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Saturday, November 20, 2010

IN CHINA'S ORBIT by Niall Ferguson

Read your piece today. One thing is certain i will put "Civilization the West and the Rest" on my reading list and will pre-order today if possible!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622531909154228.html


I found your basic thesis very convincing and when you had the Chinese saying "We are Masters now" I could not help but think in the back of your mind the British hearing this from the Americans if not in 1918 then surely in 1945-1946 and definitely by 1956 with the Suez Crisis. My family, which immigrated from Scotland en masse from 1927-1948, witnessed the last great flowering of the British Empire -which they and their kinsmen helped build and defend- and they also witnessed when the "Empire went smash" (a favorite line of my father's and grandfather's taken from the LIVES OF THE BENGAL LANCERS with Gary Cooper and Franchet Tone. My grandfather spent 8 years in the British Merchant Marine and so saw at first hand India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Victoria (BC), Australia, Capetown, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Alexandria, Cyprus, Constantinople (1919), Malta, Gibraltar, London, Glasgow, and Montreal. My kinsmen built the railroads in Argentina (hence the Munro suburb of Buenos Aires built around the Munro train station) and South America. He later spent 5 years in the Army (August 4 1914-May 10 1919 serving with the 3rd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and transferring to the 1st Battalion ASH in Dec 1914 first seeing action at Ypres January-May 1915 and thence on to Gallipoli, Salonika, the Struma Valley and Derian ending the his military service in Constantinople in 1918-1919 as part of the Allied Army of occupation. In the Second World War most of my immediate family served in the American forces (my father, my uncles and first cousins but of course we still had close ties to the Auld Country and so my parents and I knew many people who served in the 51st Highland Division, the British 8th Army and the RAF during WWII as well as some in the Canadian and Commonwealth Forces (Australia and New Zealand). My father was a quasi colonial officer in the Philippines 1944-1946 where he was offered a promotion to Captain and a regular army commission by General Sutherland (chief of staff to General MacArthur whom my father met). My father always said that if he had been in the British Army in 1857 or 1890 he would have accepted such an offer as that would have been the best career choice for a Scot with a "red brick" education (rather than elite public school). But my father, after consultation with my mother, turned that job officer down because he felt that American post 1946 would be booming. And indeed it did right up until the early 1970's. But even then my father was concerned with our ever growing appetite for imported oil. our trade deficit and our slow slipping away from being a creditor nation to a debtor nation. My father was trained as an English and French teacher but who got his MBA at NYU and spent his life as a businessman an financier so he had great insight to America's industrial growth and decline. He financed commercial construction (chiefly diners and restaurants), mining equipment, textile machinery, Caterpillar , John Deer, Case IH tractors, and Allis Chalmers tractors. He was very close the to president of Allis Chalmers in the 1960's and early 70's who like himself was a Glaswegian born Scot. I never met the man himself but my father recounted their many meeting and lunches. They often talked about the rise of Japan and Germany and of the decline of Britain. Often their discussions turned to America's fate as both men saw the same symptoms of decline in the USA due to hubris and the corruption and selfishness of the trade unions which were making American equipment uncompetitive and also gradually losing their reputation for reliability, efficiency and high technology. Although both men were Scots they considered themselves as part of the English-speaking world and in addition they believed only the English-speaking peoples were the only truly free people in the world. Neither man feared Russia whom they considered a backwater but they believed Asia was making a resurgence, particularly in Singapore, Korea (once part of the Japanese Empire), Taiwan (also once part of the Japanese Empire), Japan and Hong Kong. They did not think China could be far behind and sometimes they talked of India as well.



And here I was looking at your projections of growth with China as number 1 and India and the USA battling it out for number 2. These projections seem inevitable and if they come true will see the Pacific Rim come under the Chinese sphere of influence. It is only a matter of time when the 7th fleet will find it self having to make a strategic withdrawal to Hawaii or even San Diego leaving the Pacific Rim at the mercy of the Chinese. The only possible counter (the British being long out of the picture) is a resurgent India as a quasi-English speaking nation. China's great Achilles heel of course is its aging population and its one child policy which has lead to an enormous imbalance of males to females. For that reason one could imagine a scenario in which India-Australia-New Zealand-Canada and the USA have enough economic, military and demographic power to check Chinese hegemony. Whither China? China is one of the great countries and civilizations of the world and it has great scholarly traditions and an ancient mercantile tradition. This is now combined with Western Style education combined with a strong oriental work ethic. The two areas which China is lacking are political freedom and religious freedom. Without an ethical and moral base for their society and without political and personal freedom China may lack essential factors it needs to become a dominant superpower. When one factors India in -and then English-speaking countries of Africa plus Australia especially, Canada and the USA I don't think we can count out the English-speaking peoples. China MAY surpass the USA individually -if everything goes according to plan- or China may enter a period of crisis when it has no clean water, a complete collapse of river and ocean fishing and a collapse in its domestic agriculture. Because Ironically China is like Britain 1900-1945 in that it will be heavily dependent on the importation of food stuffs and raw materials. In addition it may have to import foreign workers and even foreign wives to meet its needs. If China fails to do this -they they may enter a period of slow decline starting in 2030 or 2040 as Japan is experiencing now. My father was fond of saying "money makes the world go round", "money forms the sinews of war" (paraphrase of Cicero), and "Demography is destiny." HIS father, Thomas Munro, Sr. added another quote from an older tradition:” Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh [but] in vain." (Ps 127:1)

Auld Pop (Thomas Munro, Sr.) said we should always look to God's providence with great humility. In all our affairs and business of a family and nation we had to depend upon His blessing. Both my father and Auld Pop believed that the family was the basis of our culture and civilization and If God were not acknowledged there we would have no reason to expect his blessing. Auld Pop often said the "best laid plans o' mice an' men aft gang agley." For enriching a family or nation some are so grasping and avaricious and Midas-like that they forget what really matters which is love and the happiness of one's race and line. Yes, that was an expression I often heard that we should have pride in our race and line (as Munros and as Gaels) and that we should "Dread God" (Biodh T-eagal Dhe Oirre; we should reverence unto God: this is the ancient Munro motto of course). Money was important, of course, because one needed bread "but man did not live on bread alone" and also "what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" I think it was very clear to me that my father and grandfather were unfailing opponents of the passion for wealth, advancement in society or the preoccupation with material things. Neither man played golf of spent more time than necessary with business associates preferring to spend their holidays and weekend entirely with their wives and children. My father and grandfather taught me to read and write before I went to school and gave me the rudiments of Spanish, Latin, French and Gaelic at home. They considered children to be God's gifts, a heritage, a blessing and special a reward : a thousand treasures in one. They often spoke of "our splendid ancient heritage" which I suppose was our entire civilization of music, poetry, literature, art, language, song and our faith and free institutions. My father and Auld Pop also lived through the Great Depression and had memories of the Highland Clearances and the Great Hunger of the 1840's. They had seen war, experienced hunger, exile and immigration and knew that there was no absolute security to be found in material wealth anywhere at any time. At best money could be a cushion but over and over I was told the "man was the gold and that a man could not be measured by the colour of his skin, or by his speech, or by his clothes and jewels, but only by the heart" (from Mika Waltari) Real wealth was richness of experience, joy in friends and family and delight in conviviality, music, verse, art and literature. So I wonder if Chinese society with its narrow, mean-spirited materialistic vision could ever have any inking of true justice, true freedom and true happiness. This spiritual deficit and this deficit of freedom may prove that China's greatness is house built upon sand. There is a cyclical drama in history and all national rises and falls are merely transient stages along the way though many people lack the broadness of perspective to perceive such a vision. But history remains dynamic subject to many "killer applications" as you say that drives it on and always above all else it seeks balance and equilibrium. The Greeks called this drama Hubris and Nemesis; the Indians called it the law of karma. Pride is not without trouble, Auld Pop would say so let us not be troubled by it. Supremacy, arrogance and domination are not the way of nature and they will be leveled in due course. Every nation has its age of ascendency and its age of decline. My father and Auld Pop spoke as Britons but also as Gaels and Scots who remembered a disastrous history which saw may kingdoms and empires that we served rise and fall. They knew English was the lingua franca of their age but they often said "English is the language of the banks and the long-range guns; which is why everyone speaks English including of course the English. When they cease to have gold and guns then it is vae victis all over again." You might recall vae victis was the Roman translation of one of their earliest humiliations when the Celtic Chief Brennus burnt Rome to the ground. And yes, the proud Celt got his comeuppance. "For when the beat of the kettle-drum of the steely-hard Roman come, taken were our own hill-tops, one by one." Though we face firmly towards the future, we never forget that past. RICHARD KEITH MUNRO

                                                     THOMAS MUNRO, Sr.  Acting Colour Sergeant
                                                      1st Batallion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
                                                        Military Medal for Valour, April 15 1915 2nd Ypres.

He served side by side with Captain Dick Porteous (KIA May 10 1915), Colin Campbell Mitchell Sir HLI (later Captain in the Argylls) and American Johnny Robertson. NE OBLIVISCARIS DO NOT FORGET

                                                       "The Thin Red Line of Heroes"

Thursday, April 1, 2010

STORM OF WAR by ANDREW ROBERTS

Andrew Robert's FINEST HOUR STORM OF WAR is magnificent, June 29, 2011


By Richard Munro (Bakersfield, California) - See all my reviews

(REAL NAME) This review is from: The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (Hardcover)

Why did Hitler and the Axis lose the war? Read Andrew Robert's STORM OF WAR and you will receive a magnificent, comprehensive and enthralling analysis of WWII. Roberts has not merely written a history which is intellectually coherent but also a piece of literature that is a model for language. What is also amazing about this book is that it is complete yet concise; it is only about 600 pages. I have been reading and listening to military history books and World War II books for over 50 years. On the shortest roster of must read WWII history books I would include STORM OF WAR. It was informative -teaching me new angles and facts I did not know- but also very moving. I too have visited many American and Commonwealth Cemeteries and there lay many a man we could claim as kith, kin and Regimental comrades. All throughout STORM OF WAR, Roberts never lets us forget that war is not a story of big ships and big tanks but a struggle of mortal men; all gave some but NE OBLIVISCARIS do not forget some gave all. STORM OF WAR is a very entertaining read. I have read and re-read several parts two and three times. If Hanson Baldwin or Sir Winston Churchill or Ike were still living they would say THIS IS ANDREW ROBERT'S FINEST HOUR. If one wants to understand how the Colours of the Democracies endured -stained as the Allied cause was by its alliance with one of the "Great Dictators" who caused the war (Stalin)- a very good place to begin is by reading ANDREW ROBERT'S STORM OF WAR.



I was also very impressed by the extent of Robert's scholarship. He not only examines rare archives and private collections some never before investigated but the best of the Times Literary Supplement and of WWII novels (Kaput) and literature such as Viktor Frank's Man's Quest For Meaning probably the single greatest book dealing with the Holocaust experience and one of the greatest books of the 20th century. Robert's references, quotes and bibliography alone are worth the price of the book as they are a first class compendium of the most interesting and useful works dealing with WWII history from almost every aspect. There are 22 maps (all in the beginning of the book and over 50 photos. The maps on the Battle of Stalingrad, el Alamein, Monte Casino/Anzio, Kursk and the Normandy landings are extremely useful and elucidating. I found myself referring to them constantly.



