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Many of these books are available in your local library, or any good bookstore.
But when you follow the provided links to Amazon and purchase there, a small percent of your purchase price is paid as a commission, helping to compensate for our efforts. Thank you! |
For giving to... Suggestions Parents McEwan, CK Sequence School Board McEwan, Chall, CK Sequence Teachers - General Chall, CK Sequence Teachers - Reading Damer & Bursuck Teachers - Other Subjects See listings by topic, below Administrators, knowledgeable teachers Ravitch, Chall, Hirsch, CK Sequence In ed school -- or thinking about it Kramer, Ravitch, Hirsch
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A MUST-READ!
In a fever to "reform" our schools for "21st century" "higher-order
thinking skills", educational bureaucrats have reduced the amount
of substantive content in curricula and replaced it with
touchy-feelie psychobabble encouraging feelings, writing about
problems instead of solving them, and meaningless goals.
McEwan, an award-winning school principal takes the educrats to task.
Warning: the subject is not inner-city schools; it may very well include
the school YOUR kids attend. Yes, YOUR kids! I found McEwan's book invaluable simply because it is up-to-date, and focused on everyday schools that we would think should be less influenced by wacko theories. Also, since McEwan spent most of her career in the Chicago area, her insights are especially valuable to those of us in this area. Any number of times she refers to a town or a school in the area, and I thought, "Wait, that's a good area and I thought it had great schools -- you mean they're doing this goofy stuff, too?" I'd heartily recommend this book to parents, school board members, newspaper editors and others who are concerned about quality in supposedly "good" school districts. |
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Publisher's description: Jay Greene takes on the conventional wisdom and closely examines eighteen myths advanced by the special interest groups dominating public education. In addition to the money myth, the class size myth, and the teacher pay myth, Greene debunks the special education myth (special ed programs burden public schools), the certification myth (certified or more experienced teachers are more effective in the classroom), the graduation myth (nearly all students graduate from high school), the draining myth (choice harms public schools), the segregation myth (private schools are more racially segregated), and several more. |
"Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education"
by Joe Williams
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From Publishers Weekly: As an education reporter for the New York Daily News and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Williams has the dirt on some of the nation's largest public school systems, and in this book, part scathing expose and part call-to-action, Williams paints a bleak picture before shifting into a discussion about remedying the many problems he details, from systems that treat parents and students as antagonists to unprepared and inexperienced teachers and administrators. In the first part of the book, Williams overwhelms with a string of horrifying and scandalous tales of school mismanagement, piling them on to the point where they begin to lose their impact. The book takes a turn when Williams discusses the ways parents, teachers, administrators, politicians and the business sector can work together to remedy our failing schools. From New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's efforts to control schools from the top down, to Mothers on the Move's struggle against corruption in their South Bronx school district, Williams does a fantastic job chronicling events and ideas as well as capturing the people on both sides of the issues. In particular, his extended analysis of the battle over school vouchers in Milwaukee is a riveting tale of corruption toppled by community activism. |
"The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them" by E. D. Hirsch
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This is the indispensible guide for teachers, administrators and
knowledgable parents who want to make their school strong
and substantive, rather than a trendy and progressivist mess.
This book is an absolute classic. It's pretty detailed and is not a light read by any means. But topic by topic and chapter by chapter it gives solid arguments in favor of substance in the classroom and against empty theories. The book's write-up says, "For over fifty years, American schools have operated on the assumption that challenging children is bad for them, teachers do not need to know the subjects they teach, that the learning "process" should be emphasised over the facts taught within it. Yet, as renowned educator and author E. D. Hirsch shows in The Schools We Need, this establishment ideology is a tragedy of good intentions gone awry. Hirsch argues that in eschewing content-based curricula for abstract--and disproved-- theories of congnitive development, the educational establishment has done irreparable harm to America's students, and instead of preparing them for the country's highly competitive, information-based economy, the process-oriented curricula the establishment practices has severely curtailed their ability, and desire, to learn." BR> We'd rate this Hirsch book as the definitive, authoritative book on the subject. It would make a great gift for your kids' teachers and administrators if they've have been only exposed to the progressivist theory of education. Also, if you are lucky enough to have a teacher or administrator or school board member who is committed to a content-rich challenging approach, this is a great source of info to sell and defend that point of view. It is also invaluable to parents and others who want a more in-depth, meatier book that uses the language of educators. In 1996, over 100 leading educators, mathematicians, scientists and reformers signed a letter to President Clinton, saying, in part, Dear Mr. President: |
"The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children" by E. D. Hirsch
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From Publishers Weekly: The notion of learning how to learn is a shibboleth in America's schools, but it distorts reading instruction, contends this provocative manifesto. Education theorist Hirsch decries a dominant "Romantic" pedagogy that disparages factual knowledge and emphasizes reading comprehension "strategies" -- summarizing, identifying themes, drawing inferences -- that children can deploy on any text. Such formal skills, he argues, are easily acquired; what kids really need is a broad background knowledge of history, science and culture to help them assimilate new vocabulary and understand more advanced readings. "Process-oriented" methods that apply reading comprehension drills to "vapid" texts waste time and slow kids' progress, Hirsch contends, and should be replaced with a more traditional, "knowledge-oriented" academic approach with a rich factual content. Hirsch repeats the call for a standard curriculum based on a canon of general knowledge |
"What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know:
Preparing Your Child for a Lifetime of Learning"
"What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 1st Grade Education"
"What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 2nd Grade Education"
"What Your 3rd Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 3rd Grade Education"
"What Your 4th Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 4th Grade Education"
"What Your 5th Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 5th Grade Education"
"What Your 6th Grader Needs to Know:
Fundamentals of a Good 6th Grade Education"
(click on any of these lines for info from Amazon)
(Grade 3 book shown, click on titles above for each grade) |
This series, edited by prominent educational scholar E. D. Hirsch,
is based on the hugely successful "Core Knowledge" curriculum implemented
in hundreds of schools nationwide. The premise is simple: kids
should actually learn things in school, rather than just engaging
in new age art projects, teaming up on involved but meaningless group projects, or
writing about their feelings about math and science.
