Diane Ravitch on ending No Child Left Behind: Get Congress Out of the Classroom – New York Times.

Dear friends:

I arrived very early today, to prepare for a Teaching American History teacher workshop. I could NOT make class because I had to  step in and prepare the workshop space and do the introductions, which I had not initially planned to do. So, I stopped by the classroom about 7:30 and wrote extensive instructions for class; it took me about 15-20 minutes. ALAS, between the time that I left and when the first of you arrived, the cleaning staff apparently cleaned the white board. What I wrote was the following.

1    We will be reading James McPherson’s, For Cause and Comrades this week and into next week; this book is available for purchase in the bookstore. The syllabus lists a book by Edward Ayers, but at the last minute I chose against this substitute because of its length.

2    We will have an overview discussion of the topic of war in American history on Wednesday.

3    We will discuss McPherson on Friday and next Wednesday.

4   A small group of students will be responsible for leading the book discussions over the next several weeks. These groups are divided into the following groupings:

Civil War
Scott, Dan, Shannon, Kelly

WWI
Josh, Katy, Chris, Tim, Ryan

WWII
Phillip, John, Bridget, Jeff, Heather

Vietnam
Katie (Kathryn), Bobby, Cory, Alex