STORM OF WAR is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the origins of WWII, the peculiar alliance against the totalitarian Fascism of the Axis of the Western Democracies and Soviet Russia. I read Timothy Snyder's NYT Review -a very positive one-"AFTER THE LIGHTNING" (June 19, 2011) ; one of the criticisms Snyder made was that Roberts "conflated Russia with the Soviet Union." I didn't feel that was a mistake merely an instrument to clarify that the Soviet Union or Soviet Russia were one in the same just as "England" is often used as a synonym for "Britain" or the "UK". Roberts was writing for the average reader as well as the historian. When Roberts wrote of Russia or the Soviet Union (USSR) or Soviet Russia I think it was clear that he mean the polity which continued the Russian Empire in a different form as the so-called USSR.



STORM OF WAR begins with a short prelude and then is divided into three parts. Part I (Onslaught) covers all the invasions of the Dictators who caused WWII (this includes Hitler's blitzkriegs but also Stalin's. It was Stalin who made a pact with Hitler, helped supply his armies and himself invaded Poland and Finland). Many WWII histories -particularly older ones- underplay the significance of Stalin's early alliance with Hitler and Stalin's aggression. Here is, in concise form the Fall of France, The Battle of Britain, the battles for the Atlantic, Mediterranean and North Africa, Hitler's catastrophic mistake of invading Russia in 1941 and the Tokyo Typhoon when the Japanese militarists made their gamble to crush the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. "Last Hope Island" deals with the crucial period when Britain "stood alone" from June 1940-1941. But Roberts makes it clear this overstates the case somewhat because Britain in 1940 had the entire vast resources of the British Empire and Commonwealth behind them as well as the goodwill of millions of Americans. Secretly FDR helped the British in June 1940 with 500,000 Enfield Rifles, 129 million rounds of ammunition, 895 guns of 75 mm, 316 mortars, 25,000 BAR's plus 20,000 revolvers and many thousands of rounds of ammunition. When one realizes the magnitude of the defeat in France and the near disaster of Dunkirk these figures take on tremendous significance. In February 1941 the US shipped 1.35 million more Enfield Rifles. They may have saved Britain and the Suez in 1940 as well as 1941.



But Hitler's campaign to conquer Britain was doomed, as Roberts shows us because he did not "grasp the fundamental principles of air warfare." As Roberts notes, Hitler failed to develop a large fleet of four engine strategic bombers, he did not build enough modern fighters (and his long range Me110 was useless), he did not train the Germany army for amphibious warfare and he did not put enough faith in landing huge numbers of paratroopers to capture air bases in the opening stages of the Battle of Britain. One of the decisive factors in the Battle of Britain was the invention of radar; Roberts rightly credits Chamberlain for contributing to the victory by his wise investment in radar stations and in beefing up Fighter Command. As they say in America, there is no I in team; Chamberlain was the shaky starting pitcher but he kept the game close; Churchill got the win but he built upon Chamberlain's wise decisions such as introducing military conscription in April 1939. Roberts makes it clear that WWII was a team effort. One realizes that Chamberlain should be remembered for more than just Munich. Churchill's leadership was vital in mobilizing the home front and especially in "mobilizing the English language and sending it into battle." Churchill boosted domestic production of food (arable land was increased by 43%) and industrial productivity. By the end of the war Britain grew enough sugar to meet 50% of its needs which as Roberts points out was remarkable under the circumstances. Roberts also gives a good background as to the financial crisis caused by the war; by 1945 almost all of Britain's foreign assets, gold and financial reserves had been wiped out. What 1914 started 1939-1945 completed. Germany played catch up with radar technology but in 1940 radar might have made the difference. Radar, of course, was not developed to kill people or even for military purposes. Radar was meant to make air travel in foggy Britain more safe. Robert's description of the Battle of Britain is technically and military excellent and I gained new insights. He does not forget the special advantage of the many international volunteers to the RAF especially the Poles and the New Zealanders. Nor does he forget the valor of the London firemen and the cool courage and devotion of duty to the bomb-disposal units. He seems to know everything about the capabilities of the aircraft involved and their weapons. The Me-109 for example had a fatal flaw; it could only carry enough fuel for ONE HOUR. It did not have fuel tanks; this meant it had only about 30 minutes air time over the south of England and less than 10 minutes over London. How many German pilots were killed in the English Channel or captured because their fighter's ran out of fuel? Roberts also give credit where it is due to the unsung Hurricane -which was decisive in the Battle of Britain because it was cheaper, easier to repair and sturdier that the Spitfire. The Hurricane was outmatched by the ME-109 but on the other hand downed more bombers than the Spitfire and to the German's surprise easily outclassed the heavily armed but clunky ME-110.



Roberts mentions penicillin of course being used to save Churchill's life but in a minor quibble I think he could have said more about the Allied advantages over the Axis in medical technology. They had better equipped medical units with sulfa drugs, plasma and transfusions. American know-how also contributed to the use, late in the war of portable refrigerators to be used (chiefly in the Pacific Theater) so that whole blood could be used on ships and right up to the front lines. In the USA the Red Cross collected blood from millions of volunteers, separated the plasma and had them shipped to pharmaceutical labs that could produce freeze-drying plasma en masse which was then flown to the front lines. This probably saved the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American and Allied soldiers and helped keep up morale. I remember my grandfather -a British WWI combat vet- telling me that one of the most demoralizing things on soldiers in WWI was the high death rate of wounded soldiers. Soldiers would make heroic efforts to save comrades only to hear about their death hours, days or weeks later. In WWII however many wounded soldiers recovered to fight again with their original units. But Roberts is perfectly aware of all these things and alludes to them but I think the Allied blood banks were emblematic of one of the reasons the Allies won the war. Individual initiative by doctors and entrepreneurs spurred development of new medical technologies and then civic virtue by free peoples, not compulsion, contributed to a spirit of volunteerism which embodied all that was decent, modern and humane in contrast to Nazi brutality and racism. (Stephen Ambrose in CITIZEN SOLDIER reported German soldiers who refused blood transfusions from American medics on the basis they might receive tainted Jewish or Black blood and so died.).



Robert's depiction of the Mediterranean Campaign including Crete, Malta and El Alamein is magisterial. I have read dozens of books about the 8th Army and the Afrika Korps but STORM OF WAR provides the clearest and most exciting analysis of both stages of Battle of El Alamein yet. Roberts has visited many of the battlefields of the war personally and this adds to the color and interest of his descriptions of the key campaigns and battles of WWII. Roberts argues, quite convincingly, that Hitler made a crucial error by not taking Malta by parachute attack instead wasting his elite corps on Crete and that also Hitler should have invested all his resources to capture Suez and Britain's access to Middle Eastern oil; at the time 80% of Britain's oil came from there.



But Hitler's fanatical hatred of the Jews and the Bolsheviks caused him to be precipitous in his attack on Russia before Britain had been knocked out of the air or the Mediterranean. By 1942 Hitler seems to have realized his mistake but by then it was too late; Rommel was defeated not only by Ultra but also by enormous quantities of USA Lend Lease.



Today it seems automatic that the USA won the war against Japan but Roberts makes it clear that it was a very narrow margin in 1941-42 as the Japanese had 11 Air Craft Carriers to the 3 of the US (four others were in the Atlantic). Japan's failure to destroy America's pacific carrier force and its egregious error not to knock out Pearl Harbor's fueling station proved disastrous. Despite America's military inferiority in the early stages, it had the advantage of "Magic" the breaking of the Japanese cipher "Purple". Though "Magic" contributed mightily to the American victory at Midway ("five minutes at Midway" " in June 1942 Roberts puts to rest any conspiracy theories that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance. In fact, as at the Bulge in 1944, the Japanese very effectively hid their thrust to Hawaii by an "intricate deception operation."



Everyone knows that Churchill and the allies feared the U-boat and that the U-boat inflicted fearsome loses on Allied shipping. Britain imported over 80% of its oil and 70% of its food. Roberts highlights the fact that even in this area Hitler may have doomed his effort by spreading himself too thin by building "pocket battleships" like the Graf Spee and the gargantuan but obsolete Bismarck. Roberts wrote ""Had Hitler given first priority in terms of funding to his U-boat fleet...he might have built a force that would have strangled and starved Britain into surrender." Roberts notes that the Germany navy and its U-boat arm were very small in 1939 and it was not until 1944-45 that the Germans deployed as many as 400 U-boats but by that time it was too late to affect the outcome of the war. But the Germans did not only use torpedoes to sink ships they also used magnetic mines placed by U-boats , He-111 bombers and E-boats. One can only think what would have happened to Britain if Hitler had deployed more resources earlier in the Battle of the Atlantic including FW-200 Kondor (Condor) long range maritime reconnaissance plane (the Germans built relatively few only about 200).



Part II "Climacteric" deals with the both the Pacific Theater and the Atlantic Theater June 1942-October 1944. It gives an excellent account of the Russian Front and the Stalingrad disaster; likewise Roberts tells the story of Midway and Guadalcanal and the ferocity and sheer savageness of the fighting there as well as the logistical challenges. But most memorably "Climacteric" begins with an excellent short history of the Holocaust called "The Everlasting Shame of Mankind." Roberts makes it very clear that it makes no difference when Hitler decided to exterminate the Jews or if he had one single written order beginning "the industrialized use of the Vernichtungslager (extermination camp)." For vicious anti-Semitism and the "annihilation" of the "Jewish race" was the essence of Hitler and Nazism. It was in fact the raison d'etre of Nazism. Once again, I have read many books on the Holocaust but I learned stories and facts about the Final Solution that I did not know. I was very impressed by Roberts' understanding of the magnitude of the human suffering and loss such as the lucky survivors in one case of 600 orphaned children who did not even know their own names. The Jews of course were the primary object of Hitler's wrath but millions of others were killed or tortured as well. I was familiar with some of the sources Roberts used in this chapter such as Viktor Frankl's work but time and again Roberts brings our a new fact, a new anecdote or a new technical detail which I did have never encountered before such as the story of the sadism of SS Staff Sergeant Paul Grot at Sobior Some of these details came from recently discovered tin cans which had been hidden other came from an examination as recently as 2004 at Auschwitz-Birkenau of 43,000 pairs of shoes in which money was found tucked away but never recovered. Seven tons of human hair were there that would have been used by the German textile industry. Then there is the story of Levi Hafling(Prisoner) number 174517 who desired to drink from an icicle outside his hut; he said WARUM? (why) and the SS guard answered "HIER IST KEIN WARUM" (Here there is no why). Roberts also debunks the idea that FDR and Churchill were somehow complicit in the Holocaust because they knew all about it and could easily have bombed the Death Camps and their rail system. In fact, the negatives of the aerial photographs were not printed and examined until 1978 and during WWII they did not have the technology to enlarge them to the extent so that exact details of the camps could be made clear. A clear case of presentism. Roberts does not forget to mention Father (Saint)Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Roman Catholic priest who gave his life so that another prisoner who had a wife and children could live (the man's name Roberts tells us was Franciszek Gajownicnek). STORM OF WAR's brief account of the Holocaust alone is worth reading and re-reading for it tells of tells of heroism and also of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Once again, NE OBLISIVCARIS. Do not forget.