The books are a valuable check on what your kids' schools are teaching them.
Prepare to be dismayed! Moreover, given the schools' failings, these books empower you to educate and delight your children with the rich, factual content they crave. |
"Books to Build on : A Grade-By-Grade Resource Guide for
Parents and Teachers" by E. D. Hirsch
| There are zillions of books on the Roman Empire, the Lewis and Clarke expedition, the solar system, or whatever. How do you know which are any good at actually conveying any useful info? This book provides recommendations that are in sync with the Core Knowledge curriculum (outlined for parents in the above series of books). |
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OK, so we know what we don't want in a school. But what do we want?
What does a modern,
content-rich, challenging, hands-on, lively, exciting school look like?
Here's part of the answer. This 8 1/2 x 11 paperback is the curriculum
bible for all of the Core Knowledge schools nationwide. Its 200 pages outline the specific
content that is prescribed for each grade and topic. Read it and drool. The Core Knowledge Sequence is available only directly from the Core Knowledge Foundation, (804)977-7550 or at the Core Knowledge website. But at about $20, it's a bargain. Much of the literature about school quality talks about what's wrong with progressivist schools -- the Sequence gives some flavor about how to do it right. To read more about Core Knowledge, go to this page of our website. Read what students, teachers and parents say about Core Knowledge. Is your child's school this good? Why not? It could be! The Core Knowledge Foundation also offers a fascinating 40 minute videotape with two television programs about the goals of CK, and life in a CK classroom. For more on Core Knowledge, go to that page of this website, or directly to the website of the Core Knowledge Foundation. |
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Here's a perfect way to introduce Core Knowledge to parents, school board members, administrators, teachers and community members! This ten-minute DVD is Core Knowledge for beginners. It provides an overview of the Core Knowledge curriculum for kindergarten through grade 8. It shows lively Core Knowledge classes in action. It provides interviews with experienced teachers talking about the benefits of using a program that builds knowledge from grade to grade in a coherent and coordinated way. What comes across, both directly and indirectly, is how Core Knowledge excites children about learning and helps teachers improve student performance. |
"Cultural Literacy" by E. D. Hirsch
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This is Hirsch's best-seller, an attempt to codify a minimal set of what
an educated adult should know.
The book is perhaps best known for its widely discussed appendix with a content listing of what educated Americans should know. This list has been the victim of endless knee-jerk vitriol from education theorists, many of whom have not bothered to actually read the book. The book turns out to be far more than a list of, yes, what educated Americans should know (and much of which schools have stopped teaching). The real glory of this book is its main body: In it, Hirsch presents a compelling case for how a common base of knowledge vitally serves both the individual and society at large. By the way, if you are interested in this book just because you've heard of it and you'd like to know more about Hirsch, we recommend that you consider his "The Schools We Need" instead, which is far more detailed about the fads and fallacies that infect schools, and what methods can be used to remedy them. |
"Left Back:
A Century of Failed School Reforms" by Diane Ravitch
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This astonishly well-research and provocative book should be read, studied
and discussed by every teacher and school administrator in America. Ravitch
dissects a century's worth of one fuzzy-headed "reform" after another,
leading to the current educational crisis. If you thought that you were taught the
full history of education in ed school, Ravitch will fill in the details for you.
Read this interview with Diane Ravitch about Left Back from the Atlantic Monthly. Here's part of Amazon's description of Left Back: Left Back recounts grandiose efforts by education reformers to use the schools to promote social and political goals, even when they diminished the schools' ability to educate children. It shows how generations of reformers have engaged in social engineering, advocating such innovations as industrial education, intelligence testing, curricular differentiation, and life-adjustment education. These reformers, she demonstrates, simultaneously mounted vigorous campaigns against academic studies. |
"Myths and Misconceptions About Teaching: What Really Happens in Classrooms"
by Vicki E. Snider
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Excerpts from a review in the TC Record:
Vicki Snider's new book, Myths and Misconceptions About Teaching: What Really Happens in the Classroom, challenges whether regular classrooms with holistic, discovery-oriented and democratic philosophies are appropriate teaching environments for any students. Snider suggests that the most effective teaching methods are direct instruction, explicit teaching, and highly structured curricular environments. She bases this argument on empirical evidence of the effectiveness of these teaching methods. Snider proposes that many teaching strategies have come from theories of learning that have not been empirically tested, such as multiple intelligence, and that student failures to a large extent can be explained by the fact that education systems do not empirically test teaching methods and curricula. She argues that the trend toward whole language, discovery-oriented, and experiential approaches to learning hinders learning at best, and at worst, actually causes some students to have learning difficulties. |
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The author is "The Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science"
at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and winner of their "Chancellor's
Award for Excellence in Teaching at UM-St. Louis." But he is also a Dad.
And in that dual role, he is well-suited to describe the abandonment
of rigor and excellence in education in well-appointed suburban schools.
