Religion and American Education
Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma by Warren A. Nord. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Hostility toward religion has been institutionalized in our public education system, and this is profoundly illiberal, says philosophy professor Warren A. Nord. He contends that confusion about how to negotiate our differing views on religion lies at the heart of our culture wars, and from this confusion grow our most serious dilemmas in public education. Nord's plea is that, whatever our beliefs, we take religion seriously.
He begins with an historical analysis of the rise of modernity and the banishment of religion from our cultural discourse. He charts a shift in our application of the Establishment Clause from protecting religious liberty to promoting non-religion.
Nord cites evidence, particularly from high school textbooks, that government schools have become hostile to religious ways of understanding; they are overwhelmingly preoccupied with business, scientific, and technological concerns. A better education, by Nord's reckoning, would make more room for discussion of the greatest sources of meaning in life, including "those forms of community which bind us together with our fellow human beings ... and, perhaps also, with ultimate reality."
He believes we should not promote religion at school, but he makes a strong case that we should allow religious voices there to tell their stories in their own words.
Published by University of North Carolina Press, P.O. Box 2288, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288. Price: $19.95 paper; $49.95 hard.
—Reviewed by Michael Umphrey, Director, Montana Heritage Project, St. Ignatius, Montana.
The Vulnerable Child
The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America's Children and What We Can Do About It by Richard Weissbourd. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
The plot is familiar. We recognize the characters in this book. They are the children who walk into our classrooms and offices each day. They are the parents who sit with us and share their dilemmas and their own pain. For most teachers and administrators, these are the children who fill our days—and who frequently disturb our sleep.
Richard Weissbourd does not speak of the failure of our schools nor berate the injustices of poverty that engulf many of our students. He does write, however, about the real children we know: those we work desperately to teach and who are usually categorized anonymously as "at risk." He calls us to "inform the debate and look more deeply at these subtler deprivations that are every bit as much at the root causes of children's troubles."
The Vulnerable Child skips the familiar stereotypes. The illustrations—drawn from case studies and research studies—show that divorce, the stress of single parenting, adult depression, and other origins of children's failure to thrive are not limited to poverty or particular cultures. Refreshingly, The Vulnerable Child does not pretend to be a handbook on change or cite multiple theories on the change process. Its stories of real children and innovative programs invite the reader to relate in a personal way.
Weissbourd strikes a hopeful note as he describes how not only schools but also police, health, and social service agencies are beginning to collaborate on innovative, nontraditional programs. He highlights schools like Deborah Meier's Central Park East in Harlem; the James Comer schools; the Accelerated Schools at Stanford University; and Success for All, developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers and Baltimore school department officials. These schools, with the benefit of strong leadership, foster a sense of belonging among children and inclusion on the part of parents. Readers will want to add names of schools that they know are assuming that "disadvantaged children are as capable of learning as are their better-off peers."
Published by Addison-Wesley, Jacob Way, Reading MA 01867. Price: $22.
—Reviewed by Joanne Rooney, Midwest Principals' Center, Palatine, Illinois.
Beyond the Classroom
Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do by Laurence Steinberg. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Beyond the Classroom establishes its perspective in its title. Steinberg argues that student achievement has declined over the last several decades, as evidenced by flat SAT and NAEP scores since the late '70s, and that reformers have failed to reverse this trend.
Steinberg does not advocate the conservative reform agenda of strict standards and traditional instructional methods. Instead, he says that although schools have the potential to raise achievement, the real problem and the solutions lie largely outside the school. For schools to help, the community climate must foster, promote, and reward academic achievement.
For a variety of reasons, many high school students are disengaged from academic work. Often, says Steinberg, their parents are themselves disengaged and do not promote their children's achievement. Although most young people do think education will help them get better jobs, significant numbers—especially among some minority populations—do not think a lack of education will particularly hurt them. One cause is that parents don't know what to do and what to advise their children to do.
In high school, peer groups who become more influential than parents, peer groups frequently discourage academic achievement. Very often, to be accepted and to have friends requires not seeming like a "nerd," or someone who slavishly does school-work.
Then there is the pressure from parents for schools to offer a range of nonacademic pursuits. Steinberg notes that a typical student spends about 60 percent of the school day involved in clubs, athletic practices, and other nonacademic pursuits. Ironically, the original purpose of many of these activities was to keep nonachieving students in school.
In addition to the pressure for nonacademic activities, various interest groups pressure schools to be inclusive. Both these pressures, Steinberg says, have translated into grade inflation and lower achievement standards and expectations.
Many parents want tough standards, but they want them for the next person's child. In the United States, the typical high school student does about four hours of homework a week, compared to four hours per day in most other industrialized countries.
