by Gerald W. Bracey
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Product Description
"contrarian"
"professional outsider"
"a sore loser"
"another member of the Flat Earth Society"
"a national treasure"
"a modern Don Quixote"
"a skeptic's joy!" No matter what he's called, Gerald Bracey IS public schools' best defender. And in this book, he uses his considerable writing and research skills on their behalf. With authority, sensitivity, and a good sense of humor, he dismantles the negative PR our public education system has endured and does it with hardcore data, not phony "science." Bracey delivers the statistics and skillful analysis needed to win the numbers game that plays out daily in the popular press. Drawing on data from a variety of reputable sources, he proves that public schools are doing much better than critics claim, some indicators even showing record highs. He takes on the testing movement in numerous chapters, offers data that provide different perspectives than usually seen, and reviews the history of public schools, showing how they have included more and more students while raising achievement levels, too. He questions the so-called "failing schools," discusses the phenomenon of "summer loss," provides international comparisons, and presents data to argue that investing in universal quality preschool pays off in the long run. He even attempts to enter the mind of the father of American public education, Horace Mann, to see what he might think about the "nuttiness of today's policies." Bracey believes that our only hope to save the public school system is for teachers, teacher educators, and administrators to help speed up the needed perspective transformation. And they can begin to do it by reading this book and resuming their rightful position in educating students.
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Average Customer Review:
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Illuminating--should make you angry, but for the right reasons, 2006-04-05
On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools should be required reading for everyone, particularly those who decry the fall of public schools, and especially those who place any stock in the 1983 report A Nation at Risk. You would be hard-pressed to find a better-researched book than this one. Gerald Bracey concedes that there are problems in public education, and he addresses the real problems while brilliantly putting a spot light on the imaginary ones. Among the issues he addresses:
Testing scores: are American students lagging behind?
Bracey gives several examples of how American kids do poorly on domestic measures like NAEP, but they stack up very well against the industrialized world. He also shows why those responsible for setting the NAEP achievement levels so high had ulterior, and very political motives.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): Blessing or Curse?
Its intentions may have been good, but Bracey shows just how detrimental this law really is. For example, he mentions that NCLB provides the states with $1.4 billion in new money. But if the law continues as scheduled until 2012, it will cost them between $84-148 billion. Children must be offered the option of going to a more successful school, which simply means a school with higher test scores, even if the school is already packed. With current research seeming to suggest that class size does matter, especially for young children, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict what will happen when the class sizes at this "successful" school rise dramatically.
Bracey also addresses the issue of vouchers, which are touted as the fix for poor kids. However, most private schools will not accept children who test as low as kids from the lowest scoring nations in the world---just as they will not accept limited English language speakers and special education students.
Another chapter discusses the influence of the large testing companies, (The McGraws of CTB-McGraw-Hill and the Bushes have been vacation-together families for 75 years), and the numerous mistakes they have made in the past. With the heavy consequences and money at stake with NCLB, these are not little mistakes. In 2002, 8,000 students in Minnesota were falsely failed. They not only suffered needless humiliation and stress, many gave up summer jobs to attend summer school they didn't need. What's being done about it? Not much. The testing industry is the largest unregulated business in the nation. And with NCLB, more testing means business is booming.
Do American schools work?
Probably better than you might think. Because of its high test scores, Japan has recently been thought to be a model for American schools to aspire to. Although public schools do have problems, Bracey illustrates what our schools are doing right---and why we shouldn't start modeling our schools after the Japanese system just yet. You'll have to read the book for the specifics.
Should schools be preparing kids for work?
My first thought was, "Why yes! Of course! Why wouldn't they?" This is one of the most interesting questions in the book. Bracey convincingly shows how schools might actually be used to drive down the price of labor. He cites many studies that show that the American worker is the most productive in the world. Meanwhile, jobs are disappearing. At least high-paying jobs are. With his research and well-written essays, Bracey shows that productivity is RISING, while wages are FALLING. He also suggests an alternative to that question above.
The Political Influence
While A Nation at Risk was so quick to blame kids for the economy in the early 80's, no credit was given to kids or education for the booming economy during the next 15-20 years. Did American kids become much better students during this time, or could it be that the report exaggerated the condition of America's schools and their effect on the American economy? Was Risk the truth, or was the truth actually suppressed? Consider this story from the book: A 1990 study called the Sandia report came with 78 pages of graphs and tables and 77 pages of text and concluded that while there are problems in education, there was no nationwide crisis. The Deputy Secretary of Education at the time, former Xerox CEO David Kearns, told the engineers who compiled it after he was briefed about it, "You bury this or I'll bury you." What's more, the engineers were forbidden to leave the state to discuss the report.
When asked about some of the particularly damning statements made in the A Nation at Risk, none of the contributors could say where they had come from. Statistics were carefully selected to paint a grim picture. For example, reading and math scores of 9, 13, and 17-year olds were all either steady or rising. The only trend that was not was science. In fact, of nine trend lines, only one could have been used to allege a crises. Guess which one the report used? Bracey also describes how the education community missed its chance to debunk Risk because of its own self-interest.
Is there such a thing as good news?
Much is made in the media about how stagnant SAT scores are. However, the author shows that test scores for every ethnic group have been going up. The reason total scores are not is because more and more of the test-takers are minority students, whose test scores are improving but not up as high as white students. When an international comparison of math and science appeared to show American students performing poorly, a press conference was called and the story garnered much attention. But when an international comparison of reading scores showed that out of 31 nations, American students were second in the world, and that the best readers in the US outscored all countries, not one media outlet carried the results. Eventually, Education Week discovered the story and carried it, and USA Today then picked it up.
Another example: In 1993, the conservative columnist George Will correctly noted that all of the states with the highest SAT scores were low spenders. New Jersey spent more money per child per year than anyone else and still finished only 39th in SAT scores. Later Robert Novak candidly reminded Californians that their SAT average was lower than Mississippi's. What Will and Novak didn't mention is that in the high-scoring states, hardly anyone takes the SAT. For the top five states, the percentages of seniors who bubbled in SAT answer sheets the year of the study were 5, 6, 6, 4, and 10 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, in New Jersey 76% of the senior class took the SAT. Mississippi beat California because 4% of its seniors took the SAT, while 47% of Californians did. You can bet those few Mississippi students who did take the test were highly motivated, college bound seniors. New Jersey, it turns out, should have been commended for having so many of its seniors take the test to apply to four-year colleges that require it.
Bracey has the studies to back up his points. Some may say, "You can prove anything with a study." I suppose that's true. A study funded by the tobacco industry will probably conclude that tobacco isn't harmful. However, if you read the book, it will be awfully hard for you to debunk Bracey's research. This is especially true considering how Bracey shines a light on how certain politicians manipulated or suppressed research themselves that might paint schools in a more positive light. Regardless of what your political orientation is, this is an important book that should be read and talked about.
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