Two quotes about "Class Warfare": "Anyone under the illusion that America's suburban public schools are doing fine and that our education crisis is confined to inner city classrooms must read this book. Martin Rochester expertly reveals the mediocrity that afflicts the nation's high-status suburban schools, too." -- Chester Finn, former assistant secretary, U.S. DOE "Few books about education are as deeply researched or as lively as this one. Professor Rochester writes with verve, clarity, and accuracy about American schools and the faulty ideas of those who control them -- ideas that must change if our schools are to improve. I hope this forceful and fascinating book will help change the climate of educational ideas. It's a must-read for parents and policy makers alike." -- E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder of the The Core Knowledge Foundation |
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Amazon description: Radical activists do not see the American middle school as an organization to impart academic knowledge, but as an instrument through which they can force social change. Yecke, an experienced teacher and administrator, shows how these activists have implemented their plans and endangered the education of all middle school children--especially those who are gifted. |
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Stanley Pruss, a school board member in Oak Brook, writes:
As a school board member as well as a parent and taxpayer, I really appreciate Elaine's latest book. I meet her for the first time at a lecture she gave recently, but have been reading her for some time. This latest book has an excellant list of resources including an outstanding model mission statement and a chapter on math that I'm showing to all the fellow members of the math curriculum review committee I am on. |
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"Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas" by Thomas Sowell
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The Library Journal review says that Sowell's book is "a treatise on the failure of American education--elementary, secondary, and college levels--to prepare today's students for the future. Among the many causes of this failure are the poor intellectual capabilities of elementary and secondary school teachers; the politicizing of education, especially the emphasis on world-saving agendas; the affective approach to curriculum (striving to reshape the attitudes of students); and the presence of "assorted dogmas," including multicultural diversity, relevance, and educating the whole person. All these causes and more are clearly discussed, with some frightening true-life examples, to illustrate that students aren't learning the basics because the basics aren't being taught." |
"Engaging Minds: Motivation and Learning in America's Schools" by David A. Goslin
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Education researcher and reformer John Stone gives this report on this book:
"The central thesis of this book is very simple: Increasing the engagement of students in learning is the key to increasing academic achievement and therefore the productivity of the U.S. educational system. Surprisingly, there have been relatively few attempts to explicitly consider the things that affect students' engagement in the learning process and, more important, what might be done to increase engagement and motivation in learning. This is especially so in light of the evidence that a significant proportion of elementary and secondary school students are only minimally engaged in learning in Americaís schools. The experience of the last two decades provides ample evidence in support of this proposition." |
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This is a gentle, pleasant, inviting book with a blockbuster
message: that the best way for kids to learn is with a structured,
teacher-centered approach. Some of the comments about this book are just spectacular:
--Diane Ravitch
"The capstone work of a great scholar, this book
synthesizes all the relevant research to show that student-centered
teaching does not live up to its education-school billing.
Rather it is teacher-centered education which leads to greater excellence
and fairness."
"I would urge any parent or educational official who finds themselves
in opposition to progressive policy or practice to bring this brief
volume to the attention of their opponents and to that of any other
interested parties--especially members of the media.
I would not be able to suggest a more succinct, authoritative source.
...
I hope you will bring Dr. Chall's final report to the attention of
everyone who is interested in educational improvement:
Parent, teachers, and officials."
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"The Educated Child" by William Bennett, Chester Finn, and John Cribb
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The message is a good one: We must restore academic priorities in schools, challenge kids with meaty, intriguing content, and throw out educational babble and day-care games that consume far too much of our children's time in school. |
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This promises to be a very important book: it is a collection of papers
on the function, impact and lapses of national and state standards
in science, mathematics, history, economics, and the English language arts. The publisher's description states, "These scholars are writing not for other scholars in their field but for those who help shape K-12 educational policy-legislators, members of boards of education, and those who teach courses in government or education policy making. The purpose of this collection is to clarify what is at stake in the standards wars and in standards-based systemic reform." |
"Dumbing Down Our Kids" by Charles J. Sykes
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The subtitle is "Why American children feel good about themselves
but can't read, write or add."
Sykes isn't talking about inner city schools only, he's
talking about all kinds of schools all over the country.
That includes very well-thought-of schools in well-financed
suburban school districts. Yes, like yours. This book provides a rich "in the trenches" view of the disasters that so-called "reform" has wrought on our schools. It provides an interesting balance between case studies of some awful results of progressivist practices, and a dissection of each of the major tenets of this mindset. Those case studies can be a call-to-action for change, and the discussion of progressivist methods provides a good working background for activism to restore substance to the classroom. |
"Doomed to Fail: The Built-In Defects of American Education" by Paul A. Zoch
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From a
review by George Clowes in the School Reform News:
That is the heart of Zoch's book, in which he describes the transition from education requiring disciplined effort to what is known today as "Progressive Education." The Progressive philosophy has three belief strands, Zoch notes:
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(comments in-progress) |
"Liberation's Children: Parents and Kids in a Postmodern Age" by Kay S. Hymowitz
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(comments in-progress) |
| I loved this wonderful book that brilliantly captures the "assault on innocence", ranging from terrifying TV shows for kids, schools that introduce horrific styories of sex and drugs way too early, and the overall dumbed-downed approach to problems and their solutions offered by schools. (I have a feeling that the Medveds would be properly horrified by the "Caudill Awards" books (click for the whole scary story) pushed on kids in Illinois public schools.) Michael Medved is the well-known movie critic (and critic of Hollywood), and his wife Diane Medved is a psychologist. |
"The Myth of the Common School" by Charles L. Glenn
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From George Clowes interview with the author, Charles L. Glenn, published in the School Reform News of May 2003: "New England already had close to universal literacy before the coming of the common school. Horace Mann's concerns were not with providing schooling but with making schooling an effective instrument for social reform." |
| Another history of the progressivist decline of our schools. Covers several fresh and compelling views of this story, but is generally not as detailed or as authoritative as Diane Ravitch's masterful Left Back. |
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Publisher's description: Edmondson ... persuasively demonstrates that Dewey has had an insidious effect on American democracy through the baneful impact his core ideas have had in our nation's classrooms. Few people are pleased with the performance of our public schools. Eschewing polemic in favor of understanding, Edmondson's study of the "patron saint" of those schools sheds much-needed light on both the ideas that bear much responsibility for their decline and the alternative principles that could spur their recovery. |
| I've only skimmed this, but it's intriguing. This is a very academic but thorough treatment of different approaches to education. If nothing else, the book makes it clear that the progressivist philosophy that pervades American education is but one method. |
"Who's Teaching Your Children?"
