve education in America.
April 3, 2013
Very disappointed in this. I could tell by Brill's tone that he was 100% on the side of "reformers" like Rhee, Kopp, etc. What really pushed me over the edge of, "it was an okay analysis of information to which I am diametrically opposed" to "Did. Not. Like." was the description of a group of "reformers" (they are not reforming anything except the wallets of businessmen) pushing for Arne Duncan as Education Secretary, with a back-up of... Wendy Kopp? Are you serious? As a teacher, I am fed up and disgusted with the constant "education reform" that is brought about by people with absolutely ZERO classroom experience. Wendy Kopp wrote up a bunch of bullshit in her Ivy League dorm room and we're all expected to bow at her feet because she gets fellow Ivy League graduates to "donate" their "precious time" to "save" poor kids? Barf. These students don't need saviors, they need real solutions. A bunch of 22-year-olds who are burnt out by 24, when they move on to law, business, or medical school is not the solution.
July 6, 2012
Class Warfare by Steven Brill casts a wide enough net so that readers are introduced to some of the most powerful people in the education reform movement over the past two decades. For anyone who wants a primer on the “movers and shakers” of education reform, Brill’s book could be a reasonable start. But even for those familiar with education reform, they’ll likely need to refer to the lengthy list of people and their titles at the end of the book. Brill, a journalist, writes terse chapters, most not more than three pages, and likes to title chapters with direct quotes (“’Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Parent,’” “’This is Not a Self-Esteem Movement’” or “’What Do You Guys Think You Could Do with a Hundred Billion?’”) or snippets like “Rhee’s Breakthrough,” “The Bobble Head Doll” or “A Shriek on Park Avenue.” Each chapter picks up a different thread, and Brill has a tendency to end each chapter with quasi-suspenseful sentence, so I sometimes felt more like I was watching a serial episode than reading an investigation/analysis of educational reform.
Most of those Brill focuses on are wealthy members of D-FER (Democrats for Education Reform); high-profile people like Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. school system, as well as a Teach for America alum; AFT president Randi Weingarten; education policy advisors like Jon Schnur (who worked for both the Kerry Presidential campaign and later for Obama), and other Teach For America alums who started educational organizations, built charter schools, or entered politics.
Early in the book, Brill writes that “the war over our schools has not two but three camps: the reformers, the unions and the teachers” (p. 30). That third group—teachers—would be well-served to read this book, especially new and mid-career teachers, who intend to teach for the foreseeable future. It’s certainly not because they’ll find much support for teachers, based on many of the most vocal reformers throughout the book. Rather, the book might well help them see what’s stirring “out there,” far beyond their own classrooms yet likely to impinge and impact what they may well do in their classrooms in the future.
Teachers, good teachers, tend to be highly focused on what they need to do in their own classrooms, what their students still need to learn, and how they’re going to get those students to learn. Brill is likely right when he suggests that the vast majority of teachers do not align themselves closely with the teachers’ unions. Teaching done right is labor and time-intensive, and so many policy “wars,” “battles,” or any other militaristic metaphors writers use get fought on territories far afield from where teachers actually work. I was talking to a young teacher recently; she commented that she needs to become more informed about the intricacies of everything related to Race to the Top and President Obama’s education platform. The only problem, she commented, is that most of her “spare” time is dedicated to grading and prepping for classes. And there’s the rub. Very little of this book actually focuses on teaching or on those most directly involved with students—the teachers, themselves. Yet, the discussions that occurred within the time frame covered in this book have led to decisions and legislations which do and will affect fundamental decisions about teaching and learning—namely, what “counts” for student learning and what constitutes good teaching.
Much of the book outlines the “oughts” for schools. Schools “ought” to demand high levels of teacher performance, we “ought” to recruit from the “best and the brightest,” we “ought” to have more charter schools; we “ought” to have a clear, definable measure of how much a “good teacher” impacts his or her students.
That’s, I think, one of the weaknesses of the book. All of those particular favorites of ed reformers are laid out early in the book. Much of the first part of the book is how many obstacles or problems were thrown in front of those who wanted dramatic reform. Often the tempo and the tenor of the book was more about “winning” than the reformers’ and union leaders’ mantra: “it’s about the children.” Whether it was a chapter about Weingarten’s and Klein’s NYC teacher contractual battles, Rhee’s takeover of the Washington, DC schools, the expansion of TFA and their alums to leadership positions in state and city government, the reformers’ choices for Obama’s Education Cabinet, or the various groups competing for Race to the Top Money---the emphasis throughout it all was who “won” that battle, who presided, who “beat” their opponent. After 400 some-odd pages of that, the book started to read more like a play-by-play of the NBA finals than a sustained analysis of public schooling.
Throughout much of the book, Brill presents the reformers in a favorable light, so much so, that sometimes he doesn’t step back to assess the whole context. When he writes of the early efforts of Teach for America teachers, he emphasizes the young teachers’ academic pedigrees, their drive, their intelligence, their idealism. All of those attributes are wonderful, no doubt. It’s also laudable that these individuals wanted to dedicate their time and talent to teaching, to contribute to the common good. Yet, the fact is that during the early phases of Teach for America, recent college graduates were sent to teach in urban classrooms with no more than a smattering of “professional development” workshops. Brill does include that. He doesn’t question, though, the underlying assumption that if people are smart enough and well-intentioned enough—that they can teach, with or without any teacher preparation. He writes of the difficulty the young Ivy League grads had as first year teachers in remote, urban or impoverished school districts: school districts that all had high numbers of vulnerable, high needs students. Those were the moments in the book where I paused, (usually for a sarcastic comment). Rhee and others were confounded that young students didn’t always follow directions or listen? Brill writes how she and other TFA’ers spent hours over the summer building curricula, redesigning what they had been doing, re-thinking how they would set up classroom procedures. They spent months after their first full year of teaching learning exactly what they would have learned in any good teacher preparation program. Maybe more than a smattering of teacher “professional workshops” would have been warranted.
As far as teaching and student achievement, virtually the sole indicator any of the reformers referred to or “used” to win political battles were test scores. Whether it was a change in school’s test scores from one year to the next or linking test scores to individual teachers as the measure of a teacher’s effectiveness, test scores were (and in many cases continue to be) the only criteria reformers believe had any merit in judging student learning, teacher performance, or a school’s “goodness.”
Certainly, it’s not that tests are not useful. It’s in how they’re used. The book does not raise any questions about the preponderance of using test scores as a single assessment measure—nor does it seriously engage in any discussion about vagaries of state testing and reporting students’ results. (For a somber, well-grounded, and thoroughly researched book on that subject, Brill should have read George Hillocks’ The Testing Trap. Hillocks and his team of researchers do a multi-state study to examine the creation, administration, and most important, scoring of writing tests. It’s crucial reading for anyone interested in public education and should have been required reading for those reformers who most push for single test scores as the objective “truth” of a student’s or school’s achievement.)
One frustrating aspect of the book is the near-dismissal Brill shows for anyone in the “education establishment.” Fairly early in the book, Brill discounts Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford, for her critique of Teach for America’s program. He calls it an article that “seemed personal” against Wendy Kopp, and suggests that her hostility toward Kopp was more because of a perceived threat than because of any genuine, substantive concern on her part. Brill refers to an article Darling-Hammond wrote describing the frustration and discouragement of former TFA recruits. Hw provides little context for that article. He does not go into any detail about what she has done promoting education reform, researching urban education, or designing and developing model schools. Most interesting, he lists but provides no detail about her work researching teacher effectiveness, raising teacher licensure standards and pushing for the re-envisioning and re-structuring of teacher preparation programs. His depiction of her suggests that she didn’t want to “upset the establishment by calling for accountability or advocating for an alternative to traditional education schools.” If Brill had been more familiar with her work—and referred to her books and research reports—rather than one, brief article written for a general audience, his depiction of her may have been more accurate. In fact, Brill shows little familiarity with key education researchers and scholars. His attention is placed more on headline-grabbers than people doing the serious, sustained research required within the field.
From my reading, few people come off looking noble or admirable in this book. One notable exception is Jessica Reid. Ironically, she is one of the few actual teachers highlighted, and Brill does do a good job depicting how she teaches and the energy she expends planning and instructing her students. He also includes how Reid scrounges around to get enough supplies for her class, even at times emailing requests for donations from family and friends. By the end of the book, Reid has quit teaching because of exhaustion. If one were to believe what many of the most vocal reformers claim, it would be easy to assume that most teachers are inept and incompetent. No one wants poor teachers to remain in schools. Yet, at the same time, anyone would want Jessica Reid or other new teachers like her to stay in the classroom. Many reformers fail to see that to have good schools, we also must support new teachers.
We need to understand just how difficult becoming a teacher is and how important it is to support and sustain those teachers like Reid. The US has about 98,000 public elementary and secondary schools. Close to half of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and that’s not because they are all inept or inadequate. More leave for the same reasons Jessica Reid cited: insufficient planning time, lack of influence over school policies, limited professional support, and a grinding work load. Perhaps we should be astonished that as many stay.