Part III of STORM OF WAR is "Retribution" . There we see the final denouement of the Russian Front and the death of the Panzers at Kursk In "Cruel Reality" Roberts talks about the most controversial aspect of the allied war effort during WWII the use of the Atomic bomb and the mass bombing of civilians. Roberts is certainly right that few men and women of the WWII generation lost much sleep concerning the suffering of the Axis civilian populations because after all Japan and Germany had started it and deserved what they got. But he quotes Churchill saying "Are we beasts are we taking this too far?" I can't imagine Hitler (or Stalin ever saying anything like that). I believe it proved that Churchill was basically a humane and decent statesman. I learned the Paul Tibbets also bombed Germany in a B-17 (later of course he piloted the Enola Gay B-29 over Hiroshima). Was the bombing campaign effective? Roberts gives German figures that show it was. Albert Speer estimated that the bombing caused Germany to produce 35 % fewer tanks, 31 % fewer planes and 42% fewer trucks.

In any case 70% of German fighters were deployed to defend the home industry and 10,000 88's were deployed as Flak guns; and this weakened Wermacht and the Luftwaffe on the Russian Front contributing to the German defeat at Kursk. The D-Day invasion has been told and retold many times but Roberts gives a very good précis of the Normandy campaign and some of the great characters of the American Army such as General Patton and Eisenhower. STORM OF WAR closes with the fall of Nazi Germany and Hitler's suicide in the bunker. I believe Roberts is perhaps a little harsh on Col. Stauffenberg; he quotes a letter from 1939 that shows Stauffenberg in an arrogant anti-Polish and anti-Jewish light almost as a Nazi. In 2003 I had a chance to make the acquaintance of the daughter of Stauffenberg's nanny, who was employed as my father's private nurse. She indicated that Stauffenberg kept up a correspondence with her mother throughout his adult life only stopping completely in late 1943 so as to protect her. She also believed it was only later in the war that Stauffenberg really began to understand the true nature of Nazi Germany and that he went through what could only be described as a religious conversion transferring his loyalty from his Fatherland which he saw as captive to an anti-Christian maniac (she used the term "Anti-Christ") to Humanity, the Church and to a future "sacred Germany" he knew he would never live to see. Churchill himself, as Roberts recounts said of the 20 July plotters, they were the "bravest of the best." Perhaps when the myth meets history we choose to remember the myth? Perhaps. But I think we cannot discount entirely the testimony of people who knew Stauffenberg personally. I recall Hemingway said once "it's it pretty to think so"; I do not think this is a romanticized view of Stauffenberg but merely gives him the benefit of the doubt. His effort to kill Hitler and end the war in 1944 was certainly one of the most heroic acts of WWII; it he had succeeded he may have saved the lives of millions of Jews, Poles, Germans and Allied soldiers. Many others talked; Stauffenberg took action and it was only by merest chance that his wife and children were not massacred by Hitler himself (as luck would have it General Fromm had him summarily executed trying, ultimately vainly to save himself but in doing so he probably saved Stauffenberg's family.)



The very last part of Part III deals with the fall of Japan "The Land of the Setting Sun" and then a conclusion going over point by point why the Axis lost the war. Roberts demonstrates that the Germany First policy of Churchill and FDR was wise; Japan folded just within months of Germany's collapse. The defeat of Germany meant the Allies (especially the USA) could throw the full weight of their forces against Japan. At the time of course, few knew anything about the Atomic bomb and when it was used no one knew the USA had only two. There still were many bloody battles before the Allies particularly Iwo Jima, Kohima and Okinawa. At Iwo Jima the US Marines suffered 6, 891 killed and 18,070 wounded; but as Roberts pointed out about 24,761 US airmen were possibly saved by the air strip on the island. Roberts accurately describes Hiroshima as "hellish" and I think it is true that the A-bomb itself is the only thing that could possible be compared to the horror of the Holocaust. There are big differences however. Truman felt he had to used to bomb to SAVE lives both American and Japanese and end the war. If Truman had been Hitler like he would have refused negotiations, continued bombing Japan and letting her civilian population die of hunger. But instead, once the peace was signed and the occupation secured the Americans did everything they could to restore law and order and see that the civilian population was fed, received medical treatment and Japan began its reconstruction (which Roberts only alludes to during the surrender of September 2,1945 "six years and one day after Germany had invaded Poland". But honor is due to Nimitiz and especially to MacArthur and Truman. Roberts says it was only coincidence that the surrender took place on the USS Missouri (Truman's home state); I like many others have always assumed that Nimitz picked it as his flag ship to honor the president.







Why did Hitler and the Axis lose the war? I think Robert's main thesis is correct -Nazism (and fascism in general) was doomed by its fanatical worldview which distorted judgment and impaired the collaboration of effort that is necessary for war or any high organization or enterprise. The both before and after the Atlantic Charter shared technology and collaborated in their war effort. By contrast the Axis stragetgy was not cohesive. Mussolini made attacks without consulting Hitler; the Japanese attacked the USA without consulting Hitler and the Germans made no attempt to share jet technology or rockets until it was far too late. The Nazi Weltanschauung was like a fever of the mind; those whom the gods destroy they first make mad. And Nazism was noting else but feverish nightmare of greed, violence and racial arrogance. Over and over the Nazis were destroyed in large part by their own arrogance and hubris. Hitler refused to believe metrological reports of experts warning of the intense cold of the Russian winter; he seemed to think (insanely) sub-zero temperatures could be overcome by willpower. It seems made up but it is true that Hitler fantasized about SS troops able to endure the winter in lederhosen (short pants)! Churchill of course said "There is a winter, you know, in Russia." He probably could not believe his luck that Hitler had thrown his legions uselessly on the Russian front instead of against Alexandria and the Suez. The Germans had the best cipher and radio communications of any power but they believed the Enigma code was scientifically impossible to break. And so it was unless "subhuman" Poles happened to capture a working model, fake its destruction and spirit it along to the British which they did. I learned in STORM OF WAR that the Poles had in fact broken the German Enigma code independently for a time prior to September1939 and that Hitler shared a dozen Enigma machines with Franco. The Germans had magnificent war material. Their machine guns could fire at three times the rate of the Allie's guns. One of the best Air Forces in the world, the best submarine force, and without a doubt the greatest fighting Army in modern history the vaunted Wermacht. Despite being outnumbered time and again the Germany army triumphed and when it lost it inflicted far more causalities on its opponents than it lost itself. The Nazis also had the first operational Jet fighters (the ME-262) the first jet bombers (the Arado 234 Blitz bomber) and of course the V-1 and the V-2 rockets. But all these were too little and too late. Yet the Nazis under Hitler suffered from gigantism and a desire to have ever more advanced technological "wonder weapons." This led them to rush into production tank destroyers at Kursk without machine guns to protect them from Russian infantry and flame thrower attacks. The much vaunted Panthers and Tigers were hugely expensive and too few in numbers to make a real difference; and for all their armor they were extremely vulnerable to attacks from the air. And having so many different models of tanks was a logistical nightmare. In that sense the Russia t-34 and the Shermans were more successful tanks. Hence also the Bismarck and the Tirpitz capital ships that satisfied the prestige of Nazi Germany but were essentially useless though terrifying. Both were sunk by the British and neither inflicted much damage on Allied convoys. Roberts acknowledges the V-1 and V-2 were "horrific" weapons and he describes their capabilities and range with precision. Over 13,000 V-1's were launched on Britain and over 1,359 V-2 were fired at London at an immense cost (100,000 Reichmarks each). But as Roberts describes these terror weapons were ineffective militarily and he quotes Churchill who said "the damage and the casualties have not so far been heavy. There is no need to exaggerate the danger." The V-2 was another "prestige" Nazi weapon but without the Atomic bomb it had little bang for the buck (or Reichmark). But it is chilling to think how close Hitler came to achieve if not world conquest world domination. Roberts makes us remember how near a thing it was in 1939,1940, 1941 and 1942. I often ask my students if Hitler had won the war do they think their lives would be the same? It is something to think about. Robert Harris deals with this theme in his excellent novel FATHERLAND; in it Hitler is still alive in 1964 having won the war with rockets and the atomic bomb.



STORM OF WAR is technically and strategically very sound as a WWII history but Andrew Robert's triumph is that he captures the essence the human tragedy of millions and their suffering to stop the advent, in Churchill's words of Hitler's New Dark age "made more sinister and more protracted by the lights of perverted science." Books like STORM OF WAR are essential reading not just for historians but for all teachers, parents, citizens and students. One moving episode in the STORM OF WAR is Robert's recounting of the sacrifice of 25 year old Sergeant M. A. W. Rogers of the Wiltshire Regiment who won the Victoria Cross for Valour in Italy -read the story of his incredible and noble heroism and you also know why the Allies won because they had men like Rogers who were prepared to give their all -even their lives for the cause. But Roberts does not end the story there -he recalls the inscription on the gravestone in Italy put by Sergeant Roger's wife "in memory of my beloved husband. May we be together soon, dear, Peace at last." Other very moving parts of STORM OF WAR were when Roberts discusses the Holocaust and the Brave Fallen -he mentioned some by name and gives the circumstances of their death such as the story of Flying Officer Lt. J.B. Nicholson a whose feats of heroism during the Battle of Britain remain awe-inspiring; Roberts also recounts tragically that Nicholson was shot down May 2, 1945 thus never seeing the final victory. Books like ANDREW ROBERT'S STORM OF WAR leave the reader with the greatest desire never to forget the greatest war of all time and the people who worked and fought to see the Allies achieve victory. We remember now the young dead soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marine of so long ago and the Allied leaders who won not only the war but the peace as well. Their valiant struggle and their sacrifice must awaken in us a lasting remembrance and the deepest respect and appreciation for our liberty and our free lives. ANDREW ROBERT'S STORM OF WAR is destined to be the definitive one volume history of WWII.





Sunday, March 14, 2010

LIFE AND DEALTH OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM

Some years ago Diane Ravitch wrote LEFT BACK which is a minor masterpiece; years from now historians will recommend one book to understand the background of American public education and it will be LEFT BACK. With her new book, THE DEATH AND LIFE of the AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, Diane Ravitch has once again proven that she is the Grand Dame of the history of American education and once again has produced what must be classed as a permanent book a book scholars will turn to years from now as a standard sourcebook for American public education's virtues and vices.




Diane has always been a supporter of standards; as a public school teacher so am I. But Diane makes a powerful case that our scientism of day -which mistakenly believes schools can be judged or measured by such narrow instruments as scantron/edusoft bubble tests-is NOT an accurate measure of educational effectiveness.