by Vivian Troen and Katherine C. Boles
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"Bad Teachers: The Essential Guide for Concerned Parents"
by Guy Strickland
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One parent reports:
A year later, we were still helping our son recover from that experience. This book may help you to see the signs earlier than we saw them, and if so, it also will tell you what you need to do to protect your child against an incompetent teacher. |
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Ed schools have been so mesmerized by "student-centered" illusions that they largely
have forgotten how to show prospective teachers how to teach.
Here's a book that provides at least a start, by giving suggestions on how to deliver
a lively, interesting classroom presentation. Here's a capsule from the
author's introduction: "It has been said that, as teachers, we perform in front of a live audience for five periods every day of the week. The metaphor is apt. We are on the boards more times a week than an actor in a Broadway show. And yet, teachers are never taught the importance of performance techniques -- projection, energy, inflection, pacing, timing -- which allow those Broadway thespians to awe their auduiences night after night. Teachers might do well, then, to develop the kind of training in performance style and 'stage presence' available to actors. ... What a powerful approach to the classroom." |
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I loved this book's treatment of the realities for boys today, especially
the unequal and inappropriate handling they are subjected to in
most modern schools. The book is called "The War Against Boys"
and we might say that there are really two facets to this book, the "war"
section and the "boys" section.
Amazon's review says, in part: "It's a bad time to be a boy in America," writes Christina Hoff Sommers. Boys are less likely than girls to go to college or do their homework. They're more likely to cheat on tests, wind up in detention, or drop out of school. Yet it's "the myth of the fragile girl," according to Sommers, that has received the lion's share of attention recently... When boys are discussed at all, it's in the context of how to modify their antisocial behavior -- i.e., how to make them more like girls. This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys' aggressive tendencies must be checked and channeled in constructive ways. Boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be pathologized.For MUCH more about the very disturbing decline of boys in schools, including out list of "22 School Practices That May Harm Boys", go to our page Illinois Loop: Gender Bias. |
"Government Nannies" by Cathy Duffy
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Only a part of this book is about education, but perhaps much of what else
the editors include under the rubric "dumbing down" is ultimately the
result of dumbed-down schools. Besides schools themselves, essays in this
collection discuss museums, art, media, religion, ethnicity,
and even a surprisingly informative article about the history of recipes. The book makes for compelling reading, but it does tend to suffer from two faults: First, there is an overwhelming New York parochialism pervading much of the book. Many of the authors seem to think that the New York Times and the New Yorker define the world. Second, many of the essays tend to be on the suffocating side, with turns of phrase, exotic vocabulary, and strained metaphors, less designed to illuminate and more intended to whack us over the head that these aren't examples of the dumbed-down culture. The Washinton Post has provided Chapter One of this book on its website. As it happens, that chapter is one of six in the book on problems in education. |
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You know how some books go beyond interesting to become real charmers?
Well, here's one! Buy several: Add one to the gift certificate you give to a great teacher
at the end of the year,
give one to the college student you know who is dithering over
courses and majors, or just take one with on an afternoon at the beach.
In his little volume (6 x 4.5 inches, and 80 pages), Graber tackles a big question: Why do we treasure knowledge for its own sake? He starts, tongue in cheek, by defining liberal arts as "essentially those areas of knowledge in which practical-minded parents hope their children will not major." From this light beginning, Graber takes us on a historical journey to understand why we place such a high value on learning. We visit John Henry Cardinal Newman, who tells us that knowledge is "not only an instrument, but an end." In stark contrast, we encounter the eclectic and disagreeable Thorstein Veblen, who argued that "useless knowledge" was a form of "conspicuous consumption" (a phrase he coined) whose only value was to display the wealth required to waste such amounts of time. Taking us even further back, all the way to ancient Greece, Graber tells us of the very, very serious conceptual split of "mind" and "matter", and why this understanding is of profound importance in understanding such issues as the persistence of slavery, the nature of the charges against Galileo, and the importance of the human hand in the reactions to Darwin. Graber concludes with a view of how modern science re-integrates mind and matter, and establishes learning for its own sake as firmly in the realm of the most human of undertakings. Enjoy this little treasure! |
"The Conspiracy of Ignorance : The Failure of American Public Schools" by Martin L. Gross
(Paperback edition to be released soon!)
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Gross does another fine recap of the crisis in American schools.
It's not as compelling as McEwan's book,
not as substantive as Hirsch's, and not as scary as the Sykes book. But Gross does make a very considerable contribution: In "Conspiracy of Ignorance" he plucks apart the image of the "masters" and "doctors" who run modern urban school districts. Here are some very juicy excerpts from Gross! |
"The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn" by Diane Ravitch
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Publishers's description: "Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee. An anthology used in Tennessee schools changed 'By God!' to 'By gum!' and 'My God!' to 'You don't mean it.' The New York State Education Department omitted mentioning Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, or blacks in Annie Dillard's memoir of growing up in a racially mixed town. California rejected a reading book because The Little Engine That Could was male. Diane Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read insipid texts that have been censored and bowdlerized, issued by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books -- a case of the bland leading the bland." |
"Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism"
by Paul A. Boghossian
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Some Indian traditions hold that native peoples have lived in the Americas ever since
their ancestors first emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subterranean world of spirits.
