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Title: Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice by Sol Stern ISBN: 1-893554-07-4 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The last Civil Rights battle?
Comment: Listened to the interview with the author
on First Voice. A real interesting
book and interview.
The interview is online
There's a transcript for those using dial up.
--J. R.
Rating: 4
Summary: Many lessons work, some fail
Comment: Breaking Free tries hard to be the one-size-fits-all destroyer of the public school temple. And it comes very close. But its ancestry as a bunch of shorter journalism, and its seemingly complete faith in principals, keep it from being perfect.
Mr. Stern seems to believe that dynamic principals can single-handedly reshape a school. That is true to a point. But there are two problems he fails to address. One is that these dynamic leaders are hard to find, and even harder to identify. I worked for many years in public schools and knew many principals. Among the worst was a charming and pretty lady who knew the jargon, conveyed authority and confidence, and was "for the children." She was a PR prize, known in the community and valued as an "expert." She was also a very bad principal. Cronies were in positions of authority, cronies who were always "downtown" or "at a conference" but never around. She wanted everything to run wonderfully, and did not want to know anything about the details. So details were kept away. I am reasonably certain that standardized tests were "corrected" by the teachers, giving comparatively good scores to very weak students. Even in a world of choice, it would be hard to pinpoint her school as anything other than a success. Good scores, great leadership, happy staff. It all looked good. And it was all a charade.
Principals have plenty of other ways of jiggering the books. And giving them additional unregulated power will only allow those with a deceptive streak to provide jobs for friends and lovers, keep critics away, and create personal fiefdoms where their word goes. So, though a dynamic, dedicated principal, willing to work slavishly long hours for low pay, may be the answer, just how many of those guys are there?
But his devastating critique of the New York City public schools, with their entrenched unions that ultimately make the only rules that matter, and his comparisons with (admittedly selected) private schools doing far more with much less should be required reading for those who believe the Chicken Littles in the education world who run screaming whenever any change is proposed.
Public education is a near-total failure. It is outrageously expensive. Teachers control the language of debate, the politicians pretending to debate, and the future voters, so their terms and their ability to exclude critics make them apparently invulnerable. But enough people are avoiding public schools, even the best ones, that change will have to come. I just hope we don't wait until the entire system is in ruins.
Rating: 5
Summary: Cuts through the nonsense and gets to the point...
Comment: It's beyond dispute that America's public schools, particularly in our cities, are failing to provide either an adequate education or an adequate socializing experience for children. The consequences are also well known: low self-esteem, poverty, crime... the gamut of ills attendant to relegating whole communities to the status of "underclass", unable to contribute to a 21st century economy.
The reasons for school failure and how to significantly improve our public schools are frequently debated. Proposals include "raise teacher pay", "get more teachers certified by our schools of education", "build better schoolhouses", and the incredible demand, "send us better kids". With a parent's perspective and a keen eye, Stern sweeps aside all the self-serving nonsense and gets right to the point: if the public wants public schools to perform, then schools must be managed to achieve that performance. Management means a controlling authority (most importantly, a principal) with the power to select teachers and other staff who will collaborate to achieve measurable goals. In today's public schools, the principal's inability to hire, fire, or to define work content and compensation, is a fatal blow to any attempts to dramatically improve school performance.
Stern goes on to document how, with $2 billion in annual dues and unprecedented political power that ranges from the local to the national level, the teachers' unions have dominated the political process. On the national and state level, wielding hundreds of millions of dollars worth of political clout, the teachers' unions have generally dominated the legislative process. On the local level, school districts are forced into signing labor contracts running to hundreds of pages, loaded with provisions that effectively eliminate teacher accountability and the principal's control.
Talented teachers and principals are disgusted and often demoralized when they see their profession become a dumping ground for incompetence, protected by a union that only cares about teacher prerogatives, including the "right" not to be judged, and who actively obstruct any drive for standards of performance. Principals with enough integrity to put students' interests first must struggle with a morass of rules and procedures that would be considered farcical in the private sector. The teacher's classroom is a fief impenetrable to any objective evidence of success or failure.
Stern focuses on the massive New York City public school system, where an antiquated administration is helpless to defend the interests of the individual school. In the case of Stuyvessant High School, where the City's finest students are assembled, Stern documents how an aggressively pro-student principal is "grievanced" into retirement by a diligent union representative wielding nothing more (or less) lethal than the teacher contract.
Stern's primary concern is the fate of students from poor homes, where parents are unable to supplement their children's education, and who attend schools where "to teach" is a process, not a result. These students fall behind early and never catch up. The significance of this academic failure is disputed by faddish school-of-ed-talk about "the inner child" and "learning to learn" and "critical faculties". Nevertheless, in the real world where reading, writing and math really matter, these children are stamped once and for all with the mark of the underclass. Meanwhile, down the street, with half the money, the City's Catholic schools are doing a significantly better job with the same students.
"Breaking Free" is a plea for school choice, to date the only school reform movement that has opened a chink in the Berlin Wall of public education. Charter schools and vouchers have proven the enormous pent-up demand for alternatives to the public school monopoly and the potential to do much better with our education dollars. Both programs, ferociously opposed by the unions, are struggling to meet their potential, hobbled by grossly inadequate state and local legislation. Behind these great public battles lies an even greater battle: to create public schools that work.
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Title: Voucher Wars: Waging the Legal Battle over School Choice by Clint Bolick ISBN: 1930865384 Publisher: Cato Inst Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by Stephan Thernstrom, Abigail Thernstrom ISBN: 0743204468 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Worm in the Apple : How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education by Peter Brimelow ISBN: 0060096616 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform by Diane Ravitch ISBN: 0743203267 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch ISBN: 0375414827 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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