Ravitch is also not afraid to state the obvious: the temptation for schools, teachers and administrators to game the system or cheat is sometimes overwhelming. Even honest administrators would be foolish not to drop students who never show up for class. The reason why is because NCLB hits schools for low participation points and students who don't show up count as a ZERO for school averages.



AYP's tell us something but they are not a valid barometer of true academic achievement. One would think that if a high school had 300 AP scholars a year that would count for something but it does not. But the reality that those 300 AP scholars are not merely proficient but far, far above state standards (ten times as much twenty times as much?). On the AYP's AP students are counted as just competent students. That would be like rating the US military but not counting the Special Forces or Marines. It is idiotic. Much of NCLB is idiotic and Ravitch proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



As a classroom teacher I know that teacher evaluations based on performance of standardized tests are notoriously biased. When I had all AP classes I was a genius and the "Jaime Escalante" of Bakersfield. The truth is even Jaime Escalante was not Jaime Escalante when he was challenged by a different school body with different problems and different cultural backgrounds than Mr. Escalante was accustomed to. And similarly, now that I have no AP students my test scores are no longer so stellar. The reality is the friends of the principal or departments chairs make sure to assign themselves the best classes so that THEIR teaching may not be called into question.



I am not afraid of having the lowest performing students however. I consider them a challenge and I consider it my duty to try to give these students the best quality education I can. But I am not a miracle worker. If my juniors are unable to read a single sentence of English how are they -in one year or two years- pass their proficiencies and complete the curriculum for college prep students in social studies? My job (as I see it) is to give these students an introduction to history, study skills and the reading of English. My theory is that the students must learn how to learn to read English first. If they can't do that then they cannot hope to engage the English medium curriculum. No one would expect first year American students of Spanish or French to score as well as high school students in France, Spain or Costa Rica so why should we expect immigrant students -often from the poorest and most disadvantaged classes- to read, write and score "ABOVE BASIC" , "PROFICIENT" or “ADVANCED on their standardized tests?



This writer remembers when Diane Ravitch was flirting with “voucherism” as a solution to low performing schools; but Ravitch examines the facts dispassionately and says "in sum, twenty years of vouchers in Milwaukee and a decade of the program's expansion to include religious school, there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind." Ravitch is exactly right that non-educators -often with no classroom experience- are simply not qualified to reform schools let alone run them.



Ravitch is blunt she says NCLB is wrong headed and "a timetable for the demolition of public education in the United States." Ravitch proves that Charter schools are no panacea. Ravitch proves that small schools (as touted by Bill Gates) are no solution. One thing she doesn't mention is that reforms like smaller schools and block schedules undermine and virtually destroy Advanced Placement programs because there are not the resources, students or teachers to sustain these programs. So in trying to improve a school we often dynamite the highest achieving classes. That makes no sense.



I am not irrevocably opposed to Charter schools or Catholic schools. In fact I spent much of my professional career teaching in Catholic schools or private education; at present I am still involved in tutoring “home schoolers” in subject areas their parents are unable to give them (such as Spanish and Latin). But like Ravitch I know that Charters ("school choice") by themselves are no answer to our societal and educational problem. And Ravitch documents the incompetence, theft and corruption associated with Charter schools such as The California Charter Academy which declared bankruptcy in 2004 stranding over 6000 students in more than 60 "storefront" schools. The founder of the organization -not an educator but a former insurance salesman- may have taken the State of California for over $100,000,000. That is no way to run a navy.



And by the way, does anyone think a nation can be defended by a citizen militia with private gunboats to protect the coast? Of course, not! No modern nation could defend itself on that basis. As Ron Unz noted many years ago not a single modern nation has dared to abandon universal public education. The USA would be very unwise if it were to abandon universal free public education.



Ravitch pulls no punches but is not a pessimistic doomsayer. She writes "If we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is. We should have goals that are worth striving for." Ravitch is right that our students need basic skills in literacy and numeracy but then says, wisely, "but that is not enough." Ravitch writes:



We want to prepare them for a useful life.

We want them to be able to think for themselves when they are out in the world on their own.

We want them to have a good character and to make sound decisions about their life, their work, and their health.

We want them to face life's joys and travails with courage and humor.

We hope that they will be kind and compassionate in their dealings with others.

We want them to have a sense of justice and fairness.

We want them to understand our nation and our world and the challenges we face.

We want them to be active, responsible citizens, and to reach decisions rationally. We want them to learn science and mathematics so they understand the problems of modern live and participate in finding solutions. We want them to enjoy the rich artistic and culture heritage of our society and other societies.



I may be mistaken but here I sense the influence of two other great teachers of the 20th century: NYU worthy Sidney Hook and another great Columbian like Dr. Ravitch, and one of the finest teachers and authors of the 20th century, Gilbert Highet. Hook, Sidney. (SEE "The Closing of the American Mind: An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited." The. American Scholar 58 (1989): pp. 123-35.)

.

And I may be mistaken again but I sense at least indirectly the influence of Catholic educators on Ms. Ravitch because when she speaks like this she sounds like Sister Rosemary of Holy Names Academy (Seattle) one of the hardest work and most inspiring teachers I ever had the privilege to work with. But this just goes to show you how catholic (small c) the intellectual influences have been on Diane Ravitch. Diane is always thinking, always revising, always researching and always exploring. She may have visited more schools and interviewed and corresponded with more teachers from more states and more countries than anybody alive. Ravitch is not parochial at all and she is right when she notes that countries like Finland and Japan have excellent public systems without rewards or sanctions of any kind. Ravitch notes "their students excel at tested subjects because they are well educated in many other subjects that teach them to use language well and to wrestle with important ideas.”



Ravitch is also right that our very expensive text books are, for the most part, veritable quaking bogs of boredom and ennui or as she put it in THE LANGUAGE POLICE sanitized PC tomes that create "the Empire of Boredom." Ravitch notes such PC textbooks "maintain a studied air of neutrality, thus ensuring the triumph of dullness.



In fact, I feel it is my primary job as a classroom teacher to enliven the curriculum with humorous anecdotes and great stories. It never ceases to amaze me how students pick up things in classroom discussion such as Butch O'Hare's notorious father (an associate of Al Capone) , why German machine guns had three times the rate of fire of the best Allied machine guns, why Hitler's V-2 rocket program may have ensured Hitler's defeat, why Puerto Rico produces zero illegal aliens (due to the Jones Act of 1917), how the Polish Air Force smuggled out a Nazi Enigma machine to England and help win the Battle of the Atlantic, how Lesley Howard may have helped kept Spain neutral and so became a target of assassination by the Nazis- the story of Earl Warren's immigrant wife and parents (none of whom were native English-speakers), how Martin Luther King survived TWO assassination attempts prior to 1968, the fact 80 or 90 year old women could be wet nurses to babies- this was once very common place in the Highlands and Islands- , stories of Cubans working in the Gran Zafra (sugar cane harvest), how primitive medicine was even as late as 1915 -no blood transfusions or antibiotics- Tiger tanks shooting duds because the shells had been sabotaged by slave laborers, Jacqueline Kennedy's famous pink dress at Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy giving speeches in fluent French and Spanish, John F. Kennedy using Latin and German in his Berlin speech, how Roosevelt helped establish the March of Dimes, and the story of the Candy Bombers during the Berlin Airlift. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction and it is these very human stories and curious anecdotes that help make history come alive.



And I might add that public schools are not the only places where safe mediocrity reigns; most books on required reading lists in Teacher Ed programs were unknown 50 years ago and I dare say will be unknown 50 years from now. What a colossal waste of paper, time and resources! As a case in point a good argument could be made that one could learn more about the Cold War, politics and totalitarianism by reading and studying in depth three pieces of literature than every text book every written: the candidates would be Animal Farm by Orwell, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak or perhaps the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. I know from experience that young peoples eyes light up when they read great literature filled with humor and insights.



Ravitch is absolutely right that curriculum, good curriculum is absolutely the sine qua non. She writes " It is a road map. Without a road map, you are sure to drive in circles and get nowhere...a sound curriculum ensures that young people will not remain ignorant of the most essential facts and ideas of the humanities and sciences."



Ravitch also has been made aware by her school visits and her many contacts with classroom teachers "in the trenches" how student behavior and civility has, essentially, collapsed. Teachers today hear more curse words and see more violence that any Marine recruit ever heard or witnessed in Camp Pendleton or Parris Island 30 years ago. Teachers are taxed to the breaking point by the constant challenge to their authority and disruptions to the learning process. It is a wonder more teachers don't break and attack their students. The fact is many teachers soldier on heroically resorting to mental health counseling and if things become unbearable they die or resign. I don't know of any teacher who gets combat pay or disability but they should. Just the other day a teacher had to take a loaded gun away from an intruder and it did not even make a line in the local paper. Ravitch is right on the mark when she says "schools must enforce standards of civility and teach student to respect themselves and others, or they cannot provide a safe, orderly environment which is necessary for learning."



Ravitch’s book is not a series of unsupported assertions by any means. Every chapter is very convincingly documented. My favorite chapter, as a school teacher, is chapter 9 "What would Mrs. Ratliff do?" Nobody knows Mrs. Ratliff but Ravitch makes it clear that Mrs. Ratliff was an unsung front line heroine of American civilization and education. American owes more to the Mrs. Ratliffs than most of its presidents past and present (if we are honest most were mediocre plodders or worse complete incompetents with a few glorious exceptions).



Who was Mrs.Ruby Ratliff ? She was none other than the mentor and homeroom teacher of Diane Ravitch herself. I found Ravitch's homage to her former teacher moving. Most teachers labor on in genteel poverty and rarely get any recognition but the teacher's reward is the gratitude of his or her many students. That is what makes it all worthwhile because one does not teach just for fun or for oneself but for the community and in a larger sense for one's civilization. Gilbert Highet once said that a teacher must know and love his subject and Ravitch emphasizes that Mrs. Ratliff loved her subject: the English language and its literature. Mrs. Ratliff had high standards and no doubt spent many hours after school and at home correcting essays, exams and reports. And Ravitch notes that Mrs. Ratliff did it all without once ever recurring to standardized multiple choice tests. That Ravitch does not say so I have a hunch she agrees with this classroom teacher that excessive use of standardized tests is like excessive consumption of junk food; in excess it is sheer poison.



One of the chief faults of American teachers and American education may be excessive overreliance on machine graded superficial bubble multiple guess tests which I may add are exceedingly easy to cheat on or fake. I am quite sure Mrs. Ratliff was never fooled by plagiarism or cheating and by her hands on familiarity with her students work easily spotted the `"rats" and "cheats".



If one seeks a `magic bullet' to cure our educational ills or as Ravitch humorously alludes to a "magic feather" a la Dumbo you will not find it here. Ravitch says "in education, there are no short cuts, no utopias, no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.



Truly, as Euclid reportedly said to King Ptolemy, “there is no Royal Road to Geometry." He or she who wants to learn mathematics, solve equations, writing clear prose and gain wisdom must toil and sweat for days, months and years on end. Ravitch is also right that the survival and success of our free society may depend on our public school system. If the public school system is allowed to wither away we may become more like Latin America (which has excellent private schools for the rich and non-existent or woefully inadequate public education for the many who are poor).



