
Class Warfare
Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools
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Narrado por:
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L. J. Ganser
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De:
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Steven Brill
In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure.
Brill’s vivid narrative, filled with unexpected twists and turns, takes us from the Oval Office, where President Obama signs off on an unprecedented plan that will infuriate the teachers unions because it offers billions to states that win an education reform “contest”; to boisterous assemblies, where parents join the fight over their children’s schools; to a Fifth Avenue apartment, where billionaires plan a secret fund to promote school reform; to a Colorado high school, where students who seemed destined to fail are instead propelled to college; to state capitols across the country, where school reformers hoping to win Obama’s "contest" push bills that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. It’s the story of an unlikely army - fed-up public-school parents, Ivy League idealists, hedge-funders, civil rights activists, conservative Republicans, insurgent Democrats - squaring off against unions that the reformers claim are protecting a system that works for the adults but victimizes the children.
Class Warfare is filled with extraordinary people taking extraordinary paths: a young woman who goes into teaching almost by accident, then becomes so talented and driven that fighting burnout becomes her biggest challenge; an antitrust lawyer who almost brought down Bill Gates’ Microsoft and now forms a partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates to overhaul New York’s schools; a naive Princeton student who launches an army of school reformers with her senior thesis; a California teachers union lobbyist who becomes the mayor of Los Angeles and then the union’s prime antagonist; a stubborn young teacher who, as a child growing up on Park Avenue, had been assumed to be learning disabled but ends up co-founding the nation’s most successful charter schools; and an anguished national union leader who walks a tightrope between compromising enough to save her union and giving in so much that her members will throw her out.
Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.
©2011 Brill Journalism Enterprises, LLC (P)2011 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Reseñas de la Crítica
As a former teacher in Pasadena, California and current university professor in Tokyo, Japan, I have two things to say: First, the grass is not greener on the other side. Education in Japan is not better than education in the US, from my 9 years of public/private experience here. Secondly, as a former teacher, I remember ignoring my union president and principal's orders and doing my own thing, with the result that all of my students' reading and math scores improved. It is about the person in the front of the class and their dogged determination to succeed.
This is one of those issues that touches almost every single American and, having been in a classroom, we all have some ideas of what should or should not happen. As I listened to this book I saw the logic of what was being asked, but then realized that the hard-liners are in control. Union leaders who feel the need to protect every single teacher against every possible offense, and union busting bureaucrats/administrators who want to rule with iron fists.
In the end Mr. Brill presents a brilliant, though one-sided, case about the reform issues in our public education system. It is too bad he does not present a more balanced approach to problem solving.
Unions are Evil
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A number of interesting programs are detailed including: Teach For America, Race to the Top, Charter Schools, Gates Foundation, KIPP Schools, No Child Left Behind, etc. The book goes into detail on all the individual players and the battles they waged and are still waging.
If you are unfamiliar with the fight here is a quick synopsis: U.S. student test scores have been falling rapidly and rank in the bottom third globally even though we are one of the top countries in spending per student. The reformers believe this is because there are no measurement tools related to teacher performance and student outcomes. The unions vehemently deny that those tools have any value and think there are too many student variables to effectively measure teacher performance.
The reformers are fighting to change the laws and create outcome based performance measurements and incentives. Most of the recently published data supports the reformers position and they are locked in a battle with the largest union in the US, the national teachers union - NEA, who has a tremendous amount of political clout and money.
Worth the read if you are interested in this complex issue.
The book is biased on the side of the reformers.
A Good Place to Start
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We might have bad education, but no matter how good is the school or how poor is their neighborhood, it's up to the parent to be on top of their kids. Like, "What did you do in school today?" "Did you do your homework, show me your work?"
I really think that parents nowadays, relies on schools and teachers so much that they don't pay any attention on what their kids are doing in the classroom. No matter what the school is like, it's up to their parents to stay on top on their children by being involved.
If a single mom is from the ghetto and her kids are going to a crappy school, if education was important to her, she would make sure that her kids are doing their work no matter if she is home or not. She might have to work two or three jobs, but she will make sure that they are at home, doing their work and getting the grades. We hear about these kinds of story all the time, single mom, poor, and her children becomes much more successful because of their parents.
Then, you have the other side. Wealthy kids going to a good school and becoming underachievers because their parents are not involve.
Charter schools, Private schools, Seed Schools are not the answer. Just because they get in, does not mean success, if their parents doesn't get involve.
Charter schools can kick out students for any reasons. They might not meet the test score, gone. Causing too much trouble, gone. Having a mental disability, gone. The same goes for teachers and most them are on an year by year contract and that put even more pressure on them to succeed, or they are gone.
We as an whole, don't value "education" like we used to.
Education has become an accessory, not a necessity.
Education has become an Accessory, not a Necessity
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Tenure was intended to protect against arbitrary action--initially created to encourage free
exchange of ideas--and now exists principally as a means of extortion. It costs more to fire an unqualified person than to keep them on the payroll. One need go no further than to compare our children's educational ranking with the rest of the world to know that something must change if we are to keep pace (much less lead).
A Much Needed Book
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Brill basically uncovers all the events that have happened in education for the last 10 years or so, which helped me gain some clarity that I was missing. As a doctoral student, I found this book to be extremely helpful. He gave me some background on the movers and shakers in education which helped me understand where they came from and why. He speaks not only of unions and the Obama administration, but also about Teach for America, the New Teacher Project, New Orleans, The Gates Foundation Grants, Michelle Rhee, Colorado and Michael Johnson, Harlem Success Academy, KIPP Schools, and the Race to the Top program.
Great book!
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now i understand why schools don't work
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What did you like best about this story?
Very eye opening accounts and data concerning our educational system and what is contributing to it's downward spiral.What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
The willingness of so many people to go against party politics to persue what really mattered: the next generationEye opening
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Excellent Book on the School Reform Movemet
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A Look inside the Policy Sausage Grinder
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the issues facing our public schools.What was one of the most memorable moments of Class Warfare?
I did not realize the effect Race to the Top was having on changing our public schools. I also did not realize how Democrats have been working to address the issues with public schools.Which character – as performed by L. J. Ganser – was your favorite?
Joe Klein - Chancellor of NYC SchoolsWhat’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
I believe when all the smoke clears the deciding factor in education is our Teachers. There is a lot of smoke to clear out of the way - unions, contracts, laws, etc. but the core way to make a change is to get the best teacher possible in front of our students and let them teach. I hope we can do this within our existing framework of public schools.Informative & Detailed - Worth the Time to Listen
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