In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch blasts No Child Left Behind, which she says promotes “a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education” ”” as well as virtually every other recent reform effort that has sought to inject more free-market competition and accountability into education. She finds much to dislike: charter schools, high-stakes tests, corporate-style school management teams and the rising influence of foundation-funded reforms.
Over several decades, Ravitch says, American schools have essentially lost their way, forgetting to focus on giving students a solid curriculum and strong teachers. Instead, she says, we’ve bumbled through a series of crises that have left us with “vague and meaningless standards,” an odd, antagonistic public-private competition and an “obsession” with test scores.
[blockquote] “If the goal of schooling is to produce educated people, we’ve lost sight of that goal,” she says in an interview. [/blockquote]
I’ve been under the impression that the original goal was to create a prepared workforce, although what they were to be prepared to do has been murky.