This way lies more than madness or bad policy.



This way lies social strife and class warfare to an extent that the independence, prosperity and unity of our Republic may be at risk.



Ravitch writes "it is unlikely that the United States would have emerged as a world leader had it left the development of education to the whim and will of the free market." In my opinion, she never wrote a truer line.



Education is neither about profit and loss nor merely about narrow utilitarian goals. America by its very nature has tended to be utilitarian and materialist for better or for worst. Success in America has always been measured by the accumulation of power, money, status, prestige, property and fame. In addition, Americans have always valued the new over the tried and true disregarding most traditions, -this is their philistine side - which when it comes to culture is often a mistake. The Greeks had a word for this “apeirokalia” (a lack of experience in things beautiful) and yet another which we could translate as `unculture' or "apaideusia" (ignorance of the greatest goods in life)..



Yet I would argue that the most enduring aspect of the American Dream is not these manifestations of pomp, prosperity and power-these things like the Almighty Dollar -presently quite anemic- our naval and air supremacy will pass away- but not the single most valuable we thing we have which is our free and splendid ancient heritage.



What are we to do? We must look firmly towards the future but must never forget the past -that is to say our splendid and free ancient heritage. Above all we must not throw in the towel. We must teach every man, woman and child to wish for liberty, to cherish liberty, to understand liberty and most importantly to be capable of it.



I always tell my students there are there are TWO educations:

The first education is the practical one we all need that teaches us what we need to make a living -most of us have to make a living.



The second education we need is the other education, the "true education" that which teaches us how to live our lives more fully by teaching us to think AND to appreciate `the Good Life". I can't imagine my life without the second education and I encourage my students to cultivate their private lives for their own benefit, happiness and enjoyment and for the unity and mental health of their families.



And we must have the humility and foresight to recognize a people without wisdom -without a strong culture- without a strong memory and strong values without strong schools- will come to ruin.



As we pass the torch to a new generation we are most fortunate to have the lantern of Ravitch's wisdom and learning to help us see a better way. With The Death and Life of the Great American School System Diane Ravitch has raised a monument more enduring than brass -to paraphrase Horace: Non omnis morieris.








Some years ago Diane Ravitch wrote LEFT BACK which is a minor masterpiece; years from now historians will recommend one book to understand the background of American public education and it will be LEFT BACK. With her new book, THE DEATH AND LIFE of the AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, Diane Ravitch has once again proven that she is the Grand Dame of the history of American education and once again has produced what must be classed as a permanent book a book scholars will turn to years from now as a standard sourcebook for American public education's virtues and vices.




Diane has always been a supporter of standards; as a public school teacher so am I. But Diane makes a powerful case that our scientism of day -which mistakenly believes schools can be judged or measured by such narrow instruments as scantron/edusoft bubble tests-is NOT an accurate measure of educational effectiveness.



Ravitch is also not afraid to state the obvious: the temptation for schools, teachers and administrators to game the system or cheat is sometimes overwhelming. Even honest administrators would be foolish not to drop students who never show up for class. The reason why is because NCLB hits schools for low participation points and students who don't show up count as a ZERO for school averages.



AYP's tell us something but they are not a valid barometer of true academic achievement. One would think that if a high school had 300 AP scholars a year that would count for something but it does not. But the reality that those 300 AP scholars are not merely proficient but far, far above state standards (ten times as much twenty times as much?). On the AYP's AP students are counted as just competent students. That would be like rating the US military but not counting the Special Forces or Marines. It is idiotic. Much of NCLB is idiotic and Ravitch proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



As a classroom teacher I know that teacher evaluations based on performance of standardized tests are notoriously biased. When I had all AP classes I was a genius and the "Jaime Escalante" of Bakersfield. The truth is even Jaime Escalante was not Jaime Escalante when he was challenged by a different school body with different problems and different cultural backgrounds than Mr. Escalante was accustomed to. And similarly, now that I have no AP students my test scores are no longer so stellar. The reality is the friends of the principal or departments chairs make sure to assign themselves the best classes so that THEIR teaching may not be called into question.



I am not afraid of having the lowest performing students however. I consider them a challenge and I consider it my duty to try to give these students the best quality education I can. But I am not a miracle worker. If my juniors are unable to read a single sentence of English how are they -in one year or two years- pass their proficiencies and complete the curriculum for college prep students in social studies? My job (as I see it) is to give these students an introduction to history, study skills and the reading of English. My theory is that the students must learn how to learn to read English first. If they can't do that then they cannot hope to engage the English medium curriculum. No one would expect first year American students of Spanish or French to score as well as high school students in France, Spain or Costa Rica so why should we expect immigrant students -often from the poorest and most disadvantaged classes- to read, write and score "ABOVE BASIC" , "PROFICIENT" or “ADVANCED on their standardized tests?



This writer remembers when Diane Ravitch was flirting with “voucherism” as a solution to low performing schools; but Ravitch examines the facts dispassionately and says "in sum, twenty years of vouchers in Milwaukee and a decade of the program's expansion to include religious school, there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind." Ravitch is exactly right that non-educators -often with no classroom experience- are simply not qualified to reform schools let alone run them.



Ravitch is blunt she says NCLB is wrong headed and "a timetable for the demolition of public education in the United States." Ravitch proves that Charter schools are no panacea. Ravitch proves that small schools (as touted by Bill Gates) are no solution. One thing she doesn't mention is that reforms like smaller schools and block schedules undermine and virtually destroy Advanced Placement programs because there are not the resources, students or teachers to sustain these programs. So in trying to improve a school we often dynamite the highest achieving classes. That makes no sense.



I am not irrevocably opposed to Charter schools or Catholic schools. In fact I spent much of my professional career teaching in Catholic schools or private education; at present I am still involved in tutoring “home schoolers” in subject areas their parents are unable to give them (such as Spanish and Latin). But like Ravitch I know that Charters ("school choice") by themselves are no answer to our societal and educational problem. And Ravitch documents the incompetence, theft and corruption associated with Charter schools such as The California Charter Academy which declared bankruptcy in 2004 stranding over 6000 students in more than 60 "storefront" schools. The founder of the organization -not an educator but a former insurance salesman- may have taken the State of California for over $100,000,000. That is no way to run a navy.



And by the way, does anyone think a nation can be defended by a citizen militia with private gunboats to protect the coast? Of course, not! No modern nation could defend itself on that basis. As Ron Unz noted many years ago not a single modern nation has dared to abandon universal public education. The USA would be very unwise if it were to abandon universal free public education.



Ravitch pulls no punches but is not a pessimistic doomsayer. She writes "If we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is. We should have goals that are worth striving for." Ravitch is right that our students need basic skills in literacy and numeracy but then says, wisely, "but that is not enough." Ravitch writes:



We want to prepare them for a useful life.

We want them to be able to think for themselves when they are out in the world on their own.

We want them to have a good character and to make sound decisions about their life, their work, and their health.

We want them to face life's joys and travails with courage and humor.

We hope that they will be kind and compassionate in their dealings with others.

We want them to have a sense of justice and fairness.

We want them to understand our nation and our world and the challenges we face.

We want them to be active, responsible citizens, and to reach decisions rationally. We want them to learn science and mathematics so they understand the problems of modern live and participate in finding solutions. We want them to enjoy the rich artistic and culture heritage of our society and other societies.



I may be mistaken but here I sense the influence of two other great teachers of the 20th century: NYU worthy Sidney Hook and another great Columbian like Dr. Ravitch, and one of the finest teachers and authors of the 20th century, Gilbert Highet. Hook, Sidney. (SEE "The Closing of the American Mind: An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited." The. American Scholar 58 (1989): pp. 123-35.)

.

And I may be mistaken again but I sense at least indirectly the influence of Catholic educators on Ms. Ravitch because when she speaks like this she sounds like Sister Rosemary of Holy Names Academy (Seattle) one of the hardest work and most inspiring teachers I ever had the privilege to work with. But this just goes to show you how catholic (small c) the intellectual influences have been on Diane Ravitch. Diane is always thinking, always revising, always researching and always exploring. She may have visited more schools and interviewed and corresponded with more teachers from more states and more countries than anybody alive. Ravitch is not parochial at all and she is right when she notes that countries like Finland and Japan have excellent public systems without rewards or sanctions of any kind. Ravitch notes "their students excel at tested subjects because they are well educated in many other subjects that teach them to use language well and to wrestle with important ideas.”



Ravitch is also right that our very expensive text books are, for the most part, veritable quaking bogs of boredom and ennui or as she put it in THE LANGUAGE POLICE sanitized PC tomes that create "the Empire of Boredom." Ravitch notes such PC textbooks "maintain a studied air of neutrality, thus ensuring the triumph of dullness.



In fact, I feel it is my primary job as a classroom teacher to enliven the curriculum with humorous anecdotes and great stories. It never ceases to amaze me how students pick up things in classroom discussion such as Butch O'Hare's notorious father (an associate of Al Capone) , why German machine guns had three times the rate of fire of the best Allied machine guns, why Hitler's V-2 rocket program may have ensured Hitler's defeat, why Puerto Rico produces zero illegal aliens (due to the Jones Act of 1917), how the Polish Air Force smuggled out a Nazi Enigma machine to England and help win the Battle of the Atlantic, how Lesley Howard may have helped kept Spain neutral and so became a target of assassination by the Nazis- the story of Earl Warren's immigrant wife and parents (none of whom were native English-speakers), how Martin Luther King survived TWO assassination attempts prior to 1968, the fact 80 or 90 year old women could be wet nurses to babies- this was once very common place in the Highlands and Islands- , stories of Cubans working in the Gran Zafra (sugar cane harvest), how primitive medicine was even as late as 1915 -no blood transfusions or antibiotics- Tiger tanks shooting duds because the shells had been sabotaged by slave laborers, Jacqueline Kennedy's famous pink dress at Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy giving speeches in fluent French and Spanish, John F. Kennedy using Latin and German in his Berlin speech, how Roosevelt helped establish the March of Dimes, and the story of the Candy Bombers during the Berlin Airlift. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction and it is these very human stories and curious anecdotes that help make history come alive.



And I might add that public schools are not the only places where safe mediocrity reigns; most books on required reading lists in Teacher Ed programs were unknown 50 years ago and I dare say will be unknown 50 years from now. What a colossal waste of paper, time and resources! As a case in point a good argument could be made that one could learn more about the Cold War, politics and totalitarianism by reading and studying in depth three pieces of literature than every text book every written: the candidates would be Animal Farm by Orwell, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak or perhaps the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. I know from experience that young peoples eyes light up when they read great literature filled with humor and insights.



Ravitch is absolutely right that curriculum, good curriculum is absolutely the sine qua non. She writes " It is a road map. Without a road map, you are sure to drive in circles and get nowhere...a sound curriculum ensures that young people will not remain ignorant of the most essential facts and ideas of the humanities and sciences."



