LaNea Noelle Sadler

Teacher Wars Book Review

Book Review

Dana Goldstein. The Teacher Wars: A History of Americas Most Embattled Profession. New

York: Doubleday, 2014. 349 pp. Cloth $26.95.

In The Teacher Wars: A History of Americas Most Embattled Profession, Dana

Goldstein does an excellent job portraying the many challenges that have faced the education

system throughout the history of the United States. Goldstein spends a good portion of her book

discussing how teachers have been under such stress and scrutiny for too long. Her main focus

for this book, however, seems to be on the many different reforms that have taken place to

attempt to improve our education system. She points out that while there have been many

attempts to reform education, the system is still not where it needs to be.

The book begins by exploring how Catharine Beecher pushed to make education

something for everyone, men and women. She also started a push for women to become

educators in the classroom, as this was, at this time, mainly a mans job. Beecher played a

significant role in the reformation of getting women in the profession, sometimes while attacking

men, saying that men were not capable of the nurturing needed to teach children. Horace Mann

was thrilled at the idea of having women in the classroom because it would save the taxpayers

millions of dollars. Another important reformer from this time is Susan B. Anthony, who fought

for equal pay for women educators.

 The next topic that Goldstein covers, is that of the introduction of black teachers in the

classroom. Charlotte Forten, a well-off black woman believed that slaves needed to be educated.

She spent a lot of time volunteering to teach emancipated slaves in the South Carolina Sea

Islands. W. E. B. Du Bois not only believed that slaves should be educated, but he also pushed to

have black teachers placed in the education system.

The book looks at the introduction of unions and why they were needed. The unions give

teachers collective bargaining and the ability to negotiate important benefits. Prior to unions this

did not exist for teachers. Margaret Haley became the leader of one of the first teachers-only

unions. This was started to help women get equal pay and gain more funding for their schools.

As the on-going search for most effective education system continued, Goldstein leads

her readers to understand the reasoning behind the data-driven reformation. This took place

because of a report called A Nation at Risk, which was put out in 1983. In the report, it pointed

out that the nations students had dropped in their ACT scores and were not learning what they

should be. This made the reformers take a hard look at the teachers and how they can be

measured. This drove the nation to be very data driven. The next big jump in education was the

No Child Left Behind act passed during George W. Bushs administration. Goldstein reminds

her readers that through the Act, standardized testing became much more prominent and became

more of a test to assess how the teachers are teaching, then what the students know. Teachers are

fearful of losing their jobs and therefore need to teach to the test. If the data taken from

standardized testing is only going to determine who needs to be fired, than these tests are not

helping students learn. Goldstein expresses in her book that these tests have become more about

the teacher's performance and less about what the students have learned.
 In the end of the book, Goldstein provides her readers with ideas on how real learning

can be brought back into the classroom, where the main focus should be on students and how to

help them learn. Some of these include returning tests to their original role as diagnostic tests and

allowing more time for professional development. For example; allowing time for teachers to

observe each other. This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in understanding what

drives real improvement in the school system.