Politics of Schools

Politics of Schools

The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973, by Diane Ravitch. New York: Basic Books. 449 pp.

The importance of Diane Ravitch’s The Great School Wars is, I think, best illustrated by turning for a moment to Christopher Jencks’s assessment of the 1968 teachers’ strike and community-control struggle in New York. Jencks wrote:

The public school system of New York City is on the brink of collapse. Until the basic political framework of public education in New York City is altered, strikes and boycotts—or both—are likely to occur on an annual basis. Nor is New York unique. It is simply first. All the forces which have brought New York City to its present condition are at wo...

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