NYROB on School 'Reform'
By FUPress
9th September 2011
In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Diane Ravitch dissects two books on school reform in America, including As Bad as They Say? Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx by Janet Grossbach Mayer. Below is an excerpt from the article:
Janet Grossbach Mayer represents the kind of person who is on the other side of the “class war.” In As Bad as They Say? Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx, she vividly describes her life on the front lines of urban education. She went to public school in the Bronx and graduated from Queens College. She saw teaching as a career and a calling, not a stepping stone to policymaking or law school. Like most career teachers, she chose to teach where she grew up, which happened to be one of the poorest districts in the nation. Over many years as an English teacher, she taught 14,000 students. She wrote her book because she wanted the world to know that Bronx students, “contrary to expectations, were young people of remarkable character, unlimited potential, uncommon courage, and indomitable will.”