By far the most frustrating aspect of Class Warfare is the shift in tone and focus within the last few pages of the book. Brill congratulates all of the reformers he spotlighted in the book, the “sprinters” whose drive, imagination, and persistence made reform happen. The advances and gains of charter schools, Brill argues, have been life-saving, akin to the work of a hospital emergency room. And there’s when he shifts focus. In the same way as an emergency room cannot be the sustaining structure for a good healthcare system, the approximate 5,000 charter schools can’t be the sustaining structure for a good educational system. So, in the end, Brill writes about how important it is for both sides—the sprinters and the “marathoners” to work together, so that the brilliant flashes won’t be burned out before the first few miles. The Michelle Rhees, Joel Kleins and Randi Weingartens all need to work together so that our educational system has room for both. Even more important, Brill writes we need to have that kind of collaboration among reformers, school chancellors, and union leaders so that we will have enough teachers in the classroom; we need more teachers than Teach for America or other alternative programs will ever be able to provide. We need to teach more students than could ever be schooled in charter schools. That’s Brill’s final note. It’s not so much that Brill’s conclusion is off base. It’s more that his attention and emphasis so heavily emphasized the political wins and losses, the scrappiness of the reformers, the power plays of union leaders vs. reformers—that to end it all by moving toward a more collaborative stance was surprising—and frustrating. For if he knew he would come to that conclusion when he began writing this book, it would have strengthened the book immeasurably to discuss the more nuanced dimensions of teaching, learning, and educational reform.
Most of those Brill focuses on are wealthy members of D-FER (Democrats for Education Reform); high-profile people like Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. school system, as well as a Teach for America alum; AFT president Randi Weingarten; education policy advisors like Jon Schnur (who worked for both the Kerry Presidential campaign and later for Obama), and other Teach For America alums who started educational organizations, built charter schools, or entered politics.
Early in the book, Brill writes that “the war over our schools has not two but three camps: the reformers, the unions and the teachers” (p. 30). That third group—teachers—would be well-served to read this book, especially new and mid-career teachers, who intend to teach for the foreseeable future. It’s certainly not because they’ll find much support for teachers, based on many of the most vocal reformers throughout the book. Rather, the book might well help them see what’s stirring “out there,” far beyond their own classrooms yet likely to impinge and impact what they may well do in their classrooms in the future.
Teachers, good teachers, tend to be highly focused on what they need to do in their own classrooms, what their students still need to learn, and how they’re going to get those students to learn. Brill is likely right when he suggests that the vast majority of teachers do not align themselves closely with the teachers’ unions. Teaching done right is labor and time-intensive, and so many policy “wars,” “battles,” or any other militaristic metaphors writers use get fought on territories far afield from where teachers actually work. I was talking to a young teacher recently; she commented that she needs to become more informed about the intricacies of everything related to Race to the Top and President Obama’s education platform. The only problem, she commented, is that most of her “spare” time is dedicated to grading and prepping for classes. And there’s the rub. Very little of this book actually focuses on teaching or on those most directly involved with students—the teachers, themselves. Yet, the discussions that occurred within the time frame covered in this book have led to decisions and legislations which do and will affect fundamental decisions about teaching and learning—namely, what “counts” for student learning and what constitutes good teaching.
Much of the book outlines the “oughts” for schools. Schools “ought” to demand high levels of teacher performance, we “ought” to recruit from the “best and the brightest,” we “ought” to have more charter schools; we “ought” to have a clear, definable measure of how much a “good teacher” impacts his or her students.
That’s, I think, one of the weaknesses of the book. All of those particular favorites of ed reformers are laid out early in the book. Much of the first part of the book is how many obstacles or problems were thrown in front of those who wanted dramatic reform. Often the tempo and the tenor of the book was more about “winning” than the reformers’ and union leaders’ mantra: “it’s about the children.” Whether it was a chapter about Weingarten’s and Klein’s NYC teacher contractual battles, Rhee’s takeover of the Washington, DC schools, the expansion of TFA and their alums to leadership positions in state and city government, the reformers’ choices for Obama’s Education Cabinet, or the various groups competing for Race to the Top Money---the emphasis throughout it all was who “won” that battle, who presided, who “beat” their opponent. After 400 some-odd pages of that, the book started to read more like a play-by-play of the NBA finals than a sustained analysis of public schooling.
Throughout much of the book, Brill presents the reformers in a favorable light, so much so, that sometimes he doesn’t step back to assess the whole context. When he writes of the early efforts of Teach for America teachers, he emphasizes the young teachers’ academic pedigrees, their drive, their intelligence, their idealism. All of those attributes are wonderful, no doubt. It’s also laudable that these individuals wanted to dedicate their time and talent to teaching, to contribute to the common good. Yet, the fact is that during the early phases of Teach for America, recent college graduates were sent to teach in urban classrooms with no more than a smattering of “professional development” workshops. Brill does include that. He doesn’t question, though, the underlying assumption that if people are smart enough and well-intentioned enough—that they can teach, with or without any teacher preparation. He writes of the difficulty the young Ivy League grads had as first year teachers in remote, urban or impoverished school districts: school districts that all had high numbers of vulnerable, high needs students. Those were the moments in the book where I paused, (usually for a sarcastic comment). Rhee and others were confounded that young students didn’t always follow directions or listen? Brill writes how she and other TFA’ers spent hours over the summer building curricula, redesigning what they had been doing, re-thinking how they would set up classroom procedures. They spent months after their first full year of teaching learning exactly what they would have learned in any good teacher preparation program. Maybe more than a smattering of teacher “professional workshops” would have been warranted.
As far as teaching and student achievement, virtually the sole indicator any of the reformers referred to or “used” to win political battles were test scores. Whether it was a change in school’s test scores from one year to the next or linking test scores to individual teachers as the measure of a teacher’s effectiveness, test scores were (and in many cases continue to be) the only criteria reformers believe had any merit in judging student learning, teacher performance, or a school’s “goodness.”
Certainly, it’s not that tests are not useful. It’s in how they’re used. The book does not raise any questions about the preponderance of using test scores as a single assessment measure—nor does it seriously engage in any discussion about vagaries of state testing and reporting students’ results. (For a somber, well-grounded, and thoroughly researched book on that subject, Brill should have read George Hillocks’ The Testing Trap. Hillocks and his team of researchers do a multi-state study to examine the creation, administration, and most important, scoring of writing tests. It’s crucial reading for anyone interested in public education and should have been required reading for those reformers who most push for single test scores as the objective “truth” of a student’s or school’s achievement.)
One frustrating aspect of the book is the near-dismissal Brill shows for anyone in the “education establishment.” Fairly early in the book, Brill discounts Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford, for her critique of Teach for America’s program. He calls it an article that “seemed personal” against Wendy Kopp, and suggests that her hostility toward Kopp was more because of a perceived threat than because of any genuine, substantive concern on her part. Brill refers to an article Darling-Hammond wrote describing the frustration and discouragement of former TFA recruits. Hw provides little context for that article. He does not go into any detail about what she has done promoting education reform, researching urban education, or designing and developing model schools. Most interesting, he lists but provides no detail about her work researching teacher effectiveness, raising teacher licensure standards and pushing for the re-envisioning and re-structuring of teacher preparation programs. His depiction of her suggests that she didn’t want to “upset the establishment by calling for accountability or advocating for an alternative to traditional education schools.” If Brill had been more familiar with her work—and referred to her books and research reports—rather than one, brief article written for a general audience, his depiction of her may have been more accurate. In fact, Brill shows little familiarity with key education researchers and scholars. His attention is placed more on headline-grabbers than people doing the serious, sustained research required within the field.
From my reading, few people come off looking noble or admirable in this book. One notable exception is Jessica Reid. Ironically, she is one of the few actual teachers highlighted, and Brill does do a good job depicting how she teaches and the energy she expends planning and instructing her students. He also includes how Reid scrounges around to get enough supplies for her class, even at times emailing requests for donations from family and friends. By the end of the book, Reid has quit teaching because of exhaustion. If one were to believe what many of the most vocal reformers claim, it would be easy to assume that most teachers are inept and incompetent. No one wants poor teachers to remain in schools. Yet, at the same time, anyone would want Jessica Reid or other new teachers like her to stay in the classroom. Many reformers fail to see that to have good schools, we also must support new teachers.
We need to understand just how difficult becoming a teacher is and how important it is to support and sustain those teachers like Reid. The US has about 98,000 public elementary and secondary schools. Close to half of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and that’s not because they are all inept or inadequate. More leave for the same reasons Jessica Reid cited: insufficient planning time, lack of influence over school policies, limited professional support, and a grinding work load. Perhaps we should be astonished that as many stay.
