{"title":"Class and Schools - Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap","authors":"Stephanie Hatheway","doi":"10.5860/choice.43-0465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.43-0465","url":null,"abstract":"CLASS AND SCHOOLS - USING SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM TO CLOSE THE BLACK-WHITE ACHIEVEMENT GAP RICHARD ROTHSTEIN ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 2004 PAPERBACK: $18.98 * 1-932066-09-8 The theme of Class and Schools centers on closing the achievement gap between Black and White students. The author discusses various governmental reforms such as economic, social and medical changes, that must be implemented before the achievement gap will ever truly be bridged. The organization of the book is set up to initially explain the achievement gap between Black and White students and how social class has a great impact on the difference in scores. The order of the chapters is logical. Defining the achievement gap, social class differences in raising children, and cultural differences between Black and White students are discussed. By the fifth chapter, the author begins illustrating what reforms need to take place to close the achievement gap. The clear organization of the chapters helped to give background information and facts. Each chapter is broken down into topics that are all linked by a single heading; this connected ideas seamlessly. The preface is written by a renowned economist, which gives credibility to statements the author made in the book. The introduction gives useful background facts on the desegregation of public schools. The author uses bar graphs effectively to visually represent information. Especially practical is the endnotes section because everything is referenced and numbered. The amount of facts and history contained in the endnotes alone helps to clearly state the author's point of view. There is an Appendix titled \"What employers say about graduates\" that is insightful and magnifies the current problem of what is not being tested on standardized tests. The book consists of five chapters. Chapter One highlights historical background of the achievement gap, misunderstandings about the concept, genetic factors, social class, health care, cultural and even housing differences that affect student performance. Rhetorical questions help to analyze whether cultural background or society explain discrepancies in academic achievement. The most startling facts from this chapter are statistics about the size of the vocabulary of the middle-class kindergartener being raised in a home with college educated parents, compared to the vocabulary of the Black kindergartener from the home of non-degreed parents. The middle-class child begins school with a vocabulary equivalent to that of the lower-class Black adult. Chapter Two explains how some schools \"beat the demographic odds\" when it comes to student achievement gaps, and within the chapter examples of the schools are given. There is a particularly interesting discussion by Dr. William Sanders about what he refers to as the \"Tennessee value-added assessment system.\" This system separates the influence of teachers on the achievement gap from the child's family background","PeriodicalId":344676,"journal":{"name":"American Secondary Education","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124755070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents","authors":"D. Kommer","doi":"10.5860/choice.39-0449","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.39-0449","url":null,"abstract":"BOYS AND GIRLS LEARN DIFFERENTLY: A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS MICHAEL GURIAN AND PATRICIA HEMLEY WITH TERRY TRUEMAN JOSSEY-BASS, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 2001 $24.95 ISBN 0 78795343 1 Maybe girls are not made of sugar and spice and everything nice. And perhaps boys really not made of snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails, but we all know there is a difference between them. Are girls smarter than boys? Do boys have an advantage in math and science classes? Why are more boys enrolled in special education classrooms than girls? Why are more boys enrolled in special education classrooms than girls? These, and many more, are some of the intriguing questions posed by Michael Gurian's Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents from Jossey-Bass Press. Mr. Gurian is an educator, family therapist and director of the Michael Gurian Institute at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. Reading Boys and Girls Learn Differently is a fascinating and revealing process. I was at turns amazed by the wealth of information, cautious about some of the conclusions and made starkly aware of many differences that seem so obvious to anyone who has spent time with students in mixed classrooms. The book is filled with data, some statistical, some more qualitative, to support the ideas presented. The book has a logical organization that makes it not only easy to follow, but also allows readers to select the topics of most interest. For example, high school teachers might want to skip the section on preschool in the interest of time. Part One, \"How Boys and Girls Learn Differently,\" sets the foundation by discussing how the brain works. Gurian ably describes the brain development from both the neurological and sociological perspectives. At this juncture it is difficult to determine which factors are genetically controlled and which are the result of social norms. This section can be glossed over if much of the information is know to the reader, or if the reader would rather cut to the chase and get to the \"so what\" section of the book. I recommend that readers do spend some time here, however, as the author does refer to this information in the remaining parts of the book. Besides, the brain is such a fascinating organ that most readers will find the sections on chemical, hormonal and functional differences quite interesting. There are two useful tables detailing gender differences here. One cannot help but do some introspection during these pages-\"Oh, I see why I am the way I am!\" Part One continues with some of the nuances of difference which affect the socialization of developing children, as well as factors which have an impact on the success each gender may find in schools. Mr. Gurian does suggest that schools are both harmful and natural settings for each gender. There are some things that favor one gender over the other, but both genders find some benefits and some disadvantages in our current educational environment. …","PeriodicalId":344676,"journal":{"name":"American Secondary Education","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114227987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946","authors":"Herbert W. Broda","doi":"10.5860/choice.37-4021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.37-4021","url":null,"abstract":"REVIEWER HERBERT W. BRODA, PH. D., is Assistant Professor of Education at Ashland University, Ashland, OR The age-old question: \"What knowledge is of most worth?