Is this view every bit as valid as the prevailing theory of migrations from Asia over the frozen Bering Sea?
Are both these views equivalent, merely different "belief systems"?
The academic world has been plagued in recent years by such debates on truth and knowledge. In this book, Paul Boghossian dismisses relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it will prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond. |
"Core Virtues : A Literature-Based Program in Character Education" by Mary Beth Klee
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Description from Amazon:
The Core Virtues Program is a practical, nonsectarian approach to character education on a kindergarten through sixth-grade level that involves approximately twenty minutes per day of reading and discussion. Its goals are the cultivation of character through such virtues as respect, courage, diligence, patience, responsibility, compassion, perseverance, faithfulness, and more. Core Virtues includes: a strategy for implementation; a month-by-month sequence for the teaching of virtues school-wide on a three year cycle; grade specific goals for kindergarten to sixth grade; reproducible definitions of the virtues keyed to various grade levels; connections with the Core Knowledge sequence; and a critical resource guide to literature organized by virtue (over 600 entries by grade level). The author of this book, Mary Beth Klee, is the founder of Crossroads Academy, a K-8 independent day school in Lyme, New Hampshire. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Klee holds an Ed.M. from Boston University and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Brandeis University. She is a consultant for the Core Knowledge Foundation, Pearson Education Group, and Link Institute. |
"Public Education as a Business: Real Costs and Accountability"
by Myron Lieberman and Charlene Haar
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Description from Amazon:
"This work covers details about the real cost of public education -- one
of America's biggest industries. It shows that government statistics on
the costs of public education sustainability understate the actual costs to taxpayers."
For more info, read the review of this book by Brian Nelson, in the Summer 2004 issue of Education Next. |
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The book is described as "a challenge to the educational establishment
to recognize the importance of learning-centered teaching instead of
student-centered teaching which is the present trend."
The authors' description is this:
The objectives of "The Thinking Crisis" are: to examine the reasons for the decline in the quality of student writing by what is taught -- and learned -- in high school; to demonstrate the consequences of this decline by examining current student writing in college; to compare this writing with student writing of twenty years ago; to suggest ways in which this "disconnection" between what a teacher teaches and what a student needs to learn can be ameliorated. We believe that this book is unique in its approach to problems that we see in student writing today in that it neither advocates nor rejects the present pedagogy in the schools; but it argues that this pedagogy be properly implemented. While many of the ideas advanced today for improving writing are sound, they are often misinterpreted and poorly taught. We also argue that the lowering of the level of student reading by the general abandonment of classic texts in the curriculum has contributed to the decline in thinking, reading and writing. |
"The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home"
by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
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This book provides valuable resources, tips, schedules, and ideas
for any family attempting to provide a traditional
classical background to their children, a learning adventure
which is provided in few schools today.
The focus of this excellent and extremely popular book is "classical" education, the historic approach to education, in which a student first masters the "basics" (the "grammar") and then proceeds to thoughtful integration and understanding ("logic" and "rhetoric"). It worked for centuries, and it works for many homeschooling families and the fortunate students of a handful of schools today. This book tells how to do it. |
"The Trivium: The Liberal Arts Of Logic, Grammar, And Rhetoric"
by Miriam Joseph, C.S.C
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Description from Amazon: Opening the door for beginners who seek a thorough grounding in the first arts of human understanding, this book explains the nature of logic, grammar, and rhetoric-the three of the seven liberal arts-and how they relate to one another. In Renaissance universities, the trivium (literally, the crossing of three part way) formed the essence of the liberal arts curriculum. Examined are topics such as the nature and function of language, distinguishing general grammar from special grammar, the study of logic and its relationship to grammar and rhetoric, and applying the concepts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric to literary works. Read more at the publisher's website. Read the first chapter (PDF). |
"Defending Standardized Testing"
by Richard P. Phelps (Editor)
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Editorial reviews cited by Amazon:
Howard Wainer, Journal of Educational Measurement:
PsycCRITIQUES: |
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This book, released in May 2003, has generated a tremendous positive response. The author, Dr. Richard Phelps, provides details of the book on his website, Kill the Messenger. |
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More than ever, parents want to know how their children are achieving and how their children's school ranks compared to others. This book shows how defective tests and standards and a lack of accountability cause American students to fall behind those of other countries -- despite our schools' receiving nearly the world's highest levels of per-student spending. The book takes on common objections to testing and reveals why they are false. The book also presents several specific constructive uses for tests, including diagnosing children's learning difficulties and procedures for solving them, measuring the impact of curriculum on specific aspects of achievement, and assessing teachers' strengths and weaknesses. |
"Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers"
by Rita Kramer
(click for info and sample text from iUniverse)
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This all-time classic is now back in print!! Other books tell about the bizarre premises, concepts and methods in schools today. But where on earth do these ideas come from? And why do administrators and teachers believe this stuff? The short answer is: ed schools. Rather than being a model of scholarship, today's ed schools waste away time with endless prattle about theories and philosophies. Rita Kramer toured the country, spending a good deal of time at each of a number of ed schools. She visited prestigious eastern schools, mainstream schools, and everything in between. Kramer reports on everything she saw: vapid looks of the students, meaningless classroom activities, faculty members who loathe the goals that most people have about schools, and grades, assessments and final degrees devoid of any substantive value. This book tells a vital part of the story in understanding what's wrong with our schools, and it does so in an engaging personal way. It's just what's needed to give a new teacher a healthy skepticism about "progressive" trends! |
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In an
interview with Education News, co-editor Wesley Null said of this book, "We have highlighted eight forgotten heroes, including William C. Bagley, Isaac Kandel, and Edward Austin Sheldon. They deserve to be remembered because they challenged mainstream thinking about educational practice and theory. They did not win the battles they engaged in, which is why they have been forgotten today. They deserve to be remembered because they argued on behalf of a well-educated teaching profession, a coherent academic curriculum, and clearly defined standards. ... I am concerned that we have lost a solid philosophical foundation for education in general and for curriculum in particular. I believe this happened because the profession of teaching bought into harmful theories -- typically referred to as Progressive -- that diminished the value of teachers, curriculum, and standards. ... The issue here is curriculum for teaching teachers, and the heroes we have highlighted in this book offer us a coherent, morally defensible, and intellectually substantive vision for teacher education curriculum. Restoring a sound philosophical foundation for democratic education only can take place through solid programs for teaching teachers." |
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This book is quite different than its title might suggest:
this is anything but a retread of the same litany of the ills of our schools.