By far the most frustrating aspect of Class Warfare is the shift in tone and focus within the last few pages of the book. Brill congratulates all of the reformers he spotlighted in the book, the “sprinters” whose drive, imagination, and persistence made reform happen. The advances and gains of charter schools, Brill argues, have been life-saving, akin to the work of a hospital emergency room. And there’s when he shifts focus. In the same way as an emergency room cannot be the sustaining structure for a good healthcare system, the approximate 5,000 charter schools can’t be the sustaining structure for a good educational system. So, in the end, Brill writes about how important it is for both sides—the sprinters and the “marathoners” to work together, so that the brilliant flashes won’t be burned out before the first few miles. The Michelle Rhees, Joel Kleins and Randi Weingartens all need to work together so that our educational system has room for both. Even more important, Brill writes we need to have that kind of collaboration among reformers, school chancellors, and union leaders so that we will have enough teachers in the classroom; we need more teachers than Teach for America or other alternative programs will ever be able to provide. We need to teach more students than could ever be schooled in charter schools. That’s Brill’s final note. It’s not so much that Brill’s conclusion is off base. It’s more that his attention and emphasis so heavily emphasized the political wins and losses, the scrappiness of the reformers, the power plays of union leaders vs. reformers—that to end it all by moving toward a more collaborative stance was surprising—and frustrating. For if he knew he would come to that conclusion when he began writing this book, it would have strengthened the book immeasurably to discuss the more nuanced dimensions of teaching, learning, and educational reform.
March 16, 2012
This book is a blatant union bashing political rant masquerading as an insider look at America's education struggles. I found it very awkwardly written with its eighty-plus 'chapters' which were sometimes a page and a half long. There is very little effort made by the author to present the issues objectively. Education is too important a topic to be influenced by subjective ideologically driven rants like this.
December 16, 2012
Where to start? Should it be with the way he describes all of the attractive women and what they wear (or conversely, the unattractive descriptions he uses for women with whom he does not agree)? There's also his lack of documentation, unsupported theories, and flat-out errors. See for example, p. 321 where he talks about the tiny Douglaston school district in Colorado. However, there is no Douglaston in Colorado; the district to which he presumably refers is not tiny, and lest the read think this was simply an understandable typo, he continues to name it incorrectly.
Earlier in the book (p. 245), he claims that Michael Johnston was fighting for undocumented students to receive what Brill claims is the same "free admission" to state universities that in-state Colorado residents supposedly have. This would be news to Colorado residents, all of whom pay increasing amounts of tuition at state schools. The actual legislative debate has been about allowing undocumented students who graduated from Colorado high schools to pay the same in-state tuition rates as citizens. It's an important distinction, and the fact that neither he nor his editors apparently has the facts or takes the time to check for accuracy is concerning. How many other errors are there in this book? Luckily, one Teacher for America alum, Gary Rubinstein, has taken the time to fact-check it in detail in his blog, Teach for Us.
Most of the book reads much more like a fictionalized action movie rather than a carefully-considered account of education issues in America. Brill's cast of characters includes villains and good guys, with almost no one falling in between those categories. He demonizes the unions (and along with them, all teachers who haven't proven themselves to them), until the very last chapter where he completes an abrupt 180, perhaps because one of the attractive young women profiled at the beginning quits her job at Success Academies. She explained that her job there was affecting her marriage and her health. Only in his last chapter does Brill acknowledge that the process of improving America's schools is a marathon, not a sprint, and that we simply do not have enough TFA-type teachers (the ones Brill likes best, despite data showing they they are not as effective as an average teacher with at least three year's experience) to fill the thousands of teaching slots in the country. It takes him more than 400 pages to acknowledge that the unions can, in fact, help promote reform while still protecting their employees from poor working conditions and unfair pay-for-performance evaluations. Even then he's still highly suspicious of unions but perhaps he feels that most have been legislated into submission, at least for now?
Brill's black and white view of education reform is particularly troubling. He demonizes an academic whose ideas for reform include strong teacher credentialing processes, to the extent that 300 pages in, anyone who doesn't agree with ideas exposed by reformers like Michelle Rhee are termed "anti-reformers." (Yes, he uses that term.) He suggests that moderates who push for reform through collaboration are only effective because unions are afraid of people like Rhee being forced onto the district. He repeatedly implies that teachers and unions across the country will do as little as possible until threatened -- except the few teachers he's met who are exceptions to the rule.
Once he gets to detailing the Race to the Top process, his perspective becomes even more troubling. The grant applications were reviewed, as all government grant applications are, by individuals without direct connections to the topic to avoid a conflict of interest. Brill does not like this. He goes out of his way to discredit the reviewers: education professors who don't specialize in school reform are not "peer" reviewers according to him. Even though reviewers' scores are anonymously reported, he goes out of his way to demonize two specific reviewers who asked tough questions during the oral presentations part. (See p. 311, including the footnote at the bottom.) I'm not sure which is more troubling: that he's only interested in a little club of like-minded reformers working in tandem (and getting all the federal money while they're at it), or that he is opposed to anyone who asks tough questions about a grant application for taxpayer dollars. What's the point of school reform at all if its proponents are less interested in critical thinking skills than whether you blindly agree with them? And why should any reviewer be subject to attacks from people who disagree with their scores? The entire point of having a panel of reviewers is to take into account different perspectives. Without that, we become a dictatorship, not a democracy. Brill seems to think that would be fine, so long as it was run by those with whom he agrees.
Also troubling was his assertion that any state that had passed school reform laws like pay for performance (for example, Colorado's Senate Bill 191), should automatically receive the full score for "securing stakeholder commitment" to the reforms regardless of the reality. Brill writes: "even though one would think that an expansive, tough state law obligating that [stakeholder] commitment regardless of the unions' wishes should have yielded a perfect score" (p. 374). Really? It doesn't matter if teachers are committed to the reforms because someone passed a law saying their opinion doesn't matter? Most places still recognize that satisfied employees make for much more effective employees than those who are only at the job because they haven't found something better. Brill complains that teachers are treated as interchangeable widgets, but his own rhetoric in this book does the same thing repeatedly. Suggesting that their buy-in is so irrelevant that a grant application shouldn't even look at the question goes beyond the pale.
There are multiple issues with the book and this review touches on only a few of them. There's also his obsessive focus on New York City schools as if that experience is identical around the country. There's his blind belief in charters, which he suggests are subject to too much oversight--such as applications necessary to receive the charter. He never addresses the fact that only 20 percent of charters are rated as excellent schools. It would be interesting to see him address the reality that currently, all of Ohio's worst-performing schools are charters schools. And not once does he address how public schools can effectively tackle situations where parents haven't gone out of their way to apply to a charter school and sign a contract about monitoring children's homework and reading and more. The reality is that Moskowitz's Success Academies do not deal with mobility rates of 35 to 50 percent (or more!) as some schools do. Those are very real challenges and they need real solutions.
Blaming (nameless, faceless) teachers, claiming that students have been written off, and pretending that things like (undefined) class size and school funding don't matter mask the real issues. Sometimes, class sizes are too big (the research suggests that no more than 20 is optimal; after that, class sizes are defined as "large"). Sometimes, lack of funding prevents districts from implementing pay for performance because there are no raises to be had. Low funding also prevents districts from investing in new technology that could make a difference, from investing in the professional development that Eva Moskowitz says is crucial to the success of her charters and from providing basic supplies. Instead, he subscribes to the theory that great teachers can simply be plucked from the sky, and the rest will get better simply through a carrot and stick strategy. He has almost nothing to say when it comes to providing adequate and ongoing support to help teachers improve their classroom performance, perhaps because he truly believes that each individual teacher needs to figure it all out on their own or find a new profession.
If Brill would have stuck to facts, not played favorites, not wasted his readers' time by describing the clothing of every woman he found attractive or unattractive and not included passages of pure fiction, the book might be a good contribution to the topic. Instead, it merely represents one man's heavily biased view of education reform during the last decade, with very few solutions.
Earlier in the book (p. 245), he claims that Michael Johnston was fighting for undocumented students to receive what Brill claims is the same "free admission" to state universities that in-state Colorado residents supposedly have. This would be news to Colorado residents, all of whom pay increasing amounts of tuition at state schools. The actual legislative debate has been about allowing undocumented students who graduated from Colorado high schools to pay the same in-state tuition rates as citizens. It's an important distinction, and the fact that neither he nor his editors apparently has the facts or takes the time to check for accuracy is concerning. How many other errors are there in this book? Luckily, one Teacher for America alum, Gary Rubinstein, has taken the time to fact-check it in detail in his blog, Teach for Us.
Most of the book reads much more like a fictionalized action movie rather than a carefully-considered account of education issues in America. Brill's cast of characters includes villains and good guys, with almost no one falling in between those categories. He demonizes the unions (and along with them, all teachers who haven't proven themselves to them), until the very last chapter where he completes an abrupt 180, perhaps because one of the attractive young women profiled at the beginning quits her job at Success Academies. She explained that her job there was affecting her marriage and her health. Only in his last chapter does Brill acknowledge that the process of improving America's schools is a marathon, not a sprint, and that we simply do not have enough TFA-type teachers (the ones Brill likes best, despite data showing they they are not as effective as an average teacher with at least three year's experience) to fill the thousands of teaching slots in the country. It takes him more than 400 pages to acknowledge that the unions can, in fact, help promote reform while still protecting their employees from poor working conditions and unfair pay-for-performance evaluations. Even then he's still highly suspicious of unions but perhaps he feels that most have been legislated into submission, at least for now?
