By DMITRI MEHLHORN
For her exceptional book on the history of teaching, Dana Goldstein chose the title The Teacher Wars: The History of America’s Most Embattled Profession. In so doing, she joined an ongoing debate with reformers such as Stanford University’s Eric Hanushek, who wrote an article entitled “The War on Teachers is a Myth.” The stakes in this debate are high, ironically, because teaching polls as one of the most respected professions in the country. If political ideas are...