There's no doubt of Stout's vigorous condemnation of the affective, touchie-feelie approach to
education and its devastating impact on curriculum and kids.
But the surprise is how she arrives at this conclusion
seemingly in complete isolation from the many other books on this topic, such
as most of the other books on this web page. Stout is a pedigreed education insider (with a real Ph.D.), and part of her writings indicate she has no wish to completely abandon this background: at one point she favorably mentions Alfie Kohn (whose writings have been used to justify much of what Stout condemns), she talks about fellow ed school faculty members with some degree of sympathy, and she can't understand why some of her teacher-wannabees are bored by her class on the philosophy of education. She laments the gross lack of critical thinking skills of the students in one of the teacher ed class she teaches, blaming it squarely on their own progressivist educations, but at another point she positions critical thinking as a putative opponent of content knowledge. She only mentions E. D. Hirsch once in passing, and then in a context that suggests she hasn't really read the book of his that she references or anything else of his. But perhaps it is because of this naivete about the outcry over education, that her thorough research and writing carry such a very powerful and convincing force. When she attacks student-centered programs, self-esteem, discovery learning, values clarification, student narcissism and counter-productive gender and race initiatives, she is not merely one of the horde attacking the castle walls from the outside, rather she is on the inside complaining about her own camp's leadership. The strength of this approach is quickly evident: she uses the conferences, journals, task forces and other media within the ed establishment to make her case. This may be the most palatable approach for reaching administrators and teachers who are beginning to have doubts about their training in progressivist education. Stout demolishes many of the premises and practices of schools today. Her main focus is the affective mindset of the establishment, and its obsession with self-esteem as a goal in itself rather than as the result of genuine accomplishment. She does a masterful job ripping apart multiple intelligences, emotional quotients, values clarification, and the whole "hidden curriculum" behind public education. But Stout never quite follows the problem to its ultimate conclusions. Despite the "Dumbing-Down" phrase in the title, Stout barely mentions the curricular damage from all of the psychobabble (except for a too-brief attack on whole language). She mentions math in passing without any seeming awareness of the nationwide "math wars" controversy. She mentions standards but there is no dissection of how the standards movement has been gutted and undermined in some states by the anti-knowledge faction. She rails about the rampant assignments in self-absorption kids are given (my family, my dog, what I want), but says nothing about the substantive content knowledge in history and geography that is squeezed out in the process. In a teasing, almost-there section, she links the self-esteem fad and watery curricula to rising and more vicious violence; but she does not (or dares not) go the final step, to ponder the possible connections between the early 1990s progressivist reforms in Littleton grade schools and the "death-ed" classes at Columbine High School and the events that happened there years later. All in all, Stout provides a very fresh and powerful spin on what, to most of us, is a familiar story. Using fresh evidence and a fresh perspective, she destroys the premises of progressivism, and does so in an insider's way, a way that might be more compelling to the administrators and teachers who could be forces for change. |
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Excerpts from
a review by Ashley Herzog:
"In her new book, 'Generation Me: Why Today's
Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- And More
Miserable than Ever Before,' Dr. Jean Twenge ...
makes clear the difference between self-esteem and
self-respect. Self-respect -- a value taught to older generations -- is
achieved gradually, by behaving morally and accomplishing things.
Self-esteem is an entitlement. As Twenge explains, 'most
[self-esteem] programs encourage children to feel good about
themselves for no particular reason.' ...
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This book from the mid-80s is out of print now, but you may find it
at your local library. The "smoking gun" in the title refers to the search for the ultimate cause of the anti-intellectual, fun and games approach to education. Damerell (like many others) pins the rap firmly on ed schools. He was a top creative person in a large New York ad agency, who was lured to join the faculty of an ed school. What he found was a shocking lack of scholarship. Damerell is at his most entertaining when telling the first person story of Bill Cosby's acquiring of an Ed.D. degree. It becomes clear that Cosby's work for the degree was pathetically shallow, but not much more so than many other Ed.D. efforts. Much of this book is devoted to specifics (events, methods, personalities) that Damerell encountered in his own ed school. As such, it's an interesting slice-of-life as yet another person discovers the truth behind American education. But overall, Rita Kramer's "Ed School Follies" is a much more complete dissection of the problem, and Maureen Stout's "The Feel-Good Curriculum" more directly attacks the shallowness and affective teaching mantras of ed schools today. |
| (details to come) |
"The Teacher Unions" by Myron Lieberman
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Publisher's description: "A powerful expose on how the NEA and AFT use their power
to smother desperately needed educational innovations."
(to be reviewed) |
"NEA: The Trojan Horse in American Education" by Samuel Blumenthal
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Dissection of the most powerful education union and lobby, the National
Education Association, along with considerations of political bias
in classes, and the history of public education in the U.S.
