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‘Book Reviews’ Category

  1. nothing you can do to “fix” schools

    November 14, 2015 by Tunya

    What YOU Can Do To Fix Education — NOTHING !

    Magically, by reading a book, you will be able to help your child in school. Or so you’re told.

    Have you, as parent, been able to really, really help your child? Few have. Most haven’t.

    Here are just 13 books that promise much:

    1. Why Johnny Can’t Read, and what you can do about it, Rudolf Flesch, 1955
    2. The Literacy Hoax, the decline of reading, writing, and learning in the public schools and what we can do about it, Paul Copperman, 1980
    3. How To Fix What’s Wrong With our Schools — A Toolkit for Concerned Parents, Bertha Davis, Dorothy Arnof, 1983
    4. School’s Out, The catastrophe in public education and what we can do about it, Andrew Nikiforuk, 1993
    5. Beyond the Classroom – Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do, Laurence Steinberg, 1996
    6. Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It, Diane McGuiness, 1998
    7. How to Get the Right Education For Your Child, Malkin Dare, 1998
    8. Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It, Kelly Gallagher, 2009
    9. Stop Beating the Dead Horse, Why the System of public education in the United States has Failed and What to do About it, Julie L. Casey, 2010
    10. What's Wrong with Our Schools: and How We Can Fix Them, Michael Zwaagstra, 2010
    11. Betrayed, how the education establishment has betrayed America and what you can do about it, Laurie H Rogers, 2010
    12. Teacher Proof: Why research in education doesn't always mean what it claims, and what you can do about it, Tom Bennett, Jul 12, 2013
    13. Raising Kids who READ, What Parents and Teachers Can do, Daniel T Willingham, 2015


  2. beware! — community schools

    October 29, 2015 by Tunya

    How NICE WORDS Disarm Us 

    John Dewey in his march to transform education (and the world) in a collectivist direction used “democracy” as a convenient cover. His first book in this category, Democracy and Education (1916), was hugely popular in the English-speaking world and in the countries he visited, Russia and China. 

    “Democracy” was this nice, unthreatening concept that could lean in a number of directions and still remain the clarion call for reforms. In fact, Clarence Carson in his book “The Fateful Turn: from Individualism to Collectivism” shows how Dewey used the word “democracy” 30 different ways! 

    “Community” is another such nice, comforting word. And of course, it expands into “communitarian”, which is the term covering these devolution moves to community-based decision-making. 

    The movement for expanding community schools should be examined with sharp eyes. Sounding nice and comprehensive and even practical community schools could very well be a trap to further separate parents from their children and their responsibilities and duties to them. See: “Obama’s ‘Community Schools’ Aim to Replace Parents” http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/21395-obamas-community-schools-aim-to-replace-parents 

    Just announced that Madison, WI will start implementing 'community schools' next fall.


  3. e d hirsch “wave” of ed reform – I

    October 9, 2015 by Tunya

    Catching The WAVE Of Knowledge-based Education Reform — The GOOD NEWS (Part I)

    If there ever was a flipped classroom for adults to QUICK-LEARN about education reform it is here.

    But, first let me explain. Flipped classroom is the style of teaching where the students do their homework as assigned reading at home, then come to the classroom to discuss with the teacher what was learned and prepped ahead.

    Ed reform has had so many varieties over the ages so it’s hard to know where to start. VERY DISAPPOINTING are the books and articles which end up saying: And what you can do about it. (I’ve found over a dozen!) So, how many of us got NOWHERE?

    Anyway, after 4 decades of experience, I think this Hirsch Wave is one of the best things ever — for TWO REASONS:

    1 Knowledge-based curriculum is back in vogue, having been dismissed and deleted because knowledge was to be “constructed” meaningfully from the context of students’ experiences, and besides, content is obtainable “on the Internet”!

    2 Knowledge-backed approach is gaining headway — away from the philosophical belief mindsets of past education leaders. Proof, evidence, research, best practice and other similar objective criteria are coming to the fore — challenging feel-good, subjective theories.

    The best “flipped classroom” on the topic of Ed Reform is right here — Educhatter — on the Core Knowledge Curriculum. [Thanks P Bennett.] https://educhatter.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/knowledge-matters-why-is-the-content-lite-curriculum-in-retreat/#comment-18595

    After reading the whole article you’ll want to follow-up the 11 links provided before engaging in the brouhaha. There is much food for thought, enlightenment and material for advancing the much needed reforms.

    My suggestion is to start with #10— an articulate father (Sol Stern) having travelled the trusting-parent-to-dubious-parent-to activist-parent route.