Ravitch also has been made aware by her school visits and her many contacts with classroom teachers "in the trenches" how student behavior and civility has, essentially, collapsed. Teachers today hear more curse words and see more violence that any Marine recruit ever heard or witnessed in Camp Pendleton or Parris Island 30 years ago. Teachers are taxed to the breaking point by the constant challenge to their authority and disruptions to the learning process. It is a wonder more teachers don't break and attack their students. The fact is many teachers soldier on heroically resorting to mental health counseling and if things become unbearable they die or resign. I don't know of any teacher who gets combat pay or disability but they should. Just the other day a teacher had to take a loaded gun away from an intruder and it did not even make a line in the local paper. Ravitch is right on the mark when she says "schools must enforce standards of civility and teach student to respect themselves and others, or they cannot provide a safe, orderly environment which is necessary for learning."



Ravitch’s book is not a series of unsupported assertions by any means. Every chapter is very convincingly documented. My favorite chapter, as a school teacher, is chapter 9 "What would Mrs. Ratliff do?" Nobody knows Mrs. Ratliff but Ravitch makes it clear that Mrs. Ratliff was an unsung front line heroine of American civilization and education. American owes more to the Mrs. Ratliffs than most of its presidents past and present (if we are honest most were mediocre plodders or worse complete incompetents with a few glorious exceptions).



Who was Mrs.Ruby Ratliff ? She was none other than the mentor and homeroom teacher of Diane Ravitch herself. I found Ravitch's homage to her former teacher moving. Most teachers labor on in genteel poverty and rarely get any recognition but the teacher's reward is the gratitude of his or her many students. That is what makes it all worthwhile because one does not teach just for fun or for oneself but for the community and in a larger sense for one's civilization. Gilbert Highet once said that a teacher must know and love his subject and Ravitch emphasizes that Mrs. Ratliff loved her subject: the English language and its literature. Mrs. Ratliff had high standards and no doubt spent many hours after school and at home correcting essays, exams and reports. And Ravitch notes that Mrs. Ratliff did it all without once ever recurring to standardized multiple choice tests. That Ravitch does not say so I have a hunch she agrees with this classroom teacher that excessive use of standardized tests is like excessive consumption of junk food; in excess it is sheer poison.



One of the chief faults of American teachers and American education may be excessive overreliance on machine graded superficial bubble multiple guess tests which I may add are exceedingly easy to cheat on or fake. I am quite sure Mrs. Ratliff was never fooled by plagiarism or cheating and by her hands on familiarity with her students work easily spotted the `"rats" and "cheats".



If one seeks a `magic bullet' to cure our educational ills or as Ravitch humorously alludes to a "magic feather" a la Dumbo you will not find it here. Ravitch says "in education, there are no short cuts, no utopias, no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.



Truly, as Euclid reportedly said to King Ptolemy, “there is no Royal Road to Geometry." He or she who wants to learn mathematics, solve equations, writing clear prose and gain wisdom must toil and sweat for days, months and years on end. Ravitch is also right that the survival and success of our free society may depend on our public school system. If the public school system is allowed to wither away we may become more like Latin America (which has excellent private schools for the rich and non-existent or woefully inadequate public education for the many who are poor).



This way lies more than madness or bad policy.



This way lies social strife and class warfare to an extent that the independence, prosperity and unity of our Republic may be at risk.



Ravitch writes "it is unlikely that the United States would have emerged as a world leader had it left the development of education to the whim and will of the free market." In my opinion, she never wrote a truer line.



Education is neither about profit and loss nor merely about narrow utilitarian goals. America by its very nature has tended to be utilitarian and materialist for better or for worst. Success in America has always been measured by the accumulation of power, money, status, prestige, property and fame. In addition, Americans have always valued the new over the tried and true disregarding most traditions, -this is their philistine side - which when it comes to culture is often a mistake. The Greeks had a word for this “apeirokalia” (a lack of experience in things beautiful) and yet another which we could translate as `unculture' or "apaideusia" (ignorance of the greatest goods in life)..



Yet I would argue that the most enduring aspect of the American Dream is not these manifestations of pomp, prosperity and power-these things like the Almighty Dollar -presently quite anemic- our naval and air supremacy will pass away- but not the single most valuable we thing we have which is our free and splendid ancient heritage.



What are we to do? We must look firmly towards the future but must never forget the past -that is to say our splendid and free ancient heritage. Above all we must not throw in the towel. We must teach every man, woman and child to wish for liberty, to cherish liberty, to understand liberty and most importantly to be capable of it.



I always tell my students there are there are TWO educations:

The first education is the practical one we all need that teaches us what we need to make a living -most of us have to make a living.



The second education we need is the other education, the "true education" that which teaches us how to live our lives more fully by teaching us to think AND to appreciate `the Good Life". I can't imagine my life without the second education and I encourage my students to cultivate their private lives for their own benefit, happiness and enjoyment and for the unity and mental health of their families.



And we must have the humility and foresight to recognize a people without wisdom -without a strong culture- without a strong memory and strong values without strong schools- will come to ruin.



As we pass the torch to a new generation we are most fortunate to have the lantern of Ravitch's wisdom and learning to help us see a better way. With The Death and Life of the Great American School System Diane Ravitch has raised a monument more enduring than brass -to paraphrase Horace: Non omnis morieris.







Some years ago Diane Ravitch wrote LEFT BACK which is a minor masterpiece; years from now historians will recommend one book to understand the background of American public education and it will be LEFT BACK. With her new book, THE DEATH AND LIFE of the AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, Diane Ravitch has once again proven that she is the Grand Dame of the history of American education and once again has produced what must be classed as a permanent book a book scholars will turn to years from now as a standard sourcebook for American public education's virtues and vices.




Diane has always been a supporter of standards; as a public school teacher so am I. But Diane makes a powerful case that our scientism of day -which mistakenly believes schools can be judged or measured by such narrow instruments as scantron/edusoft bubble tests-is NOT an accurate measure of educational effectiveness.



Ravitch is also not afraid to state the obvious: the temptation for schools, teachers and administrators to game the system or cheat is sometimes overwhelming. Even honest administrators would be foolish not to drop students who never show up for class. The reason why is because NCLB hits schools for low participation points and students who don't show up count as a ZERO for school averages.



AYP's tell us something but they are not a valid barometer of true academic achievement. One would think that if a high school had 300 AP scholars a year that would count for something but it does not. But the reality that those 300 AP scholars are not merely proficient but far, far above state standards (ten times as much twenty times as much?). On the AYP's AP students are counted as just competent students. That would be like rating the US military but not counting the Special Forces or Marines. It is idiotic. Much of NCLB is idiotic and Ravitch proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



As a classroom teacher I know that teacher evaluations based on performance of standardized tests are notoriously biased. When I had all AP classes I was a genius and the "Jaime Escalante" of Bakersfield. The truth is even Jaime Escalante was not Jaime Escalante when he was challenged by a different school body with different problems and different cultural backgrounds than Mr. Escalante was accustomed to. And similarly, now that I have no AP students my test scores are no longer so stellar. The reality is the friends of the principal or departments chairs make sure to assign themselves the best classes so that THEIR teaching may not be called into question.



I am not afraid of having the lowest performing students however. I consider them a challenge and I consider it my duty to try to give these students the best quality education I can. But I am not a miracle worker. If my juniors are unable to read a single sentence of English how are they -in one year or two years- pass their proficiencies and complete the curriculum for college prep students in social studies? My job (as I see it) is to give these students an introduction to history, study skills and the reading of English. My theory is that the students must learn how to learn to read English first. If they can't do that then they cannot hope to engage the English medium curriculum. No one would expect first year American students of Spanish or French to score as well as high school students in France, Spain or Costa Rica so why should we expect immigrant students -often from the poorest and most disadvantaged classes- to read, write and score "ABOVE BASIC" , "PROFICIENT" or “ADVANCED on their standardized tests?



This writer remembers when Diane Ravitch was flirting with “voucherism” as a solution to low performing schools; but Ravitch examines the facts dispassionately and says "in sum, twenty years of vouchers in Milwaukee and a decade of the program's expansion to include religious school, there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind." Ravitch is exactly right that non-educators -often with no classroom experience- are simply not qualified to reform schools let alone run them.



Ravitch is blunt she says NCLB is wrong headed and "a timetable for the demolition of public education in the United States." Ravitch proves that Charter schools are no panacea. Ravitch proves that small schools (as touted by Bill Gates) are no solution. One thing she doesn't mention is that reforms like smaller schools and block schedules undermine and virtually destroy Advanced Placement programs because there are not the resources, students or teachers to sustain these programs. So in trying to improve a school we often dynamite the highest achieving classes. That makes no sense.



I am not irrevocably opposed to Charter schools or Catholic schools. In fact I spent much of my professional career teaching in Catholic schools or private education; at present I am still involved in tutoring “home schoolers” in subject areas their parents are unable to give them (such as Spanish and Latin). But like Ravitch I know that Charters ("school choice") by themselves are no answer to our societal and educational problem. And Ravitch documents the incompetence, theft and corruption associated with Charter schools such as The California Charter Academy which declared bankruptcy in 2004 stranding over 6000 students in more than 60 "storefront" schools. The founder of the organization -not an educator but a former insurance salesman- may have taken the State of California for over $100,000,000. That is no way to run a navy.



And by the way, does anyone think a nation can be defended by a citizen militia with private gunboats to protect the coast? Of course, not! No modern nation could defend itself on that basis. As Ron Unz noted many years ago not a single modern nation has dared to abandon universal public education. The USA would be very unwise if it were to abandon universal free public education.



Ravitch pulls no punches but is not a pessimistic doomsayer. She writes "If we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is. We should have goals that are worth striving for." Ravitch is right that our students need basic skills in literacy and numeracy but then says, wisely, "but that is not enough." Ravitch writes:



We want to prepare them for a useful life.

We want them to be able to think for themselves when they are out in the world on their own.

We want them to have a good character and to make sound decisions about their life, their work, and their health.

We want them to face life's joys and travails with courage and humor.

We hope that they will be kind and compassionate in their dealings with others.

We want them to have a sense of justice and fairness.

We want them to understand our nation and our world and the challenges we face.

We want them to be active, responsible citizens, and to reach decisions rationally. We want them to learn science and mathematics so they understand the problems of modern live and participate in finding solutions. We want them to enjoy the rich artistic and culture heritage of our society and other societies.



I may be mistaken but here I sense the influence of two other great teachers of the 20th century: NYU worthy Sidney Hook and another great Columbian like Dr. Ravitch, and one of the finest teachers and authors of the 20th century, Gilbert Highet. Hook, Sidney. (SEE "The Closing of the American Mind: An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited." The. American Scholar 58 (1989): pp. 123-35.)

.

And I may be mistaken again but I sense at least indirectly the influence of Catholic educators on Ms. Ravitch because when she speaks like this she sounds like Sister Rosemary of Holy Names Academy (Seattle) one of the hardest work and most inspiring teachers I ever had the privilege to work with. But this just goes to show you how catholic (small c) the intellectual influences have been on Diane Ravitch. Diane is always thinking, always revising, always researching and always exploring. She may have visited more schools and interviewed and corresponded with more teachers from more states and more countries than anybody alive. Ravitch is not parochial at all and she is right when she notes that countries like Finland and Japan have excellent public systems without rewards or sanctions of any kind. Ravitch notes "their students excel at tested subjects because they are well educated in many other subjects that teach them to use language well and to wrestle with important ideas.”