(to be reviewed) |
"The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education"
by Peter Brimelow
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(to be reviewed) |
"Power Grab: How the National Education Association Is Betraying Our Children"
by G. Gregory Moo
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(to be reviewed) |
"The Politics of the PTA"
by Charlene K. Haar
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August 14, 2003 Former school teacher and senatorial candidate, and current President of the Education Policy Institute, Charlene Haar, relates a thorough and fascinating story of an organization we all thought we knew, but probably did not. Haar traces the origins of The National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) to the first assemblage of the National Congress of Mothers at the end of the 19th century, a time when schooling, and the status of women, were strikingly different than they are now. She then follows the evolution of the organization as parents, and later teachers, and still later the teachers' unions, are added to the mix. Haar demonstrates how the better organized and more powerful elements of the coalition - the teachers' unions - were able to steer the organization's mission over time along a path they preferred, as was, perhaps, inevitable. Haar reminds us, however, that teacher and parent interests do not always coincide and, indeed, seem to have grown more divergent over time. Ironically, however, the PTA's continuing steadfast support of the public education status quo has generated only meager success, for example, in terms of favorable legislation passed in the U.S. Congress, where the PTA has spent a substantial proportion of its resources in lobbying efforts. Meanwhile, parent membership in the PTA continues steadily to decline. The Politics of the PTA is meticulously well-written and very well-organized. |
"Cloning of the American Mind" by B.K. Eakman
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Part IV of this book should be read by anyone who has ever sat
of a school committee or is thinking about it. Even more urgently,
it should be read by all members of all school boards which are being
told that some recommendation or another was developed by a teacher
or parent-teacher committee. I participated in two committees like this in our local public schoolsw, and found that the whole process was deliberately manipulated to cultivate an intended results, while suppressing dissent or discussion. Eakman warns that such "rigged consensus building" thwarts opposition or original thinking, while enshrining and preserving the status quo. It is a powerful tool for manipulating public opinion in such a way to gain apparent approval for dubious management directions. These manipulative techniques are both employed with, and taught to, students in ed schools. By the time that someone leaves ed school with administration credentials, they are well-trained to set up the same dangerous practices in the districts where they are employed. Beverly Eakman describes how rigged consensus-building is covered in her book: "[This section] focuses on this issue, details the various methods used, who uses them and where they originated. In fact, various government agenncies actually offer a course in "change agentry." ... The rigged consesus is the means by which programs and policies that originators at the state, federal or foundation (through grants) level know won't be well received are moved past the naysayers and are instituted anyway. It's kind of interesting to watch, as long as you're not on the receiving end. Since my research on the book, I've watched it work among church hierarchies, in community meetings, focus groups and PTAs. Because of the interest in Part IV, I started being asked to go all over the country giving not just seminars, but teach-ins, if you will, where I bring groups up on state to practice countering the "consensus" techniques. One of the problems is that the less well educated our population becomes, thanks in large part to the fact that many disciplines like rhetoric, philosophy, and debate have been removed from the curriculum, people do not know how to defend themselves against professional manipulators. Yet, as I show in my book, the basic concept of psychological manipulation/deception was known as far back as 400 b.c. A book by a Chinese general that surfaced in the 1970s and was translated proves the point. |
"Common Sense School Reform"
by Frederick M. Hess
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Here are excerpts from a
review of this book by Justin Torres, Weekly Standard, September 13, 2004:
Common Sense School Reform is uncompromising. Hess, an education-policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, takes direct aim at gauzy notions and sentiments that divert us from enacting needed reforms. Many will find shocking his direct attack on the idea that teachers are doing all they can to improve student achievement. Bunk, he says. In fact, while many teachers are working as hard as they can, many aren't. Many are themselves so poorly educated they aren't up to the task of raising student achievement. And those who are up to the task still need external incentives--performance measures, bonuses for improved performance, and penalties for falling short--that Americans take for granted in other professions. "Educators, for better or worse, are a lot like everybody else," Hess writes. "Some educators are passionately committed to their craft, highly skilled, and will be so regardless of rewards or guidance, but most--like most engineers and attorneys and journalists and doctors--will be more effective when held accountable for performance." Common Sense School Reform is shot through with hard-nosed realism. Unlike some proponents of high standards and increased accountability, Hess admits that such measures can have the unfortunate effect of narrowing the curriculum and limiting the additional touches--a focus on science or the arts, say--that can help distinguish schools and provide the personalizing touches that parents crave. (There is already some evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act, with its relentless focus on reading and math and, eventually, science, is crowding out art, history, and foreign-language classes.) For Hess, the answer to this curricular narrowing is school choice, designed to allow parents to choose a tailored curriculum that operates in a larger framework of high standards and accountability. Choice will also help to spur school improvement by rewarding innovators who can deliver educational success--if choice rewards popular schools with additional resources and punishes persistently low-achieving schools with closure or reconstitution. (The second half of Hess's formulation, closing down schools that lose students in a competitive marketplace, has not yet been tried in any of the voucher programs presently in operation.) It's a beguiling vision, and certainly one that would be a vast improvement over the present system, which actually punishes success by placing strains on popular, over-enrolled schools. As Hess points out, an innovative and dynamic principal who attracts a hundred extra students may be assigned two or three additional teaching slots and may get a little discretionary money to spend on new programs or additional teacher training. But most of the important decisions--who to hire; whether to put resources into physical plant, new personnel, or new books and teaching aids; the length of the school day; the hours teachers work--are dictated by collective bargaining agreements or are handed down from the district office. That offers little incentive to innovators, and a growing student body becomes a headache, not an indicator of success. |
"Voucher Wars: Waging the Legal Battle over School Choice" by Clint Bolick
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"Clint Bolick has written an exciting and fascinating account of his experience as a lawyer defending school choice. In the process, he provides a comprehensive history of the school choice movement from the 1990 enactment of the nation's first urban school program in Wisconsin to the 2002 Supreme Court decision that established the constitutionality of voucher programs including religious schools. Clint makes clear how high the stakes are for the youngsters in low-income families condemned to failing government schools and how much their parents are willing to sacrifice to rescue them. A true human interest tale."