\" could be considered the foundation of Herbert Kliebard's recent scholarly contribution, Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946. Kliebard, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is considered to be one of America's leading curriculum historians. His reputation for historical scholarship and educational insight is certainly reflected in this comprehensive volume. Schooled to Work traces the evolution of job training as an educational ideal in the American public schools. In a highly chronological manner, Kliebard details the people, events and institutions that shaped the development of vocational education over a seventy-year period. To quote from Kliebard's preface: [The book] begins with the drive to install manual training in American schools, proceeds next to vocational education and then to vocationalism. This includes vocational education but incorporates the idea that the curriculum as a whole, not just part of it, exists for the purpose of getting and holding a job. The book is primarily organized according to historical periods that Kliebard associates with major shifts in the conceptualization of vocationalism. The volume illustrates very effectively the ongoing tension that exists between two frequently opposing views of education: schooling as knowledge transmission, and schooling as preparation for the workforce. As Kliebard explores each decade, the definition of \"appropriate schooling\" is subject to the forces of society and the impact of changing needs in the workforce. Such factors as the Industrial Revolution, the evolution of labor unions, women in the labor force and the Great Depression had tremendous impact upon the answer to \"What knowledge is of most worth?\" Chapters One and Two explore the national trends and issues that surrounded the evolution of manual training to vocational training during the period 1876-- 1912. The identification of manual training with the American work ethic, and the eventual shift to \"fitting youth for their life-work\" is detailed in these chapters. Chapters Three and Four move from a national look at manual training vs. vocational training, to an in depth look at the evolution of these concepts in the Milwaukee Public Schools. These two chapters which focus upon the Milwaukee experience are outstanding examples of how detailed historical research can help us to understand curricular change. Utilizing extensive original sources, Kliebard powerfully describes how curricular change is molded and manipulated by interest groups both inside and outside of the official school structure. Chapter Five returns to a national perspective and explores the period 1908-- 1919, an era that included the social efficiency movement, the Smith-Hughes Act and the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Educat","PeriodicalId":344676,"journal":{"name":"American Secondary Education","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122348350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?","authors":"Jill Anthony","doi":"10.2307/1319267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/1319267","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344676,"journal":{"name":"American Secondary Education","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129090493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Schools-Private Enterprise: What You Should Know and Do about Privatization","authors":"William Hughes","doi":"10.5860/choice.35-4618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.35-4618","url":null,"abstract":"Flam, S. & Keane, W (1997). Lancaster, PA: Technomic, 1997, $39.95, ISBN 1566765358. Privatization of management services and instructional programs is a fact of life in many school districts. The move to privatization is not easy and requires careful study and planning before any decision is made. The book is an insightful study that examines the privatization process in some detail. Economic theory and practical experience inform the concept of contracting public school services. The human element is considered throughout the book. The book uses the author's experiences as the starting point for the consideration of privatization. The book includes topics on contracting, cost analysis, roles and responsibilities in privatization, the politics of privatization, developing and monitoring effective contracts and the future of privatization. The book follows a logical development with the authors linking the topic of each chapter to a district scenario. The book is particularly significant in that it raises questions that persons must consider before embarking on a privatization venture. The appendix materials are especially impressive in that they provide checklists, sample contractual items and lists of firms that provide school services. Contracting in public education is nothing new. This book examines many of the central issues surrounding the commercialization of school services. Chapter 1 describes a privatization experience in a Michigan school district. The experience demonstrated the need for detailed information before embarking on a privatization venture. Chapter 2 examines the history of privatization and suggests there has been a trend toward privatization of many of the governmental services in this country. It is suggested that this trend will continue and encompass education as well. Chapter 3 explores contracting as a form of privatization and cautions that decisions to move to private services contracts should be made only after careful consideration of the consequences of such an action. Examples of firms that have entered the educational marketplace are included. Chapter 4 examines the cost analysis process which school districts must perform before any privatization decision. It is suggested that it is difficult to make valid comparisons between the costs of in-house and contracted services without accurate cost comparisons. Illustrative examples are drawn from the field of school transportation. Chapter 5 discusses the roles and responsibilities of boards of education, district administrators and district staff as privatization decisions are made. …","PeriodicalId":344676,"journal":{"name":"American Secondary Education","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121567532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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