Brill's black and white view of education reform is particularly troubling. He demonizes an academic whose ideas for reform include strong teacher credentialing processes, to the extent that 300 pages in, anyone who doesn't agree with ideas exposed by reformers like Michelle Rhee are termed "anti-reformers." (Yes, he uses that term.) He suggests that moderates who push for reform through collaboration are only effective because unions are afraid of people like Rhee being forced onto the district. He repeatedly implies that teachers and unions across the country will do as little as possible until threatened -- except the few teachers he's met who are exceptions to the rule.
Once he gets to detailing the Race to the Top process, his perspective becomes even more troubling. The grant applications were reviewed, as all government grant applications are, by individuals without direct connections to the topic to avoid a conflict of interest. Brill does not like this. He goes out of his way to discredit the reviewers: education professors who don't specialize in school reform are not "peer" reviewers according to him. Even though reviewers' scores are anonymously reported, he goes out of his way to demonize two specific reviewers who asked tough questions during the oral presentations part. (See p. 311, including the footnote at the bottom.) I'm not sure which is more troubling: that he's only interested in a little club of like-minded reformers working in tandem (and getting all the federal money while they're at it), or that he is opposed to anyone who asks tough questions about a grant application for taxpayer dollars. What's the point of school reform at all if its proponents are less interested in critical thinking skills than whether you blindly agree with them? And why should any reviewer be subject to attacks from people who disagree with their scores? The entire point of having a panel of reviewers is to take into account different perspectives. Without that, we become a dictatorship, not a democracy. Brill seems to think that would be fine, so long as it was run by those with whom he agrees.
Also troubling was his assertion that any state that had passed school reform laws like pay for performance (for example, Colorado's Senate Bill 191), should automatically receive the full score for "securing stakeholder commitment" to the reforms regardless of the reality. Brill writes: "even though one would think that an expansive, tough state law obligating that [stakeholder] commitment regardless of the unions' wishes should have yielded a perfect score" (p. 374). Really? It doesn't matter if teachers are committed to the reforms because someone passed a law saying their opinion doesn't matter? Most places still recognize that satisfied employees make for much more effective employees than those who are only at the job because they haven't found something better. Brill complains that teachers are treated as interchangeable widgets, but his own rhetoric in this book does the same thing repeatedly. Suggesting that their buy-in is so irrelevant that a grant application shouldn't even look at the question goes beyond the pale.
There are multiple issues with the book and this review touches on only a few of them. There's also his obsessive focus on New York City schools as if that experience is identical around the country. There's his blind belief in charters, which he suggests are subject to too much oversight--such as applications necessary to receive the charter. He never addresses the fact that only 20 percent of charters are rated as excellent schools. It would be interesting to see him address the reality that currently, all of Ohio's worst-performing schools are charters schools. And not once does he address how public schools can effectively tackle situations where parents haven't gone out of their way to apply to a charter school and sign a contract about monitoring children's homework and reading and more. The reality is that Moskowitz's Success Academies do not deal with mobility rates of 35 to 50 percent (or more!) as some schools do. Those are very real challenges and they need real solutions.
Blaming (nameless, faceless) teachers, claiming that students have been written off, and pretending that things like (undefined) class size and school funding don't matter mask the real issues. Sometimes, class sizes are too big (the research suggests that no more than 20 is optimal; after that, class sizes are defined as "large"). Sometimes, lack of funding prevents districts from implementing pay for performance because there are no raises to be had. Low funding also prevents districts from investing in new technology that could make a difference, from investing in the professional development that Eva Moskowitz says is crucial to the success of her charters and from providing basic supplies. Instead, he subscribes to the theory that great teachers can simply be plucked from the sky, and the rest will get better simply through a carrot and stick strategy. He has almost nothing to say when it comes to providing adequate and ongoing support to help teachers improve their classroom performance, perhaps because he truly believes that each individual teacher needs to figure it all out on their own or find a new profession.
If Brill would have stuck to facts, not played favorites, not wasted his readers' time by describing the clothing of every woman he found attractive or unattractive and not included passages of pure fiction, the book might be a good contribution to the topic. Instead, it merely represents one man's heavily biased view of education reform during the last decade, with very few solutions.
July 24, 2012
I don't even know where to start. This book was fascinating at the same time as being terrifying.
While it is presented as an overview of education reform, Class Warfare actually reads like a pro-charter-schools manifesto. Steven Brill uses some statistics but mostly anecdotes to tell about certain charter schools that vastly outperform their neighbors. While there are, undoubtedly, some fabulous charter schools and some superstar educators all over, the book never felt like a real, balanced look at how we can fix our educational system.
Regardless of my personal feelings for charter schools, Steven Brill didn't actually use any real numbers or facts to convince. While his anecdotes do show that a couple programs in NYC are excellent, they don't show that charters would fix education. Additionally, there were no citations, and it was very difficult to find out where his numbers were coming from at any given point. He argues passionately against teacher unions throughout the entire book, and then at the end, praises them for their future role in retraining teachers. He praises Scott Walker's efforts to destroy collective bargaining in Wisconsin, but then claims not only that Scott Walker went too far, but that it was the unions' fault.
Steven Brill seems to believe that it is both possible and necessary for schools to be run like businesses and by businessmen. He does not address the many businessmen that have absolutely no idea of how education works, and he seems to expect all teachers to work 20 hour days, seven days a week. He wants to give principals ultimate power over hiring and firing teachers, but doesn't even acknowledge the possibility of incompetent or malicious principals. He does, however, acknowledge incompetent and malicious teachers. The double standard continues throughout the book--Brill focuses on burnt-out or undertrained teachers whose students underperform, and his solution is to allow principals to fire them.
While Brill does point out some very important problems within the school system--in certain states, it is impossible to remove teachers for any reason, some pension plans encourage teachers to remain in the classroom long after everybody wishes they would leave, young teachers are forced out of schools because of budget issues--his solution doesn't seem realistic, or even very good.
While it is presented as an overview of education reform, Class Warfare actually reads like a pro-charter-schools manifesto. Steven Brill uses some statistics but mostly anecdotes to tell about certain charter schools that vastly outperform their neighbors. While there are, undoubtedly, some fabulous charter schools and some superstar educators all over, the book never felt like a real, balanced look at how we can fix our educational system.
Regardless of my personal feelings for charter schools, Steven Brill didn't actually use any real numbers or facts to convince. While his anecdotes do show that a couple programs in NYC are excellent, they don't show that charters would fix education. Additionally, there were no citations, and it was very difficult to find out where his numbers were coming from at any given point. He argues passionately against teacher unions throughout the entire book, and then at the end, praises them for their future role in retraining teachers. He praises Scott Walker's efforts to destroy collective bargaining in Wisconsin, but then claims not only that Scott Walker went too far, but that it was the unions' fault.
Steven Brill seems to believe that it is both possible and necessary for schools to be run like businesses and by businessmen. He does not address the many businessmen that have absolutely no idea of how education works, and he seems to expect all teachers to work 20 hour days, seven days a week. He wants to give principals ultimate power over hiring and firing teachers, but doesn't even acknowledge the possibility of incompetent or malicious principals. He does, however, acknowledge incompetent and malicious teachers. The double standard continues throughout the book--Brill focuses on burnt-out or undertrained teachers whose students underperform, and his solution is to allow principals to fire them.
While Brill does point out some very important problems within the school system--in certain states, it is impossible to remove teachers for any reason, some pension plans encourage teachers to remain in the classroom long after everybody wishes they would leave, young teachers are forced out of schools because of budget issues--his solution doesn't seem realistic, or even very good.
September 11, 2011
5 stars for readability and reporting doggedness and my interest in the subject ... 3 stars for sometimes making it seem like most of the work of ed reform is done by wealthy men far from the classroom (some of it is, no doubt, and the work of foundations and individuals is extremely important, but that's definitely not the only -- or, I'd argue, main -- story) and for being too black-and-white about who has the right ed reform ideas and who doesn't.
But there are some things that Brill gets exactly right. It's important to hold high expectations for students. Poverty matters, of course, but doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands and not try relentlessly to give every student a terrific education. And there are a lot of people working hard and working creatively to try to make it a reality that all children have an opportunity to get a great education. That's what makes me excited about the future of ed reform.
But there are some things that Brill gets exactly right. It's important to hold high expectations for students. Poverty matters, of course, but doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands and not try relentlessly to give every student a terrific education. And there are a lot of people working hard and working creatively to try to make it a reality that all children have an opportunity to get a great education. That's what makes me excited about the future of ed reform.