--Milton Friedman "Clint Bolick is the nation's leading attorney for parental choice and education reform. No one knows this legal battle better than Clint, and his successes are victories for both our education system and our children." --William J. Bennett, Co-Director, Empower America; Former Secretary of Education "Clint Bolick is the new Thurgood Marshall. Marshall litigated the end of legal apartheid; Bolick the demolition of educational townships." --John Gardner, Milwaukee School Board |
| Read this review published in the Washington Times. |
"School Choices: True and False" by John Merrifield
| Here's a slim yet compelling look at market choice for education. John Merrifield argues that today's very limited school choice programs are nothing like the "free market in education" envisioned four decades ago by early proponents of school choice. Rather, they are mired in false alternatives, petty distinctions, and diminished vision. Merrifield argues for the reformation of the school choice alternative and the eventual establishment of a freely competitive market for education, |
"Market Education, The Unknown History" by Andrew J. Coulson
| (to be reviewed) |
"Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice" by Sol Stern
| A Booklist review says: "When his son Jonathan was accepted at New York's premier elementary school, P.S. 87, city-schools-educated Stern presumed the boy was off to a good start. He was, though not as good a start as Stern's own in 1941. In the intervening decades, the teachers' union (a 1950s innovation) and a mushrooming, politicized education bureaucracy had rendered most city schools ungovernable and scholastically ineffective." |
"Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe" by Charles L. Glenn
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(to be reviewed)
Amazon says this gives "the story of the Communist takeover of education and the recent revival of educational freedom in post-Communist societies." |
"Public Education: An Autopsy" by Myron Lieberman
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Lieberman has produced a unusually clear and thorough guide to the
critical failings of "public education", or at least as that phrase
is used in the United States today. He presents a case for marketplace
solutions to these problems, and parent choice.
A remarkable feature of Lieberman's writing is his highly orderly and logical style, which gives his arguments strength and substance. |
"Reading Instruction for Students Who Are at Risk or Have Disabilities"
by William D. Bursuck and Mary Damer
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While the first chapter captures the very essence of teaching reading, the rest of the text is an absolute gold mine of additional research based instructional strategies appropriate for the college student, the first year teacher, and the veteran reading teacher. I wish I had written it!From the publisher: Organized according to the Reading First categories of reading development and instruction as presented in the report of the National Reading Panel, this exciting and timely new text presents teaching strategies for children at-risk, including children of poverty, children for whom English is not their primary language, and children with learning and behavioral disabilities. These are the children No Child Left Behind challenges teachers to serve more effectively. The book is more than a list of teaching strategies that are scientifically-validated; the scientifically-validated practices included are integrated into a systematic teaching process that stresses the use of student outcome data within authentic classroom contexts to guide practice. The teaching strategies have been field tested with at-risk children in both rural and urban teaching settings. Most of the strategies have resulted from work the authors did in their recent four-year federally-funded model-demonstration grant in which they have implemented an extensive reading problem prevention model in grades K-3 in three inner-city schools. Thus, the teaching strategies in the book are ones that the authors implemented every day with at-risk children, not just findings from research articles. This book includes:
Mary Damer is an adjunct professor at the Ohio State University and an educational consultant and co-founder of Multi-Tier LLC, a consulting company that works with school districts to increase reading achievement through an intensive multi-tiered model based on preventing reading failure. A former teacher, principal, and behavior consultant she is the co-author of Managing Unmanageable Students: Practical Solutions for Administrators. For four years she was the field director for Project PRIDE, an OSEP funded multi-tier reading project in three high poverty urban schools. William D. Bursuck has more than 35 years experience as a general and special education teacher in the public schools as well as a university teacher educator. Although he has written numerous research articles and is a successful grant writer, Dr. Bursuck takes particular pleasure in providing classroom and future teachers with practical, evidenced-based strategies to help students with special needs be more successful in school. He is currently professor in the Department of Specialized Education Services at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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"Teach Them ALL to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks" by Elaine McEwan
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Review by Mary Damer, July 8, 2002
Before I coordinated an early literacy project for inner city students, I knew that improving the reading achievement of students in high-poverty, low-performing schools was going to be difficult and take every resource and skill my colleagues and I had. Even knowing that reality, it wasn't until a year after we'd rolled up our shirt sleeves and started working in three urban schools, that we TRULY understood the effort behind maintaining fine-tuned curriculum coordination, retaining the ability to duck sudden blockades from administration, and motivating teachers to keep employing the continual academic press needed to develop students' reading and language skills. Elaine McEwan's new book, "Teach Them All to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks," is the first book I've come across that truly captures all the necessary ingredients needed to create a reading culture where every student learns to read. I always enjoy McEwan's vivid metaphors and chatty practical tips which won't disappoint in her latest book. Thematically, McEwan uses jigsaw puzzle imagery to help the reader understand the necessary role of phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, reading a lot, a reading culture, language, fluency, knowledge, and cognitive strategies. But wait - this is far more than a book providing information about effective teaching of reading. In addition to her years as a principal who dramatically increased reading performance in her school, McEwan draws upon her years of experience crisscrossing the country to consult with school districts attempting to turn around their reading programs surround by a mishmash of misinformation from the reading establishment that hurls at them from all directions. A strength of this book is her intimate experience with Best Practices that often have no research substantiation. I should mention that I'm not totally impartial about this book and have been eagerly waiting for it to come out |
Books on Education