On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools: The Folly of Today's Education Policies and Practices by Gerald W. Bracey

On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools: The Folly of Today's Education Poliby Anonymous

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April 04, 2006: 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...