Ravitch is also right that our very expensive text books are, for the most part, veritable quaking bogs of boredom and ennui or as she put it in THE LANGUAGE POLICE sanitized PC tomes that create "the Empire of Boredom." Ravitch notes such PC textbooks "maintain a studied air of neutrality, thus ensuring the triumph of dullness.



In fact, I feel it is my primary job as a classroom teacher to enliven the curriculum with humorous anecdotes and great stories. It never ceases to amaze me how students pick up things in classroom discussion such as Butch O'Hare's notorious father (an associate of Al Capone) , why German machine guns had three times the rate of fire of the best Allied machine guns, why Hitler's V-2 rocket program may have ensured Hitler's defeat, why Puerto Rico produces zero illegal aliens (due to the Jones Act of 1917), how the Polish Air Force smuggled out a Nazi Enigma machine to England and help win the Battle of the Atlantic, how Lesley Howard may have helped kept Spain neutral and so became a target of assassination by the Nazis- the story of Earl Warren's immigrant wife and parents (none of whom were native English-speakers), how Martin Luther King survived TWO assassination attempts prior to 1968, the fact 80 or 90 year old women could be wet nurses to babies- this was once very common place in the Highlands and Islands- , stories of Cubans working in the Gran Zafra (sugar cane harvest), how primitive medicine was even as late as 1915 -no blood transfusions or antibiotics- Tiger tanks shooting duds because the shells had been sabotaged by slave laborers, Jacqueline Kennedy's famous pink dress at Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy giving speeches in fluent French and Spanish, John F. Kennedy using Latin and German in his Berlin speech, how Roosevelt helped establish the March of Dimes, and the story of the Candy Bombers during the Berlin Airlift. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction and it is these very human stories and curious anecdotes that help make history come alive.



And I might add that public schools are not the only places where safe mediocrity reigns; most books on required reading lists in Teacher Ed programs were unknown 50 years ago and I dare say will be unknown 50 years from now. What a colossal waste of paper, time and resources! As a case in point a good argument could be made that one could learn more about the Cold War, politics and totalitarianism by reading and studying in depth three pieces of literature than every text book every written: the candidates would be Animal Farm by Orwell, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak or perhaps the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. I know from experience that young peoples eyes light up when they read great literature filled with humor and insights.



Ravitch is absolutely right that curriculum, good curriculum is absolutely the sine qua non. She writes " It is a road map. Without a road map, you are sure to drive in circles and get nowhere...a sound curriculum ensures that young people will not remain ignorant of the most essential facts and ideas of the humanities and sciences."



Ravitch also has been made aware by her school visits and her many contacts with classroom teachers "in the trenches" how student behavior and civility has, essentially, collapsed. Teachers today hear more curse words and see more violence that any Marine recruit ever heard or witnessed in Camp Pendleton or Parris Island 30 years ago. Teachers are taxed to the breaking point by the constant challenge to their authority and disruptions to the learning process. It is a wonder more teachers don't break and attack their students. The fact is many teachers soldier on heroically resorting to mental health counseling and if things become unbearable they die or resign. I don't know of any teacher who gets combat pay or disability but they should. Just the other day a teacher had to take a loaded gun away from an intruder and it did not even make a line in the local paper. Ravitch is right on the mark when she says "schools must enforce standards of civility and teach student to respect themselves and others, or they cannot provide a safe, orderly environment which is necessary for learning."



Ravitch’s book is not a series of unsupported assertions by any means. Every chapter is very convincingly documented. My favorite chapter, as a school teacher, is chapter 9 "What would Mrs. Ratliff do?" Nobody knows Mrs. Ratliff but Ravitch makes it clear that Mrs. Ratliff was an unsung front line heroine of American civilization and education. American owes more to the Mrs. Ratliffs than most of its presidents past and present (if we are honest most were mediocre plodders or worse complete incompetents with a few glorious exceptions).



Who was Mrs.Ruby Ratliff ? She was none other than the mentor and homeroom teacher of Diane Ravitch herself. I found Ravitch's homage to her former teacher moving. Most teachers labor on in genteel poverty and rarely get any recognition but the teacher's reward is the gratitude of his or her many students. That is what makes it all worthwhile because one does not teach just for fun or for oneself but for the community and in a larger sense for one's civilization. Gilbert Highet once said that a teacher must know and love his subject and Ravitch emphasizes that Mrs. Ratliff loved her subject: the English language and its literature. Mrs. Ratliff had high standards and no doubt spent many hours after school and at home correcting essays, exams and reports. And Ravitch notes that Mrs. Ratliff did it all without once ever recurring to standardized multiple choice tests. That Ravitch does not say so I have a hunch she agrees with this classroom teacher that excessive use of standardized tests is like excessive consumption of junk food; in excess it is sheer poison.



One of the chief faults of American teachers and American education may be excessive overreliance on machine graded superficial bubble multiple guess tests which I may add are exceedingly easy to cheat on or fake. I am quite sure Mrs. Ratliff was never fooled by plagiarism or cheating and by her hands on familiarity with her students work easily spotted the `"rats" and "cheats".



If one seeks a `magic bullet' to cure our educational ills or as Ravitch humorously alludes to a "magic feather" a la Dumbo you will not find it here. Ravitch says "in education, there are no short cuts, no utopias, no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.



Truly, as Euclid reportedly said to King Ptolemy, “there is no Royal Road to Geometry." He or she who wants to learn mathematics, solve equations, writing clear prose and gain wisdom must toil and sweat for days, months and years on end. Ravitch is also right that the survival and success of our free society may depend on our public school system. If the public school system is allowed to wither away we may become more like Latin America (which has excellent private schools for the rich and non-existent or woefully inadequate public education for the many who are poor).



This way lies more than madness or bad policy.



This way lies social strife and class warfare to an extent that the independence, prosperity and unity of our Republic may be at risk.



Ravitch writes "it is unlikely that the United States would have emerged as a world leader had it left the development of education to the whim and will of the free market." In my opinion, she never wrote a truer line.



Education is neither about profit and loss nor merely about narrow utilitarian goals. America by its very nature has tended to be utilitarian and materialist for better or for worst. Success in America has always been measured by the accumulation of power, money, status, prestige, property and fame. In addition, Americans have always valued the new over the tried and true disregarding most traditions, -this is their philistine side - which when it comes to culture is often a mistake. The Greeks had a word for this “apeirokalia” (a lack of experience in things beautiful) and yet another which we could translate as `unculture' or "apaideusia" (ignorance of the greatest goods in life)..



Yet I would argue that the most enduring aspect of the American Dream is not these manifestations of pomp, prosperity and power-these things like the Almighty Dollar -presently quite anemic- our naval and air supremacy will pass away- but not the single most valuable we thing we have which is our free and splendid ancient heritage.



What are we to do? We must look firmly towards the future but must never forget the past -that is to say our splendid and free ancient heritage. Above all we must not throw in the towel. We must teach every man, woman and child to wish for liberty, to cherish liberty, to understand liberty and most importantly to be capable of it.



I always tell my students there are there are TWO educations:

The first education is the practical one we all need that teaches us what we need to make a living -most of us have to make a living.



The second education we need is the other education, the "true education" that which teaches us how to live our lives more fully by teaching us to think AND to appreciate `the Good Life". I can't imagine my life without the second education and I encourage my students to cultivate their private lives for their own benefit, happiness and enjoyment and for the unity and mental health of their families.



And we must have the humility and foresight to recognize a people without wisdom -without a strong culture- without a strong memory and strong values without strong schools- will come to ruin.



As we pass the torch to a new generation we are most fortunate to have the lantern of Ravitch's wisdom and learning to help us see a better way. With The Death and Life of the Great American School System Diane Ravitch has raised a monument more enduring than brass -to paraphrase Horace: Non omnis morieris.





Some years ago Diane Ravitch wrote LEFT BACK which is a minor masterpiece; years from now historians will recommend one book to understand the background of American public education and it will be LEFT BACK. With her new book, THE DEATH AND LIFE of the AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM, Diane Ravitch has once again proven that she is the Grand Dame of the history of American education and once again has produced what must be classed as a permanent book a book scholars will turn to years from now as a standard sourcebook for American public education's virtues and vices.




Diane has always been a supporter of standards; as a public school teacher so am I. But Diane makes a powerful case that our scientism of day -which mistakenly believes schools can be judged or measured by such narrow instruments as scantron/edusoft bubble tests-is NOT an accurate measure of educational effectiveness.



Ravitch is also not afraid to state the obvious: the temptation for schools, teachers and administrators to game the system or cheat is sometimes overwhelming. Even honest administrators would be foolish not to drop students who never show up for class. The reason why is because NCLB hits schools for low participation points and students who don't show up count as a ZERO for school averages.



AYP's tell us something but they are not a valid barometer of true academic achievement. One would think that if a high school had 300 AP scholars a year that would count for something but it does not. But the reality that those 300 AP scholars are not merely proficient but far, far above state standards (ten times as much twenty times as much?). On the AYP's AP students are counted as just competent students. That would be like rating the US military but not counting the Special Forces or Marines. It is idiotic. Much of NCLB is idiotic and Ravitch proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



As a classroom teacher I know that teacher evaluations based on performance of standardized tests are notoriously biased. When I had all AP classes I was a genius and the "Jaime Escalante" of Bakersfield. The truth is even Jaime Escalante was not Jaime Escalante when he was challenged by a different school body with different problems and different cultural backgrounds than Mr. Escalante was accustomed to. And similarly, now that I have no AP students my test scores are no longer so stellar. The reality is the friends of the principal or departments chairs make sure to assign themselves the best classes so that THEIR teaching may not be called into question.



I am not afraid of having the lowest performing students however. I consider them a challenge and I consider it my duty to try to give these students the best quality education I can. But I am not a miracle worker. If my juniors are unable to read a single sentence of English how are they -in one year or two years- pass their proficiencies and complete the curriculum for college prep students in social studies? My job (as I see it) is to give these students an introduction to history, study skills and the reading of English. My theory is that the students must learn how to learn to read English first. If they can't do that then they cannot hope to engage the English medium curriculum. No one would expect first year American students of Spanish or French to score as well as high school students in France, Spain or Costa Rica so why should we expect immigrant students -often from the poorest and most disadvantaged classes- to read, write and score "ABOVE BASIC" , "PROFICIENT" or “ADVANCED on their standardized tests?



This writer remembers when Diane Ravitch was flirting with “voucherism” as a solution to low performing schools; but Ravitch examines the facts dispassionately and says "in sum, twenty years of vouchers in Milwaukee and a decade of the program's expansion to include religious school, there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind." Ravitch is exactly right that non-educators -often with no classroom experience- are simply not qualified to reform schools let alone run them.



