National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide

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Brookings Institution Press, 2011 M05 1 - 242 pages

Updating her highly acclaimed book, Diane Ravitch presents the latest information on the debate over national standards and assessments.

"Ensuring a rigorous liberal education for all is asking a lot in a contentious democracy like ours. Is it possible to educate every child to the same high standards? Is it politically feasible? Will raising standards help or hinder poor minority children? Ravitch sees where these land mines are buried and her book provides an indispensable diagram for getting around them."—The Wall Street Journal

"A simple message lies at the heart of Diane Ravitch's new book.... If clear and consistent goals of learning could be set for all American children, rich and poor, gifted and ordinary, then all of these children would end up better educated than they now are likely to be."—The New York Times

"No one could be more qualified to write a book about national standards in education than Diane Ravitch."—The Washington Times

"The ongoing debate about national education standards and assessment in the U.S. has created as much confusion as it has solutions. What has been needed is an examination of the educational, historical, political, and social issues related to the development of such standards. Ravitch provides such a foundation."—Choice

 

Selected pages

Contents

The Idea of Standards
7
A Historical Perspective
33
Achievement A Review of the Evidence
59
Seeds of Reform
98
The Politics of Standards
135
Conclusions and Recommendations
177
Appendix
187
Notes
193
Index
217
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Educational Research and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education, is the author of numerous books, including The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (Knop

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