  4. E D Hirsch “wave” of Ed Reform – II

    October 9, 2015 by Tunya

    Catching The WAVE Of Knowledge-based Education Reform — The GOOD NEWS (Part II)

    Links from “Knowledge Matters: Why is the Core Knowledge Curriculum Experiencing a Revival? Sept 21, 2015 by Paul W. Bennett:

    1 http://www.bbc.com/news/education-20041597 Cultural literacy: Michael Gove's school of hard facts By Fran Abrams, BBC Education & Family Section, 25 October 2012 [Hirsch effect on Gove, former UK Ed Sec]

    2 http://policyexchange.org.uk/publications/category/item/knowledge-and-the-curriculum-a-collection-of-essays-to-accompany-e-d-hirsch-s-lecture-at-policy-exchange Knowledge & the Curriculum: A Collection of essays to accompany E D Hirsch lecture at Policy Exchange, 17 Sept’15, 83pg

    3 http://www.amazon.com/The-Schools-We-Need-Dont/dp/0385495242 34 customer reviews. For over 50 years, American schools have operated under the assumption that challenging children academically is unnatural . . . teachers don’t need to know the subjects . . . All this is tragically wrong”. [The 1999 PB issue is worth the extra 2pg intro, reporting progress over last 3 yrs from the ’96 issue.]

    4 https://thewingtoheaven.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/certain-things-then-follow-from-that-notes-on-ed-hirschs-policy-exchange-lecture/ “Certain things then follow from that”: Notes on ED Hirsch’s Policy Exchange lecture [Another link here provides further links of reports from Hirsch talk https://arollerintheocean.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/e-d-hirsch-comes-to-england-collections-of-blogs/ including link to transcript AND voice recording of Hirsch.]

    5 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/michael-gove-speaks-about-the-future-of-education-reform Michael Gove speaks about the future of education reform July 10, 2014

    6 egalitarian concept as noted in link #4 above, Daisy’s report. [Note: Hirsch, in his book (pg7) denies that his educational standpoint is either “traditional” or “progressive”. He says: “It is pragmatic.”]

    7 link to #5 above, relating to the state of Massachusetts having adopted the core knowledge curriculum, topping achievement scores and called the Massachusetts Miracle.

    8 http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Hirsch.pdf Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge— of Words and the World Scientific Insights into the Fourth-Grade Slump and the Nation’s Stagnant Comprehension Scores, E D Hirsch, 2003, 14 pg

    9 link to #5 above relating to 1993 Education Reform Act

    10 http://www.city-journal.org/2013/eon1206ss.html The Redemption of E. D. Hirsch How my kids’ progressive school helped teach me the value of a content-rich curriculum, Dec’13, Sol Stern, 6pg [reading Hirsch showed how progressive fads “did more harm than good” . . . most devastating consequence of these doctrines was that they widened, rather than reduced, the gap in intellectual capital between middle-class children and those from disadvantaged families.”]

    11 http://marymyatt.com/blog/2015-09-19/the-hirsch-effect The Hirsch Effect, Mary Myatt report from the Hirsch lecture, Sept’15. [1 pg, 4 more links]

    [published in Educhatter https://educhatter.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/knowledge-matters-why-is-the-content-lite-curriculum-in-retreat/]

    educhatter

     


  5. Whole-Language Fall-out

    September 18, 2015 by Tunya

    Whole-Language Baggage Continues To Clutter Education Agendas 

    It’s true — I’m finding out as I research the whole-language movement — it was never just about teaching reading. Whole-language has religious, ideological overtones. It sets out to shape the holistic, humanistic child. It attracts discontented teachers.

    Reading — the physical act of reading — is a straightforward skill taught engaging the language hemisphere of the brain. English is a phonetic language. Decoding takes patience, but once learned (and taught), also becomes a transferable aptitude applicable to other challenges beyond reading.

    Whole-language approach is a huge package of social and emotional learning, emphasizing “guessing” of sight words, and encompasses school experiences far beyond primary years when basic reading should have been mastered and “reading to learn” replacing “learning to read”.

    It’s a long, unpleasant story — the Reading Wars. Started in 1898 by John Dewey who called phonics a “drill” and perversion he helped set in motion the collectivist/progressive movement in education, “learning by doing”, and we still reap the dubious and damaging “rewards” in 21st C Learning initiatives in our Western English-speaking world.

    The late Samuel Blumenfeld (The New Illiterates, Crimes of the Educators) quotes in his book on Homeschooling the words of Dr. Seuss on the matter:

    “That damned ‘Cat in the Hat’ . . . I did it for a textbook house and they sent me a word list. That was due to the Dewey revolt in the Twenties, in which they threw out phonic reading and went to word recognition . . . I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country . . . there were two hundred and twenty-three words to use in this book . . . I read the list three times and I almost went out of my head. I said, I’ll read it once more and if I can find two words that rhyme that’ll be the title of my book . . . I found ‘cat’ and ‘hat’ and I said, ‘The title will be ‘The Cat in the Hat.’”

    See more on this viewpoint – see comment : https://wearechange.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/dr-seuss-and-the-killing-of-phonics/