The War Against America's Public Schools: Privatizing Schools, Commercializing Education

Rating:
Summary: Unlike Dr. Knox .............
Review: At the outset, let me state that my comments are based ONLY on reviewing the section of the book on Charter Schools. I've also read the book by Berliner and Biddle (1995) and found both to be engaging. I do plan to purchase the Bracey book and read it thoroughly.

I hold a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and work in the field of assessment and psychometrics. I have published research and conduct evaluation studies as part of my job, therefore I believe that I can comment with an objective stance.

My title for this review stems from reading a review by Dr. Knox from Albuquerque and being surprised at his negativity. In my opinion, Dr. Bracey's reputation as a researcher for Phi Delta Kappan and his publication record stand for themselves, but his plain writing is another benefit for educating the public.

The salient point for me in Bracey's book is his analysis of the charter school movement in Ohio. In particular I was struck by his observations on David Brennan, an individual heavily and proudly involved in educational management organizations (White Hat Management refers both to his company and to his trademark stetson). Dave was involved in the Cleveland school voucher program, but Bracey points out that he swiftly migrated to the charter schools. Bracey's interpretation is that Dave did so because the financial gain was much more lucrative in charter schools.

If one looks at the "evidence" for charter schools collected by the Legislative Office for Educational Oversight (LOEO) and summarized in three yearly reports, an objective reader would not find much to hang his Stetson on (pun intended).

I would also refer readers of this review to a recent story by Jacques Steinberg and Diana B. Henriques in the New York Times education section. Their title is "Complex Calculations on Academics" and the publication date is July 16, 2002. It looks like some complex statistical calculations are being used by Edison Schools to argue for their success.

Although I find myself agreeing with Dr. Knox that there are problems with public schools, siphoning off public funds to try to improve the lot of urban school children smacks of desperation and the tendency of legislators to think within political cycles (not reform cycles). Because of term limits in Ohio, the cycle is compressed and I fear that adequate evaluations will not be done.

All in all, an interested reader will gain much from Dr. Bracey's book, and from reading his many other publications (i.e., Primer on Assessment Literacy).

Rating:
Summary: Gerald's little glamour show.
Review: I picked this book up at the library hoping to hear detailed, serious arguments against the privatization of education.

What I got was a text devoted to strutting on the graves of straw men, a collection of statistics built like a house of cards, and a small man taking rhetorical jabs at his ideological opponents between breathless rants.

So, if you want to read a book written by a man who wants to raise up an army of sympathizers to salve his pride for past exchanges lost, this might be the book for you.

If you're not in the market for a book with more innuendo than a cheap romance novel, keep looking.

Rating:
Summary: For those who had to work for every A
Review: There is an old joke about Phi Beta Kappa. That those who still take the society seriously past 25 are likely to have had to work hard for every A. You actually don't have to be very smart or insightful to make it to the top 10 percent of your undergrad class or get into Phi Beta Kappa. However, these talents come to their own when one is faced with complex issues like vouchers.

Mr Bracey, it seems, worked very hard for his grades. It shows in this book. If you read this, you should also read the very different conclusions on these issues eminating from public policy think tanks like Stanford's Hoover Institute, the Brookings Institute and the Rand Corporation among others. They all have publications and very good web sites dealing with these issues. There is a pretty strong consensus out there as to what is wrong with the Public School system and how it got that way. But then again perhaps that is just among those Kappans (and nonKappans) who had a somewhat easier time getting good grades.

PS Remember as you read this that it is written by a man whose chief achievement in life revolves around his getting one of the more pedestrian academic honors in college. This is not the stuff Presidential scholars are made of.