Bad Students, Not Bad Schools

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools PDF Author: Robert Weissberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351297708
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Americans are increasingly alarmed over our nation's educational deficiencies. Though anxieties about schooling are unending, especially with public institutions, these problems are more complex than institutional failure. Expenditures for education have exploded, and far exceed inflation and the rising costs of health care, but academic achievement remains flat. Many students are unable to graduate from high school, let alone obtain a college degree. And if they do make it to college, they are often forced into remedial courses. Why, despite this fiscal extravagance, are educational disappointments so widespread? In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg argues that the answer is something everybody knows to be true but is afraid to say in public America's educational woes too often reflect the demographic mix of students. Schools today are filled with millions of youngsters, too many of whom struggle with the English language or simply have mediocre intellectual ability. Their lackluster performances are probably impervious to the current reform prescriptions regardless of the remedy's ideological derivation. Making matters worse, retention of students in school is embraced as a philosophy even if it impedes the learning of other students. Weissberg argues that most of America's educational woes would vanish if indifferent, troublesome students were permitted to leave when they had absorbed as much as they could learn; they would quickly be replaced by learning-hungry students, including many new immigrants from other countries. American education survives since we import highly intelligent, technically skillful foreigners just as we import oil, but this may not last forever. When educational establishments get serious about world-class mathematics and science, and permit serious students to learn, problems will dissolve. Rewarding the smartest, not spending fortunes in a futile quest to uplift the bottom, should become official policy. This book is a bracing reminder of the risks of political manipulation of education and argues that the measure of policy should be academic achievment.

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools PDF Author: Robert Weissberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351297716
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Americans are increasingly alarmed over our nation's educational deficiencies. Though anxieties about schooling are unending, especially with public institutions, these problems are more complex than institutional failure. Expenditures for education have exploded, and far exceed inflation and the rising costs of health care, but academic achievement remains flat. Many students are unable to graduate from high school, let alone obtain a college degree. And if they do make it to college, they are often forced into remedial courses. Why, despite this fiscal extravagance, are educational disappointments so widespread? In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg argues that the answer is something everybody knows to be true but is afraid to say in public America's educational woes too often reflect the demographic mix of students. Schools today are filled with millions of youngsters, too many of whom struggle with the English language or simply have mediocre intellectual ability. Their lackluster performances are probably impervious to the current reform prescriptions regardless of the remedy's ideological derivation. Making matters worse, retention of students in school is embraced as a philosophy even if it impedes the learning of other students. Weissberg argues that most of America's educational woes would vanish if indifferent, troublesome students were permitted to leave when they had absorbed as much as they could learn; they would quickly be replaced by learning-hungry students, including many new immigrants from other countries. American education survives since we import highly intelligent, technically skillful foreigners just as we import oil, but this may not last forever. When educational establishments get serious about world-class mathematics and science, and permit serious students to learn, problems will dissolve. Rewarding the smartest, not spending fortunes in a futile quest to uplift the bottom, should become official policy. This book is a bracing reminder of the risks of political manipulation of education and argues that the measure of policy should be academic achievment.

Hope and Despair in the American City

Hope and Despair in the American City PDF Author: Gerald Grant
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674060261
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 5Ð4 verdict in Milliken v. Bradley, thereby blocking the state of Michigan from merging the Detroit public school system with those of the surrounding suburbs. This decision effectively walled off underprivileged students in many American cities, condemning them to a system of racial and class segregation and destroying their chances of obtaining a decent education. In Hope and Despair in the American City, Gerald Grant compares two citiesÑhis hometown of Syracuse, New York, and Raleigh, North CarolinaÑin order to examine the consequences of the nationÕs ongoing educational inequities. The school system in Syracuse is a slough of despair, the one in Raleigh a beacon of hope. Grant argues that the chief reason for RaleighÕs educational success is the integration by social class that occurred when the city voluntarily merged with the surrounding suburbs in 1976 to create the Wake County Public School System. By contrast, the primary cause of SyracuseÕs decline has been the growing class and racial segregation of its metropolitan schools, which has left the city mired in poverty. Hope and Despair in the American City is a compelling study of urban social policy that combines field research and historical narrative in lucid and engaging prose. The result is an ambitious portraitÑsometimes disturbing, often inspiringÑof two cities that exemplify our nationÕs greatest educational challenges, as well as a passionate exploration of the potential for school reform that exists for our urban schools today.

How The Other Half Learns

How The Other Half Learns PDF Author: Robert Pondiscio
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525533753
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?