June 27, 2012
Excellent and very detailed
July 6, 2020
Was feeling ok about this book and 60% of the arguments for Ed reform until the author wanted me to believe that Karl rove is an advocate for educational equity. Lol
August 5, 2017
While this book may suffer at times from the fact that Steven Brill is covering a lot of developments in many parts of the country, and therefore doesn’t always have the in-depth knowledge I might wish, I found it to be substantially accurate. For me, it was also riveting, inspirational, and at times, deeply depressing.
Five years ago I joined a local philanthropic group that decided to focus on education in our city of Los Angeles. We started by supporting a few charter schools. (We all give a bit of money and then help on a volunteer basis according to our abilities.) That is when I started realizing just how abysmal the education situation was, both in Los Angeles and in the rest of the country. At the same time, I began spending time in the classroom of a talented public (but not charter) school teacher who teaches in a poor community and witnessing how much his kids improved after just one year under his tutelage. So I asked myself: if poor second-language kids with all the usual baggage of fatherless families, alcoholism and attendant dysfunctionality can do this well, why can’t all poor kids? Why are public school kids either not graduating, or graduating functionally illiterate and with terrible math/science skills?
I came to the same conclusions as Steven Brill, and every word he wrote was a stab to my already discouraged heart. Not that there aren’t wins; but the entire system of unions (more about that later) bureaucracies, politicians, vendors, etc., is so entrenched and has such a powerfully effective lobby, that trying to change it is like David going up against Goliath, only with the opposite result.
So back to the unions: it was a real shock to me to discover that the teachers unions were not a force for improving teaching quality for kids, but an organization bent on obtaining the best packages for themselves, even if it meant standing foursquare against firing teachers who weren’t effective (not to mention abusers and pedophiles.) Also, that because they were negotiating with the very Democratic politicians they support with money and manpower, they got virtually everything they wanted. In other words, there was absolutely no balance. Brill writes: “From 1989 through 2010, the NEA and the AFT together contributed 60.7 million to candidates for federal office, far more than any other union, business, or interest group. With 95% of it going to Democrats, their impact on the party was in a class by itself.” It’s as if the automobile unions negotiating with the managers at GM were also responsible for paying the managers’ salaries, and firing them if they didn’t give them everything they wanted! This began to seem completely Kafka-esque, and yet it is the situation that exists currently. As Brill quotes Joel Klein throughout this book: “you can’t make some of this s---- up.”
And I am a longtime Democrat. I always thought of myself as a “yellow dog” Democrat.
So, my five cents is that this book is an accurate representation of the education situation in this country. Though as I said, when Brill got to Los Angeles, which I know well, I found myself feeling that his knowledge was a bit too superficial to give a total picture. He applauds the efforts of Mayor Villaraigosa, which have been pretty puny (though at least he has spoken up) and lauds Superintendent Deasy as the coming of a new day (hasn’t happened so far, though Deasy’s sympathies are clearly with the reformers.) He also doesn’t mention that Villaraigosa’s efforts to take over the schools, Bloomberg-style, were undercut by the fact that soon after he was elected it came out he’d had a recent affair, thus tarnishing his reputation in a way from which it never recovered. (Why do politicians do these things if they “care” so much about making a difference??)
So Brill’s hopefulness is a bit more wishful thinking than I’d like. (Although by the end, a dose of reality seems to have set in when he concludes the only answer is to find a way to deal with the teachers unions–though how you can do that when you are negotiating with the very people who control your job prospects, I don’t know.) Perhaps the only answer is to keep chipping away, and know that only by fighting back is there hope. Two diametrically opposed quotes come to mind:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” F Scott Fitzgerald.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
Pick? The lady or the tiger?
Five years ago I joined a local philanthropic group that decided to focus on education in our city of Los Angeles. We started by supporting a few charter schools. (We all give a bit of money and then help on a volunteer basis according to our abilities.) That is when I started realizing just how abysmal the education situation was, both in Los Angeles and in the rest of the country. At the same time, I began spending time in the classroom of a talented public (but not charter) school teacher who teaches in a poor community and witnessing how much his kids improved after just one year under his tutelage. So I asked myself: if poor second-language kids with all the usual baggage of fatherless families, alcoholism and attendant dysfunctionality can do this well, why can’t all poor kids? Why are public school kids either not graduating, or graduating functionally illiterate and with terrible math/science skills?
I came to the same conclusions as Steven Brill, and every word he wrote was a stab to my already discouraged heart. Not that there aren’t wins; but the entire system of unions (more about that later) bureaucracies, politicians, vendors, etc., is so entrenched and has such a powerfully effective lobby, that trying to change it is like David going up against Goliath, only with the opposite result.
So back to the unions: it was a real shock to me to discover that the teachers unions were not a force for improving teaching quality for kids, but an organization bent on obtaining the best packages for themselves, even if it meant standing foursquare against firing teachers who weren’t effective (not to mention abusers and pedophiles.) Also, that because they were negotiating with the very Democratic politicians they support with money and manpower, they got virtually everything they wanted. In other words, there was absolutely no balance. Brill writes: “From 1989 through 2010, the NEA and the AFT together contributed 60.7 million to candidates for federal office, far more than any other union, business, or interest group. With 95% of it going to Democrats, their impact on the party was in a class by itself.” It’s as if the automobile unions negotiating with the managers at GM were also responsible for paying the managers’ salaries, and firing them if they didn’t give them everything they wanted! This began to seem completely Kafka-esque, and yet it is the situation that exists currently. As Brill quotes Joel Klein throughout this book: “you can’t make some of this s---- up.”
And I am a longtime Democrat. I always thought of myself as a “yellow dog” Democrat.
So, my five cents is that this book is an accurate representation of the education situation in this country. Though as I said, when Brill got to Los Angeles, which I know well, I found myself feeling that his knowledge was a bit too superficial to give a total picture. He applauds the efforts of Mayor Villaraigosa, which have been pretty puny (though at least he has spoken up) and lauds Superintendent Deasy as the coming of a new day (hasn’t happened so far, though Deasy’s sympathies are clearly with the reformers.) He also doesn’t mention that Villaraigosa’s efforts to take over the schools, Bloomberg-style, were undercut by the fact that soon after he was elected it came out he’d had a recent affair, thus tarnishing his reputation in a way from which it never recovered. (Why do politicians do these things if they “care” so much about making a difference??)
So Brill’s hopefulness is a bit more wishful thinking than I’d like. (Although by the end, a dose of reality seems to have set in when he concludes the only answer is to find a way to deal with the teachers unions–though how you can do that when you are negotiating with the very people who control your job prospects, I don’t know.) Perhaps the only answer is to keep chipping away, and know that only by fighting back is there hope. Two diametrically opposed quotes come to mind:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” F Scott Fitzgerald.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
Pick? The lady or the tiger?
January 18, 2012
Steven Brill's book detailing the rise of school reform movements in the last two decades comes off as fairly repetitive and narrow in its stance - that the only problem that prevents a good public school education is seemingly union contracts among public school teachers. His main argument for this is the notion of "Rubber Rooms," the term for places where teachers facing arbitration for termination reside while their cases are examined - much like a law trial, as some of them involve allegations of inappropriate conduct - and where they still earn a day's paycheck and earn pension. While I would agree on the expedience needed to fill the void that these teachers create while undergoing what is alleged to be a tedious process, this is not the "lynchpin" issue that helps fix ailing schools.
What Brill makes clear is his support for programs like Teach For America, of which reading the history of the people involved held some intrigue. Even so, Brill himself acknowledges at the end of this exhaustive book that programs like this, and charter school models cannot completely replace America's public schooling system.
So what is the solution? As someone attempting to achieve teacher certification, I can say that programs like Teach For America are somewhat stymied. Sure, they attract people who may have a vested interest in improving schooling, but they are people who received their college degrees for completely different purposes. They are thrown into these TFA schools with little pedagogical training and background, which puts them at a disadvantage to people who actually take the 5-6 years necessary to learn about issues and teaching methods that actually create an impact. This is the primary reason that TFA schools show no actual statistical student improvement when compared to public schooling. Overall, the TFA school model demotes teaching as an actual profession.
The other reason - and this is the most important reason - for any perceived success in these school models are that the parents of the representative students, and the students themselves already have a pre-existing drive to succeed. They wouldn't be applying for a "school of choice" if they didn't.
The questions remain: do ailing schools need to be revamped and ineffective teachers need replacing? Absolutely, but to dismantle an organization that is the only line of arbitration between teachers and the close and intense scrutiny of the public eye (of which the current atmosphere is to cut MORE funding, as though that helps anything), is the wrong approach. Reforms need to be instilled, and yes, teacher's unions need to find alternatives to some structures, such as Last In First Out, of which the only criteria for laying off is "shortest time employed" and not "statistically ineffective." Of this I can't agree, since the criteria for a good teacher is not how much time and dues they put in, but their commitment to student learning (of which, regrettably at the moment, is only measured in standardized testing).
