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In the following pages we reproduce the chapters "In Search of Standards" and "Conclusion" from Diane Ravitch’s book Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms. In "In Search of Standards" Ravitch describes a number of initiatives aimed at raising public education standards in the United States since the early 1980s, and relates the vicissitudes encountered by such initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s. In "Conclusion", the author recapitulates by asking what lessons can be drawn from the river of ink spilled in the education disputes during the 20th century. She argues that education in the United States has long on new ideas but short on "time-tested truths". This is the reason for the frequent failure of the various reforms made to the US educational system during the last century. Massive changes in curricula and pedagogy, Ravitch argues, should be based on solid and and careful field-tested demonstration before they are impossed on entire school districts and states. She also insists that schools need to regain their specific purpose and not succumb to pressures to transform them into an imaginary remedy for all of society’s ills. Schools need to focus on their particular mission, which is to provide education of high academic quality; in other words, giving all children the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills. But, this requires educators to be true teachers rather than mere "facilitators". School will not be rendered obsolete by new technologies because their role as learning institutions has become even more important than in the past. Ravitch claims: technology can supplement schooling but it cannot replace it. And for educators to be true teachers they need to have a solid grounding in the subjects they teach.