If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state
the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill,
they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public.
[Isocrates, 436-338 B.C. Against the sophists]
Professor Plum may be critical, but he's not a Gloomy Gus. [Ooops,
blew several fluid oz of Sundrop out of my nose.]
He merely thinks that eduquacks need nothing so
much as a harsh and repeated kicking down the street. "Gee, let's
see what happens if we don't teach kids ANYthing!
There's at LEAST a book deal in that!"
Following are some resources that Prof. P. has found useful. Maybe you
will, too.
Here's the link to the summary of a new book on
qualified teachers. Frederick Hess and others.
http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/papers/misapplied.html
A critique of constructivism applied to math instruction. John Anderson and others.
Review of experimental research on
effective math instruction. Bob Dixon and others.
Critique of block scheduling.
Jeff Lindsay.
Part of the huge
research base on Reading Mastery. [I have no financial interest in
the company. I've just seen it teach kids to read pronto.]
Beautiful article on "developmentalism."
John Stone reveals the philosophical roots (if you can call nonsense
philosophy) of progressivism, and how it came to infect schools.
Lots of instructional resources at Rory Donaldson's site.
Rory's a class act.
What schools could be like if
they were run by bright, tough-minded folks; were insulated from the edubabble that surrounds them; and could select materials
and create a unified curriculum. [In other words, there's not only reason to
hope, but models for achieving this.]
Ditto the Princeton
Latin Academy. [An education that doesn't
HAVE to be only for "certain" kids.]
"Looking for an Echo"
(soundtrack). Contemporary doo
wop. Haunting.
"Dion. New Masters."
Rerecordings of his music from the 50's and 60's. When we cruised
the summer nights in Lester's black '57 Chevy con
One of the most important papers you’ll read. “Who benefits from
failing urban schools districts?" Martin Haberman shows how the central office bureaucracy sucks up
the funds and then uses a variety of techniques to prevent serious
reform. [Take your blood pressure meds and use your yoga breathing when
you read this. This one could stimulate some important reporting.
Imagine comparing the waste, delays, and maldistribution
of resources in regular public schools vs. charter and private schools.]
Some other papers by Haberman are here and here and here.
All sorts of edyfying papers at No Excuses.
Their main contention, as foreshadowed by their name, is that schools refrain
from whining.
Teach Now--a website about
alternative certification.
If you've majored in, say, history, or math, or biology, and you know how to
read and write, do you really need to take three lame courses in
"literacy," courses on "methods" (the proper way to string
Cheerios on a string as a "math manipulative"), an "ed
psych" course where you learn to chant the mantra of progressivism ("drill
and kill drill and kill drill and
kill")? Professor Plum thinks not. How about ONE course in
logical design and clear speaking, one course in classroom management, and a
year apprenticeship in a successful school? Worth a pilot test??]
I'n no mathematician, but the California math
"standards" look pretty serious to me. (What do y'all
think? If you agree, write and TELL them so. You KNOW that the
folks who made these were fighting the constructivist establishment.)
See esp Chapter 4 (The
others are good, too). But Ch. 4, on instructional strategies, puts
direct instruction first and clearly advocates model (show
'em), lead (guided), test (students do it).
A person could COPY this and do a bit of politicking at a school
board. "Hey!
Fifty bucks says that
Thomas
Fordham Foundation. They like to poke and prod the establishment. Excellent analysis of current issues.
Quackwatch. They watch quacks. Business is real
good.
More on math, by
David Klein
Arthur Hu. Lexicon Moronicon.
Your compete guide to edubabble. [We don't
agree with all of Art's definitions, but then he no doubt finds some of my ties
to be an offense to theology and geometry.]
National
Council for Teacher Quality. A leader
in the ed wars. Great papers
AND alternative certification.
Fine paper from the always fine Education
Consumers site.
A
Few Good books (and a lot of mind slop) here. Please send book
reports.
The best of the lot (important reading, rational) in my op, are by Martin Gross, Wendy Kopp (what a tough woman can accomplish), Martha Nussbaum (no tolerance for rhetoric-rich bilge), Thomas Sowell (explodes edumyths right and left), Martin Rochester (how schools resist necessary change), Thernstrom and Thernstrom (disadvantaged kids are the victims of the schools), Chester Finn (the big picture), Dianne Ravitch (a historian's close look at inevitable failure in reform, trivial instruction in history, and the stupifying effects of political correctness in textbooks), Michael Maloney (good sense applied to teaching), Elaine McEwan (distillation of decades of wisdom from the frontlines), and Frederick Hess (socio-economic analysis applied to edumyths).
Rita Kramer, Ed School Follies, Authors Guild Backinprint.com, 2000
E. D. Hirsch, The schools we need and why we don’t have them, Anchor Books, 1999
J. Martin Rochester, Class warfare, Encounter Books, 2002
Diane Ravitch, Left back, a century of failed school reforms, Simon & Schuster, 2000
Laurence Steinberg, Beyond the classroom, Touchstone, 1996
Maureen Stout, The feel-good curriculum, Perseus Publishing, 2000
Charles Sykes, Dumbing down our kids, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995
Martin L. Gross, The conspiracy of ignorance, Perrenial, 1999
Elaine McEwan, Angry parents, failing schools, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1998
Melanie Phillips, All must have prizes, 1998
Chris Woodhead, Class war, Little, Brown, 2002
Books to avoid--unless you want a good laugh, want to raise your
blood pressure, or want further evidence of the prevalence of cognitive and
moral depravity in American education--are by Darling-Hammond (chief apologist
for the teacher ed establishment), Allington
(anti-reading reform), Glasser (helped to cause some
of the problems in American education but still in there pitching), Kohn
(Puckish Alfie appeals to the manyheaded.
"Punished by Rewards." What does the
title even mean?), Krashen (whole language), Meier.