The key, I believe wholeheartedly, is communication and actually giving a damn. Among teachers, parents, and students. I was pleased when Mr. Ward, a high school social studies teacher and a role model of mine, who helped me appreciate history for the exciting thing that it was in determining and understanding the present, took these facets to heart. Not only this, but he embraced technology well before many in his field, utilizing a Blackboard account (which typically is more for the college level), and consistent email updates between himself and the parents of his students. No charter school model or failing public school is going to foster this attitude, only the individual who genuinely believes in it. If you find a way to make people care about an education, and proliferate it, you will never need to dismantle a union or replace public with private schools.
The old breed of ineffective teachers who live for the summer are retiring, and if we have college-level programs (like the one I'm in) that rigorously ensure that the people entering into the field are absolutely positive, informed and certain of their choice of profession, we will soon be seeing improvements in public schools. If they aren't dismantled first.
What Brill makes clear is his support for programs like Teach For America, of which reading the history of the people involved held some intrigue. Even so, Brill himself acknowledges at the end of this exhaustive book that programs like this, and charter school models cannot completely replace America's public schooling system.
So what is the solution? As someone attempting to achieve teacher certification, I can say that programs like Teach For America are somewhat stymied. Sure, they attract people who may have a vested interest in improving schooling, but they are people who received their college degrees for completely different purposes. They are thrown into these TFA schools with little pedagogical training and background, which puts them at a disadvantage to people who actually take the 5-6 years necessary to learn about issues and teaching methods that actually create an impact. This is the primary reason that TFA schools show no actual statistical student improvement when compared to public schooling. Overall, the TFA school model demotes teaching as an actual profession.
The other reason - and this is the most important reason - for any perceived success in these school models are that the parents of the representative students, and the students themselves already have a pre-existing drive to succeed. They wouldn't be applying for a "school of choice" if they didn't.
The questions remain: do ailing schools need to be revamped and ineffective teachers need replacing? Absolutely, but to dismantle an organization that is the only line of arbitration between teachers and the close and intense scrutiny of the public eye (of which the current atmosphere is to cut MORE funding, as though that helps anything), is the wrong approach. Reforms need to be instilled, and yes, teacher's unions need to find alternatives to some structures, such as Last In First Out, of which the only criteria for laying off is "shortest time employed" and not "statistically ineffective." Of this I can't agree, since the criteria for a good teacher is not how much time and dues they put in, but their commitment to student learning (of which, regrettably at the moment, is only measured in standardized testing).
The key, I believe wholeheartedly, is communication and actually giving a damn. Among teachers, parents, and students. I was pleased when Mr. Ward, a high school social studies teacher and a role model of mine, who helped me appreciate history for the exciting thing that it was in determining and understanding the present, took these facets to heart. Not only this, but he embraced technology well before many in his field, utilizing a Blackboard account (which typically is more for the college level), and consistent email updates between himself and the parents of his students. No charter school model or failing public school is going to foster this attitude, only the individual who genuinely believes in it. If you find a way to make people care about an education, and proliferate it, you will never need to dismantle a union or replace public with private schools.
The old breed of ineffective teachers who live for the summer are retiring, and if we have college-level programs (like the one I'm in) that rigorously ensure that the people entering into the field are absolutely positive, informed and certain of their choice of profession, we will soon be seeing improvements in public schools. If they aren't dismantled first.
October 1, 2013
This book would be a compelling read if you hadn't read or known anything else about education reform in the United States in the past twenty years. The narrative is strong, the tone is righteous and angry, and he presents strong evidence for his case (that charter schools and Teach for America work and are the best hope for public education, because unionization prevents anything good from happening in public schools. Joel Klein in NYC, Michelle Rhee, and the Gates Foundation are the heroes). The problem is that there's countervailing evidence that he doesn't address.
Yes, there are lots of ways that bad teachers can hid behind union contracts -- and that the union structure (and defined benefit pension plans) siphons resources away from kids. But he never offers any evidence that unionization per se is what is preventing kids from learning. From other sources (Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System), I know that heavily unionized states (such as Massachusetts) have some of the best outcomes in the nation (though likely because they have a strong curriculum, not because they are unionized). Some non-union, right-to-work states (mostly in the south) have some of the worst outcomes. Correlation is not causation, but you wouldn't guess that from Brill's book.
Yes, kids do better when standards are high and school days are longer. These would certainly be a benefit. But everyone recognizes that the attrition rate of teachers at many of the charter schools Brill describes is quite high -- people can't keep up that level of intense 20/7 involvement in their students' lives. (In districts that are spending a lot of money already, one wonders whether that money couldn't better be poured into more teachers, so the burden could be spread more sustainably). At the same time, some of the results of the charter schools he discusses have to do with selection bias -- families have to be relatively healthy/functional to navigate the multi-step recruitment process, and to keep with the stringent behavioral and participation guidelines once students are in. Students who stay do well -- but many, many students don't stay. You won't hear from Brill that, overall, charter schools have no better outcomes than public schools, and in some ways, they're worse. Even when they're marginally better (in particular scores in particular grades, for example), they're not that much better.
Brill says clearly and in detail that we now have the data to match student performance to the teachers who taught them in a given year. But he doesn't go into detail, as Ravitch does, about the complexities of that data -- that teacher performance by that measure varies from year to year, and that teacher performance pre-tenure does not necessarily match teacher performance post-tenure.
He cites data that there is little performance difference between certified and non-certified teachers (the primary argument in favor of Teach for American) (152) but doesn't detail data that shows that TFA teachers _after two years_ tend to perform about the same as certified teachers in the same low-performing schools. The trick is that more certified teachers stay and improve, whereas single digit percentages of TFA recruits stay -- so poor students, who can least afford poor/learning teachers, end up being churned through an endless stream of new/less experienced (and therefore less well-performing) teachers.
Yes, there are lots of ways that bad teachers can hid behind union contracts -- and that the union structure (and defined benefit pension plans) siphons resources away from kids. But he never offers any evidence that unionization per se is what is preventing kids from learning. From other sources (Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System), I know that heavily unionized states (such as Massachusetts) have some of the best outcomes in the nation (though likely because they have a strong curriculum, not because they are unionized). Some non-union, right-to-work states (mostly in the south) have some of the worst outcomes. Correlation is not causation, but you wouldn't guess that from Brill's book.
Yes, kids do better when standards are high and school days are longer. These would certainly be a benefit. But everyone recognizes that the attrition rate of teachers at many of the charter schools Brill describes is quite high -- people can't keep up that level of intense 20/7 involvement in their students' lives. (In districts that are spending a lot of money already, one wonders whether that money couldn't better be poured into more teachers, so the burden could be spread more sustainably). At the same time, some of the results of the charter schools he discusses have to do with selection bias -- families have to be relatively healthy/functional to navigate the multi-step recruitment process, and to keep with the stringent behavioral and participation guidelines once students are in. Students who stay do well -- but many, many students don't stay. You won't hear from Brill that, overall, charter schools have no better outcomes than public schools, and in some ways, they're worse. Even when they're marginally better (in particular scores in particular grades, for example), they're not that much better.
Brill says clearly and in detail that we now have the data to match student performance to the teachers who taught them in a given year. But he doesn't go into detail, as Ravitch does, about the complexities of that data -- that teacher performance by that measure varies from year to year, and that teacher performance pre-tenure does not necessarily match teacher performance post-tenure.
He cites data that there is little performance difference between certified and non-certified teachers (the primary argument in favor of Teach for American) (152) but doesn't detail data that shows that TFA teachers _after two years_ tend to perform about the same as certified teachers in the same low-performing schools. The trick is that more certified teachers stay and improve, whereas single digit percentages of TFA recruits stay -- so poor students, who can least afford poor/learning teachers, end up being churned through an endless stream of new/less experienced (and therefore less well-performing) teachers.
November 7, 2011
This was an excellent report on reforms being applied to the state of education in America and how the entrenched mentalities have taken up conservative attitudes to maintain their power. Brill has done his homework to provide us the background and history that led America to this point, and how the current Democratic Party is split with those who protect their power base and those that insist that real Democrats are support to help the under-privileged. According to the author, the defensive walls have been breached with Obama defeating Clinton, and then on becoming President, kicking off the Race for the Top contest to start states on the paths toward reform. I did have the distinct impression that this book is not talking about upper and high middle class suburbia (under economic threat these days), but of the urban struggle to generate results. In the end, though, I philosophically disagree with the author that the federal government should be steering states. Local authorities should be the ones applying reforms and metrics. However, at this point in American cultural history, it will take Federal initiatives to provide opportunities for local communities to break loose from the dire straits that politicians have locked us into.
April 28, 2012
I strongly recommend the audiobook, because I know I would have skipped some of the important but drier parts of the book. This is an amazing story of what has happened to education in our country and how multiple efforts to change things are generally sabotaged by the unions. I don't know how we can be pro education and pro teacher but not fall into union dogma but there must be a way, this book really makes your think about our children's and our countries future.