Improbable Scholars

Improbable Scholars PDF Author: David L. Kirp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199391092
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
"In Improbable Scholars, David L. Kirp challenges the conventional wisdom about public schools and education reform in America through an in-depth look at Union City, New Jersey's high-performing urban school district. In this compelling study, Kirp reveals Union's city's revolutionary secret: running an exemplary school system doesn't demand heroics, just hard and steady work"--

The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil, Book 1)

The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil, Book 1) PDF Author: Soman Chainani
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007492944
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL is now a major motion picture from Netflix, starring Academy Award winner Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett, and many more! A dark and enchanting fantasy adventure for those who prefer fairytales with a twist. The first in the bestselling series.

The Freedom Writers Diary (20th Anniversary Edition)

The Freedom Writers Diary (20th Anniversary Edition) PDF Author: The Freedom Writers
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767928334
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The twentieth anniversary edition of the classic story of an incredible group of students and the teacher who inspired them, featuring updates on the students’ lives, new journal entries, and an introduction by Erin Gruwell Now a public television documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks—none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding. Her students began recording their thoughts and feelings in their own diaries, eventually dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers.” Consisting of powerful entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. In the two decades since its original publication, the book has sold more than one million copies and inspired a major motion picture Freedom Writers. And now, with this twentieth-anniversary edition, readers are brought up to date on the lives of the Freedom Writers, as they blend indispensable takes on social issues with uplifting stories of attending college—and watch their own children follow in their footsteps. The Freedom Writers Diary remains a vital read for anyone who believes in second chances.

The Case against Education

The Case against Education PDF Author: Bryan Caplan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691201439
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 551

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Book Description
Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

Work Hard, Be Hard

Work Hard, Be Hard PDF Author: Jim Horn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475825811
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book explores the ideological contexts for the creation and spread of “No Excuses” charter schools. In so doing, Work Hard, Be Hard focuses closely on the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter school chain as the most prominent exemplar for total compliance “No Excuses” schooling. By way of in-depth interviews, former teachers offer accounts of their “No Excuses” teaching experiences that have not been heard before and that are not likely to be forgotten soon. Work Hard, Be Hard also examines the KIPP organization as a manifestation of modern education reform exemplified in the convergence of neoliberal politics and the aggressive activities of the business and philanthropic communities. As an important corollary to the total compliance charter phenomenon, the book explores, too, the role of Teach for America in supplying the needed manpower and values components required to deal with very high levels of teacher attrition in these schools. Work Hard, Be Hard goes beyond accounts offered in news features, articles, and interviews that focus on “No Excuses” charters’ high test scores and expanded college opportunities for economically disadvantaged children. In short, the book offers a naturalistic antidote to the high profile gloss that mass media provides for “No Excuses” schooling. Work Hard, Be Hard examines new developments in “No Excuses” schooling that focus on psychological interventions aimed to alter children’s neurological and behavioral schemas in order to affect socio-cultural values and behaviors. Fraught with potential for abuse and misapplication by minimally trained teachers, these cult-like practices are examined and contrasted with more humane strategies that hope to reawaken the virtues of teaching and learning within the expansive confines of the sciences and arts of a truly humane pedagogy. This book will: Function as a common reader for parent groups or individuals interested in understanding the inner workings and impacts of “no excuses” charter schools; Serve as a text for education students for courses in pedagogy, social and cultural foundations of education, education policy, and politics of education; Provide deeper appreciation of social, political, and economic issues and incentives associated with total compliance charter schools; Help to ameliorate an absence of teacher perspectives on teaching in “No Excuses” charter schools; Assist the general public in understanding the ideological and economic agendas that drive support of total compliance charter schools; Help to educate policy makers and their staffs in cultural and economic facets of corporate education reform that are relevant to political decisions regarding education policy.

Ghosts in the Schoolyard

Ghosts in the Schoolyard PDF Author: Eve L. Ewing
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652616X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
“Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.” That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt. But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together. Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike? Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.

Bad Boys

Bad Boys PDF Author: Ann Arnett Ferguson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047203782X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Black males are disproportionately "in trouble" and suspended from the nation’s school systems. This is as true now as it was when Ann Arnett Ferguson’s now classic Bad Boys was first published. Bad Boys offers a richly textured account of daily interactions between teachers and students in order to demonstrate how a group of eleven- and twelve-year-old males construct a sense of self under adverse circumstances. This new edition includes a foreword by Pedro A. Noguera, and an afterword and bibliographic essay by the author, all of which reflect on the continuing relevance of this work nearly two decades after its initial publication.