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It's a real honor to be reviewed by a writer as good and perceptive as @phil_christman. His piece advances the discussion about how we treat students in general and student writers in specific in important ways. plough.com/en/topics/comm…
@phil_christman I'm especially excited about what @phil_christman identifies as being "missing" from the book because it's a message I hopped audiences would infer, but which I didn't explicitly include for a few reasons. 
@phil_christman One reason I didn't explicitly discuss this aspect of the systemic issues is that at the time of writing, I didn't have full confidence in my abilities to tie it into the framework of what I was saying. I worried I didn't have the knowledge or chops to do it well.
@phil_christman But more importantly (or calculatingly) I had a desire for the book to be read (and maybe embraced) by school reform figures from places like AEI and the Fordham Institute. If I included an explicit critique of capitalism as a system undergirding these problems, they're out.
@phil_christman I made this calculation at a time when I thought there was some daylight to change minds. Rick Hess of AEI had reacted very openly to "The Testing Charade" by Daniel Koretz, and I thought of WTCW as something like "the writing charade." Maybe it could break through?
@phil_christman That calculation was wrong. I sent multiple copies to Hess, Robert Pondisco, Michael Petrilli, and there's been zero response. The book has also been largely ignored by mainstream media. Even as is, it seems like it's too much of a challenge to the system to enter their sphere.
@phil_christman The true audience is more one that @phil_christman identifies, essentially those of us who teach and long for a way to resist that which we know is wrong because we see it etched in the experiences of our students. I should've known this was the true audience all along.
@phil_christman So, I think Phil is right that there is a missing element in the book and I'm grateful that he ties in a thread that I don't have in the original text.