January 27, 2012
Interesting, up to the minute read about the school reform movement. I liked how the author explained the growth of the movement, how different attempts to address problems in the public school systems slowly coalesced into the strong school reform movement we have today.
September 13, 2011
i think -very good book!
September 17, 2011
Excellent, Informative Book
July 29, 2012
A good journalistic account of the politics of education reform over the past decade and a half. It has flaws, certainly, but a good narrative nonetheless.
August 13, 2020
This is my first book on ed policy so I don’t have a better recommendation and I do give it credit for opening my eyes on charter schools, the impact of skillful teaching, and the insidiousness of teacher union talking points focusing on families and circumstances and “unfair” tests overwhelming any teacher skill (and absolving teachers of any accountability).
This book, however, is not particularly well-written or well edited. Author can’t decide what he wants his book to be. At times, a wannabe Michael Lewis style recount of the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top contest. At times, a book on ed policy light on detailed facts and research and heavy on billionaire and other notable figure name dropping and heavily biased character portrayals. I’d actually have given the author more credit before a timorous kumbaya concluding chapter where he goes as far as to propose Randi Weingarten, the book’s antagonist for nearly 400 pages, as the reformer education needs. It leaves you wondering what the author believes at all, and whether his tone for most of the book was all for show.
This book, however, is not particularly well-written or well edited. Author can’t decide what he wants his book to be. At times, a wannabe Michael Lewis style recount of the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top contest. At times, a book on ed policy light on detailed facts and research and heavy on billionaire and other notable figure name dropping and heavily biased character portrayals. I’d actually have given the author more credit before a timorous kumbaya concluding chapter where he goes as far as to propose Randi Weingarten, the book’s antagonist for nearly 400 pages, as the reformer education needs. It leaves you wondering what the author believes at all, and whether his tone for most of the book was all for show.
August 15, 2017
Brill's door stopper, "Class Warfare," tells the story of education reform in the United States from 1980 to present. We move from Wendy Kopp founding Teach for America with her undergraduate thesis to Reagan's Ed. Dept. issuing "A Nation at Risk," which warned of the end of American educational superiority. If you've read anything on education reform, you're familiar with this narrative. He explores high performing charter schools, like Harlem Success Academy and KIPP, that extend school choice to low-income parents. There's Michelle Rhee and foundation heads and blah blah blah. You know the deal. Much of the book has been well documented elsewhere, though I found Brill's close detailing of Race to the Top to be essential reading.
I don't take issue with Brill's recounting of facts. Klein did win many hard fought gains during his tenure. Unions can be obstructionist in preventing meaningful reforms that promote teacher accountability. I just found the overwhelming elitism in this book exhausting. It makes me reluctant to explore some of Brill's other titles.
I don't take issue with Brill's recounting of facts. Klein did win many hard fought gains during his tenure. Unions can be obstructionist in preventing meaningful reforms that promote teacher accountability. I just found the overwhelming elitism in this book exhausting. It makes me reluctant to explore some of Brill's other titles.
February 2, 2018
The book was informative. I enjoyed learning who the key players were. It was also important to see why our education system deteriorated and why Charter schools spread. However, I read with angst until the author finally admitted the struggle of teaching is beyond a statistic. The reformers weren't in the classroom teaching. Instead of looking at child development studies, they treated schools like corporations. They instituted unsustainable rules. Then, blamed the unions for their failures. Reform should never be about blame and punishment. Finland went from the bottom (with the U.S.) to number one in the world because they studied children and improved their entire education system. Even with all the holes that have been dug, there is still room for improvement. It starts when people stop seeing children as dollar signs.
June 24, 2018
Interesting book by Steven Brill about education reform. He talks extensively about education reform initiatives in DC and New York. The book focuses on charter schools and the comparison to public education. A lot of time is spent on Joel Klein in NYC and his effort to reform the schools in NYC. I was not aware of the various programs to add non-traditional teachers; Teach for America, etc. He paints a picture of what teaching excellence looks like. Unfortunately, it doe snot appear to be a very sustainable model - the teachers work 80 hours a week pouring their life into their work. They go about 2-3 years and then drop out due to burnout. So, I was left with an unclear picture of the real solutions.
November 1, 2012
This was a non-fiction book about the state of the public school system in America and the people who are trying to change it for the better. I don't read/listen to much non-fiction, but Audible had a 3-for-2 sale not long ago, and this looked interesting. And it definitely was.
I'm a little torn on a lot of the things from the book. I can see why teachers initially unionized. At the time, they were being somewhat abused, and by collectively bargaining, they were able to create a palatable working environment and expect certain guarantees about their jobs. But somewhere along the way, those guarantees seems to have gotten out of hand and it became more about the teachers and what they could get than ensuring the children receive a good education. Or that's my interpretation. When a teachers union can write in a guarantee that their pensions will earn 8% interest, regardless of market conditions, teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing remain on the payroll at full salary for months until their case can be addressed, teachers who are underperforming cannot be fired (or even reprimanded)... it seems the union has too much power. The additional money for the pensions reduces the amount available for direct classrom expenses. The extra salaries for people who aren't even working (whether they're in the "rubber rooms" or just incompetent) means that much less money to apply to the kids education. Keeping incompetent teachers cheats kids out of a good education.
At the same time, I think the teaching profession is not respected enough, by either children or parents. Parents need to be objective about their children. No child is perfect. If a teacher says little Joey has an issue in a certain area, maybe he does. You're not with your child all day... the teacher is. And we hear so often of kids backtalking teachers or even threatening them. But that may be part of a comment on society today. Those same kids disrespecting their teachers are probably disrespecting everyone else in authority as well. I also think teachers aren't paid well enough. We need to attract the best and brightest, but when the starting salary is so low, but the education requirements so high, how can we really expect the best and brightest to apply? And with school districts often cash-strapped, teachers often end up dipping into their own pockets (which are shallow anyway) for basic supplies. That seems so wrong to me. At the same time, I can't afford to single-handedly support the needs of an entire school. I'd rather pay more taxes, but at the same time, I'm afraid that extra money would go to administration, not my children's classrooms.
So, on to the next thing I'm torn about. I believe there needs to be some kind of accountability with the public schools to tie additional money to achievement. If a teacher's students consistently test poorly, but the students of other teachers don't, perhaps there's an issue with the teacher. At the same time, I think basing anything strictly on testing forces teachers to teach to the test. And then our children are just regurgitating information instead of learning critical thinking. And I fear some things may not be taught at all if they're not on the test. I hear of schools no longer teaching cursive handwriting because of word processors. And no longer having spelling tests after a certain grade because we have spell check. As a reader of many self-published authors (and even some with big publishers), I know that a spell check is not a fail safe. It can tell you if you spell "accommodate" wrong, but it won't tell you that you should have used "they're" instead of "their" or "you're" instead of "your". Or even "moot" instead of "mute". And even if they could, why shouldn't kids just know the difference?
I did think it was great how many people who had received really good educations really strive to make a difference in the public sector. Harvard-educated lawyers, it seems, have sort of spearheaded the public education reform movement. I think it's very interesting that the same children the public school said couldn't be taught, because of their socio-economic environment, thrived in a charter school environment. I can see that union teachers may see charter schools as the devil, but if they're effective, it might make sense to take a look at what they're doing and see what could be incorporated into public school curricula.
Holy cow, I just wrote a book, lol, but bottom line is that this was a very interesting, thought-provoking book. I don't think charter schools are *the* answer, but I think that some of their ideas are really good. Something needs to happen in US education. We can't keep it at status quo. And I'm hoping that the teachers unions who have taken such a hard line against change can start to compromise. For the good of the children. For the good of the future of our country. Because eventually those kids who aren't receiving the best education will become the leaders.
One last thing. While the book takes a hard look at teacher's unions, I don't believe all teachers follow the union line, at least not down to the letter. I honestly believe most teachers get into the profession because they really want to make a difference. There are lots of really *great* teachers out there in the public school systems. I think the unions have their members' best interests in mind, but sometimes those best interests are contrary to what the kids need. And I think a good many teachers actually realize that.
I'm a little torn on a lot of the things from the book. I can see why teachers initially unionized. At the time, they were being somewhat abused, and by collectively bargaining, they were able to create a palatable working environment and expect certain guarantees about their jobs. But somewhere along the way, those guarantees seems to have gotten out of hand and it became more about the teachers and what they could get than ensuring the children receive a good education. Or that's my interpretation. When a teachers union can write in a guarantee that their pensions will earn 8% interest, regardless of market conditions, teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing remain on the payroll at full salary for months until their case can be addressed, teachers who are underperforming cannot be fired (or even reprimanded)... it seems the union has too much power. The additional money for the pensions reduces the amount available for direct classrom expenses. The extra salaries for people who aren't even working (whether they're in the "rubber rooms" or just incompetent) means that much less money to apply to the kids education. Keeping incompetent teachers cheats kids out of a good education.