Ravitch is blunt she says NCLB is wrong headed and "a timetable for the demolition of public education in the United States." Ravitch proves that Charter schools are no panacea. Ravitch proves that small schools (as touted by Bill Gates) are no solution. One thing she doesn't mention is that reforms like smaller schools and block schedules undermine and virtually destroy Advanced Placement programs because there are not the resources, students or teachers to sustain these programs. So in trying to improve a school we often dynamite the highest achieving classes. That makes no sense.



I am not irrevocably opposed to Charter schools or Catholic schools. In fact I spent much of my professional career teaching in Catholic schools or private education; at present I am still involved in tutoring “home schoolers” in subject areas their parents are unable to give them (such as Spanish and Latin). But like Ravitch I know that Charters ("school choice") by themselves are no answer to our societal and educational problem. And Ravitch documents the incompetence, theft and corruption associated with Charter schools such as The California Charter Academy which declared bankruptcy in 2004 stranding over 6000 students in more than 60 "storefront" schools. The founder of the organization -not an educator but a former insurance salesman- may have taken the State of California for over $100,000,000. That is no way to run a navy.



And by the way, does anyone think a nation can be defended by a citizen militia with private gunboats to protect the coast? Of course, not! No modern nation could defend itself on that basis. As Ron Unz noted many years ago not a single modern nation has dared to abandon universal public education. The USA would be very unwise if it were to abandon universal free public education.



Ravitch pulls no punches but is not a pessimistic doomsayer. She writes "If we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is. We should have goals that are worth striving for." Ravitch is right that our students need basic skills in literacy and numeracy but then says, wisely, "but that is not enough." Ravitch writes:



We want to prepare them for a useful life.

We want them to be able to think for themselves when they are out in the world on their own.

We want them to have a good character and to make sound decisions about their life, their work, and their health.

We want them to face life's joys and travails with courage and humor.

We hope that they will be kind and compassionate in their dealings with others.

We want them to have a sense of justice and fairness.

We want them to understand our nation and our world and the challenges we face.

We want them to be active, responsible citizens, and to reach decisions rationally. We want them to learn science and mathematics so they understand the problems of modern live and participate in finding solutions. We want them to enjoy the rich artistic and culture heritage of our society and other societies.



I may be mistaken but here I sense the influence of two other great teachers of the 20th century: NYU worthy Sidney Hook and another great Columbian like Dr. Ravitch, and one of the finest teachers and authors of the 20th century, Gilbert Highet. Hook, Sidney. (SEE "The Closing of the American Mind: An Intellectual Best-Seller Revisited." The. American Scholar 58 (1989): pp. 123-35.)

.

And I may be mistaken again but I sense at least indirectly the influence of Catholic educators on Ms. Ravitch because when she speaks like this she sounds like Sister Rosemary of Holy Names Academy (Seattle) one of the hardest work and most inspiring teachers I ever had the privilege to work with. But this just goes to show you how catholic (small c) the intellectual influences have been on Diane Ravitch. Diane is always thinking, always revising, always researching and always exploring. She may have visited more schools and interviewed and corresponded with more teachers from more states and more countries than anybody alive. Ravitch is not parochial at all and she is right when she notes that countries like Finland and Japan have excellent public systems without rewards or sanctions of any kind. Ravitch notes "their students excel at tested subjects because they are well educated in many other subjects that teach them to use language well and to wrestle with important ideas.”



Ravitch is also right that our very expensive text books are, for the most part, veritable quaking bogs of boredom and ennui or as she put it in THE LANGUAGE POLICE sanitized PC tomes that create "the Empire of Boredom." Ravitch notes such PC textbooks "maintain a studied air of neutrality, thus ensuring the triumph of dullness.



In fact, I feel it is my primary job as a classroom teacher to enliven the curriculum with humorous anecdotes and great stories. It never ceases to amaze me how students pick up things in classroom discussion such as Butch O'Hare's notorious father (an associate of Al Capone) , why German machine guns had three times the rate of fire of the best Allied machine guns, why Hitler's V-2 rocket program may have ensured Hitler's defeat, why Puerto Rico produces zero illegal aliens (due to the Jones Act of 1917), how the Polish Air Force smuggled out a Nazi Enigma machine to England and help win the Battle of the Atlantic, how Lesley Howard may have helped kept Spain neutral and so became a target of assassination by the Nazis- the story of Earl Warren's immigrant wife and parents (none of whom were native English-speakers), how Martin Luther King survived TWO assassination attempts prior to 1968, the fact 80 or 90 year old women could be wet nurses to babies- this was once very common place in the Highlands and Islands- , stories of Cubans working in the Gran Zafra (sugar cane harvest), how primitive medicine was even as late as 1915 -no blood transfusions or antibiotics- Tiger tanks shooting duds because the shells had been sabotaged by slave laborers, Jacqueline Kennedy's famous pink dress at Dallas, Mrs. Kennedy giving speeches in fluent French and Spanish, John F. Kennedy using Latin and German in his Berlin speech, how Roosevelt helped establish the March of Dimes, and the story of the Candy Bombers during the Berlin Airlift. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction and it is these very human stories and curious anecdotes that help make history come alive.



And I might add that public schools are not the only places where safe mediocrity reigns; most books on required reading lists in Teacher Ed programs were unknown 50 years ago and I dare say will be unknown 50 years from now. What a colossal waste of paper, time and resources! As a case in point a good argument could be made that one could learn more about the Cold War, politics and totalitarianism by reading and studying in depth three pieces of literature than every text book every written: the candidates would be Animal Farm by Orwell, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak or perhaps the First Circle by Solzhenitsyn. I know from experience that young peoples eyes light up when they read great literature filled with humor and insights.



Ravitch is absolutely right that curriculum, good curriculum is absolutely the sine qua non. She writes " It is a road map. Without a road map, you are sure to drive in circles and get nowhere...a sound curriculum ensures that young people will not remain ignorant of the most essential facts and ideas of the humanities and sciences."



Ravitch also has been made aware by her school visits and her many contacts with classroom teachers "in the trenches" how student behavior and civility has, essentially, collapsed. Teachers today hear more curse words and see more violence that any Marine recruit ever heard or witnessed in Camp Pendleton or Parris Island 30 years ago. Teachers are taxed to the breaking point by the constant challenge to their authority and disruptions to the learning process. It is a wonder more teachers don't break and attack their students. The fact is many teachers soldier on heroically resorting to mental health counseling and if things become unbearable they die or resign. I don't know of any teacher who gets combat pay or disability but they should. Just the other day a teacher had to take a loaded gun away from an intruder and it did not even make a line in the local paper. Ravitch is right on the mark when she says "schools must enforce standards of civility and teach student to respect themselves and others, or they cannot provide a safe, orderly environment which is necessary for learning."



Ravitch’s book is not a series of unsupported assertions by any means. Every chapter is very convincingly documented. My favorite chapter, as a school teacher, is chapter 9 "What would Mrs. Ratliff do?" Nobody knows Mrs. Ratliff but Ravitch makes it clear that Mrs. Ratliff was an unsung front line heroine of American civilization and education. American owes more to the Mrs. Ratliffs than most of its presidents past and present (if we are honest most were mediocre plodders or worse complete incompetents with a few glorious exceptions).



Who was Mrs.Ruby Ratliff ? She was none other than the mentor and homeroom teacher of Diane Ravitch herself. I found Ravitch's homage to her former teacher moving. Most teachers labor on in genteel poverty and rarely get any recognition but the teacher's reward is the gratitude of his or her many students. That is what makes it all worthwhile because one does not teach just for fun or for oneself but for the community and in a larger sense for one's civilization. Gilbert Highet once said that a teacher must know and love his subject and Ravitch emphasizes that Mrs. Ratliff loved her subject: the English language and its literature. Mrs. Ratliff had high standards and no doubt spent many hours after school and at home correcting essays, exams and reports. And Ravitch notes that Mrs. Ratliff did it all without once ever recurring to standardized multiple choice tests. That Ravitch does not say so I have a hunch she agrees with this classroom teacher that excessive use of standardized tests is like excessive consumption of junk food; in excess it is sheer poison.



One of the chief faults of American teachers and American education may be excessive overreliance on machine graded superficial bubble multiple guess tests which I may add are exceedingly easy to cheat on or fake. I am quite sure Mrs. Ratliff was never fooled by plagiarism or cheating and by her hands on familiarity with her students work easily spotted the `"rats" and "cheats".



If one seeks a `magic bullet' to cure our educational ills or as Ravitch humorously alludes to a "magic feather" a la Dumbo you will not find it here. Ravitch says "in education, there are no short cuts, no utopias, no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.



Truly, as Euclid reportedly said to King Ptolemy, “there is no Royal Road to Geometry." He or she who wants to learn mathematics, solve equations, writing clear prose and gain wisdom must toil and sweat for days, months and years on end. Ravitch is also right that the survival and success of our free society may depend on our public school system. If the public school system is allowed to wither away we may become more like Latin America (which has excellent private schools for the rich and non-existent or woefully inadequate public education for the many who are poor).



This way lies more than madness or bad policy.



This way lies social strife and class warfare to an extent that the independence, prosperity and unity of our Republic may be at risk.



Ravitch writes "it is unlikely that the United States would have emerged as a world leader had it left the development of education to the whim and will of the free market." In my opinion, she never wrote a truer line.



Education is neither about profit and loss nor merely about narrow utilitarian goals. America by its very nature has tended to be utilitarian and materialist for better or for worst. Success in America has always been measured by the accumulation of power, money, status, prestige, property and fame. In addition, Americans have always valued the new over the tried and true disregarding most traditions, -this is their philistine side - which when it comes to culture is often a mistake. The Greeks had a word for this “apeirokalia” (a lack of experience in things beautiful) and yet another which we could translate as `unculture' or "apaideusia" (ignorance of the greatest goods in life)..



Yet I would argue that the most enduring aspect of the American Dream is not these manifestations of pomp, prosperity and power-these things like the Almighty Dollar -presently quite anemic- our naval and air supremacy will pass away- but not the single most valuable we thing we have which is our free and splendid ancient heritage.



What are we to do? We must look firmly towards the future but must never forget the past -that is to say our splendid and free ancient heritage. Above all we must not throw in the towel. We must teach every man, woman and child to wish for liberty, to cherish liberty, to understand liberty and most importantly to be capable of it.



I always tell my students there are there are TWO educations:

The first education is the practical one we all need that teaches us what we need to make a living -most of us have to make a living.



The second education we need is the other education, the "true education" that which teaches us how to live our lives more fully by teaching us to think AND to appreciate `the Good Life". I can't imagine my life without the second education and I encourage my students to cultivate their private lives for their own benefit, happiness and enjoyment and for the unity and mental health of their families.



And we must have the humility and foresight to recognize a people without wisdom -without a strong culture- without a strong memory and strong values without strong schools- will come to ruin.



As we pass the torch to a new generation we are most fortunate to have the lantern of Ravitch's wisdom and learning to help us see a better way. With The Death and Life of the Great American School System Diane Ravitch has raised a monument more enduring than brass -to paraphrase Horace: Non omnis morieris.