At the same time, I think the teaching profession is not respected enough, by either children or parents. Parents need to be objective about their children. No child is perfect. If a teacher says little Joey has an issue in a certain area, maybe he does. You're not with your child all day... the teacher is. And we hear so often of kids backtalking teachers or even threatening them. But that may be part of a comment on society today. Those same kids disrespecting their teachers are probably disrespecting everyone else in authority as well. I also think teachers aren't paid well enough. We need to attract the best and brightest, but when the starting salary is so low, but the education requirements so high, how can we really expect the best and brightest to apply? And with school districts often cash-strapped, teachers often end up dipping into their own pockets (which are shallow anyway) for basic supplies. That seems so wrong to me. At the same time, I can't afford to single-handedly support the needs of an entire school. I'd rather pay more taxes, but at the same time, I'm afraid that extra money would go to administration, not my children's classrooms.
So, on to the next thing I'm torn about. I believe there needs to be some kind of accountability with the public schools to tie additional money to achievement. If a teacher's students consistently test poorly, but the students of other teachers don't, perhaps there's an issue with the teacher. At the same time, I think basing anything strictly on testing forces teachers to teach to the test. And then our children are just regurgitating information instead of learning critical thinking. And I fear some things may not be taught at all if they're not on the test. I hear of schools no longer teaching cursive handwriting because of word processors. And no longer having spelling tests after a certain grade because we have spell check. As a reader of many self-published authors (and even some with big publishers), I know that a spell check is not a fail safe. It can tell you if you spell "accommodate" wrong, but it won't tell you that you should have used "they're" instead of "their" or "you're" instead of "your". Or even "moot" instead of "mute". And even if they could, why shouldn't kids just know the difference?
I did think it was great how many people who had received really good educations really strive to make a difference in the public sector. Harvard-educated lawyers, it seems, have sort of spearheaded the public education reform movement. I think it's very interesting that the same children the public school said couldn't be taught, because of their socio-economic environment, thrived in a charter school environment. I can see that union teachers may see charter schools as the devil, but if they're effective, it might make sense to take a look at what they're doing and see what could be incorporated into public school curricula.
Holy cow, I just wrote a book, lol, but bottom line is that this was a very interesting, thought-provoking book. I don't think charter schools are *the* answer, but I think that some of their ideas are really good. Something needs to happen in US education. We can't keep it at status quo. And I'm hoping that the teachers unions who have taken such a hard line against change can start to compromise. For the good of the children. For the good of the future of our country. Because eventually those kids who aren't receiving the best education will become the leaders.
One last thing. While the book takes a hard look at teacher's unions, I don't believe all teachers follow the union line, at least not down to the letter. I honestly believe most teachers get into the profession because they really want to make a difference. There are lots of really *great* teachers out there in the public school systems. I think the unions have their members' best interests in mind, but sometimes those best interests are contrary to what the kids need. And I think a good many teachers actually realize that.
March 10, 2019
This book is about a parallel universe where billionaires can never succeed due to the collaborative work of teachers and unions. These billionaires work tirelessly throwing money at politicians willing to keep these evil teachers in check, but time and time again these teachers overcome, exercise their evil will: sitting in rooms getting paid to do nothing. Enter the charter school, our only hope. But when the scores don’t match up it reveals that the system is actually against the charter school.
That pretty much sums it up. Now you don’t have to waste your time.
That pretty much sums it up. Now you don’t have to waste your time.
June 11, 2018
completely one-sided
September 29, 2019
A collectivist dream about making the school more Borg like, and, if possible, give the Union members a rise.
May 26, 2016
Brill gives a great intro to the education reform movement in the United States. The book covers events all the way from the Reagan commission report “A Nation At Risk” through the Obama Education Department competition Race to the Top. Stories from 208 interviews and sources were woven together to create snapshots of major players in education reform battles.
Some of the people depicted include:
Joel Klein: chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Randi Weingarten: president of the American Federation of Teachers
Jessica Reid: assistant principal at a Harlem Success Academy school
Arne Duncan: Secretary of Education
Joe Williams: leader of Democrats for Education Reform
Michael Johnston: key Colorado state legislator in laws measuring teacher performance
Wendy Kopp: founder of Teach for America
Bill Gates: founder of the Gates Foundation (as well as Microsoft I guess)
Paul Pastorek: superintendent of Louisiana State Schools
The narrative of the book is in support of using student test scores as a large part of measuring and evaluating teacher performance. Once teacher performance is evaluated that information should be used to make decisions including paying talented teachers more and getting rid of ineffective teachers. The book’s position is that unions helped to improve salaries and conditions for teachers who were significantly underpaid and underappreciated in the 1960s largely because it was seen as a woman's profession. However, Brill thinks that the influence of unions, while not purely negative, has gone too far in and that unions have been resisting reforms which would result in improved education for children.
I would definitely recommend this book. It’s an incredibly well synthesized book, has short, engaging chapters, introduces you to of key education reform people, and while having a definite slant does not present a one sided depiction of people and events. Read this book if you’re interested in education reform and want a brief overview of a lot of the key people recently involved.
Some of the people depicted include:
Joel Klein: chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Randi Weingarten: president of the American Federation of Teachers
Jessica Reid: assistant principal at a Harlem Success Academy school
Arne Duncan: Secretary of Education
Joe Williams: leader of Democrats for Education Reform
Michael Johnston: key Colorado state legislator in laws measuring teacher performance
Wendy Kopp: founder of Teach for America
Bill Gates: founder of the Gates Foundation (as well as Microsoft I guess)
Paul Pastorek: superintendent of Louisiana State Schools
The narrative of the book is in support of using student test scores as a large part of measuring and evaluating teacher performance. Once teacher performance is evaluated that information should be used to make decisions including paying talented teachers more and getting rid of ineffective teachers. The book’s position is that unions helped to improve salaries and conditions for teachers who were significantly underpaid and underappreciated in the 1960s largely because it was seen as a woman's profession. However, Brill thinks that the influence of unions, while not purely negative, has gone too far in and that unions have been resisting reforms which would result in improved education for children.
I would definitely recommend this book. It’s an incredibly well synthesized book, has short, engaging chapters, introduces you to of key education reform people, and while having a definite slant does not present a one sided depiction of people and events. Read this book if you’re interested in education reform and want a brief overview of a lot of the key people recently involved.
December 7, 2013
The overall content of the book is decent with the battle with the teachers union, charter and public schools, rubber rooms, and race to the top. It seems like we all heard about this before.
We might have bad education, but no matter how good is the school or how poor is their neighborhood, it's up to the parent to be on top of their kids. Like, "What did you do in school today?" "Did you do your homework, show me your work?"
I really think that parents nowadays, relies on schools and teachers so much that they don't pay any attention on what their kids are doing in the classroom. No matter what the school is like, it's up to their parents to stay on top on their children by being involved.
If a single mom is from the ghetto and her kids are going to a crappy school, if education was important to her, she would make sure that her kids are doing their work no matter if she is home or not. She might have to work two or three jobs, but she will make sure that they are at home, doing their work and getting the grades. We hear about these kinds of story all the time, single mom, poor, and her children becomes much more successful because of their parents.
Then, you have the other side. Wealthy kids going to a good school and becoming underachievers because their parents are not involve.
Charter schools, Private schools, Seed Schools are not the answer. Just because they get in, does not mean success, if their parents doesn't get involve.
Charter schools can kick out students for any reasons. They might not meet the test score, gone. Causing too much trouble, gone. Having a mental disability, gone. The same goes for teachers and most them are on an year by year contract and that put even more pressure on them to succeed, or they are gone.
We as an whole, don't value "education" like we used to.
Education has become an accessory, not a necessity.
We might have bad education, but no matter how good is the school or how poor is their neighborhood, it's up to the parent to be on top of their kids. Like, "What did you do in school today?" "Did you do your homework, show me your work?"
I really think that parents nowadays, relies on schools and teachers so much that they don't pay any attention on what their kids are doing in the classroom. No matter what the school is like, it's up to their parents to stay on top on their children by being involved.
If a single mom is from the ghetto and her kids are going to a crappy school, if education was important to her, she would make sure that her kids are doing their work no matter if she is home or not. She might have to work two or three jobs, but she will make sure that they are at home, doing their work and getting the grades. We hear about these kinds of story all the time, single mom, poor, and her children becomes much more successful because of their parents.
Then, you have the other side. Wealthy kids going to a good school and becoming underachievers because their parents are not involve.
Charter schools, Private schools, Seed Schools are not the answer. Just because they get in, does not mean success, if their parents doesn't get involve.
Charter schools can kick out students for any reasons. They might not meet the test score, gone. Causing too much trouble, gone. Having a mental disability, gone. The same goes for teachers and most them are on an year by year contract and that put even more pressure on them to succeed, or they are gone.
We as an whole, don't value "education" like we used to.
Education has become an accessory, not a necessity.
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