In addition, many high school students hold part-time jobs that interfere with their school work. Steinberg cites numerous studies showing that achievement goes down substantially when a student is involved in a job, a school activity, or both for more than 20 hours a week. Again, the United States is alone in encouraging its young people work while in school.
Thus, concludes Steinberg, in an argument sure to be rejected by both back-to-basics conservatives and organizational change advocates, school improvement can happen only within a larger context of parental action. Parents must become engaged in education, steer their children toward peer groups who value achievement, and not allow their children to hold part-time jobs. Then higher national standards and national assessments will have more importance, and educators will be free to focus their energies on reforms that help achievement.
Published by Simon & Schuster, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Price: $22.
—Reviewed by James Hill, Upland High School, Upland, California.
Notes From a Kidwatcher
Notes From a Kidwatcher. Sandra Wilde, editor. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1996.
In compiling this wonderful anthology of Yetta Goodman's writings, Sandra Wilde was guided by several criteria. She took care to include writings that typify the prodigious body of work by this teacher, researcher, and writer on children's literacy development. She also selected writings that are not widely available, that are of historical importance, and that have relevance for educators. The articles are arranged under six topics: culture and community; miscue analysis, reading strategies, and comprehension; print awareness and the roots of literacy; the writing process; kidwatching; and whole language and Coda.
What one notices regardless of the topic is Goodman's deep and constant support of all children and the power they have to influence our teaching. She argues that we can't build a strong multicultural curriculum until we are committed to understanding the lessons available to us from the many groups we face in our classrooms.
Goodman's reflections on how her writings and teachings affect those around her are interesting because her writings are so rich with her own questions about the teaching and learning process. Many of these questions, she says, "came from seeing my students expand their reading and writing proficiency at the same time as they were involved in answering questions relevant to their world."
Goodman makes it clear that teachers have a great deal to learn from their students, but she also demonstrates her respect for the teacher. She insists we must learn to trust the judgments of teachers if we expect them to know their students well and use what they know to develop curriculum and instruction.
Notes from a Kidwatcher is a treasure that all educators will want to have on their bookshelves.
Published by Heinemann, 361 Hanover St., Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912. Price: $24.50, paper; $55.00, hard.
—Reviewed by Peggy Cahoon-Moore, Clark County School District, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Measuring Up
Measuring Up: Standards, Assessment, and School Reform by Robert Rothman. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1995.
Schools are changing to meet new standards that measure not what goes into the system (the number of library books and number of courses taught) but what comes out of the system, namely, what students leave school knowing and being able to do. Changing what we measure demands changing the way we measure it, and this, in turn, means transforming the educational system. Measuring Up is definitely not a how-to manual; it is a very readable overview of why we need to rethink what we hold students accountable for.
Rothman traces the history of assessment reform and presents well-crafted case studies of the new methods. His clear summaries of some state and districtwide reforms point up the "clash of visions" that sometimes occurs. He begins, for example, with the 1993 Littleton, Colorado, school board election, which dramatized the polarity of opinions of what students should know and do upon graduating from high school. In response to an array of problems with new performance-based portfolios and demonstrations (including student confusion), the newly elected board reinstated traditional graduation requirements.
Rothman points out the positive results of assessment reform. But he also reminds us of the difficulty in creating assessments that are reliable, fair, and valid.
Published by Jossey-Bass Inc., 350 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94104. Price: $25.
—Reviewed by Sandra E. Schnitzer, Strategic Plan Facilitator, Aurora Public Schools, Aurora, Colorado.
Beyond Tracking
Beyond Tracking: Finding Success in Inclusive Schools. Harbison Pool and Jane A. Page, editors. Bloomington, Illinois: Phi Delta Kappa, 1995.
Why do we continue practices in schools that at best do not work and at worst may cause great harm to students? As I read Beyond Tracking, that question continued to come to mind. The book gives a historical perspective of ability grouping/tracking, presents research on its lack of effectiveness, explains the political pressure to continue this practice, and tells of educators striving to "untrack" students.
Public school teachers, college professors, administrators, and researchers are among the 31 contributors. Divided into four sections, Beyond Tracking offers practical suggestions for untracking schools. Section I—Should Tracking be Abolished?—opens with researchers Jomills Henry Braddock II and Robert E. Slavin on the harmful effects of tracking. Paul S. George considers the political hurdles faced by educators who want to discontinue tracking and offers practical strategies for "living with ability grouping."
Subsequent sections explore as the social effects of tracking, how to provide challenging lessons for all students, and teaching techniques that involve all students. Bob Slavin contributes a chapter on using cooperative learning to benefit students in untracked schools.
As a practicing educator, I enjoyed the many practical suggestions for child-centered educators who want to untrack their schools or classrooms. In the final section, Daphrene K. Sheppard, a middle school teacher in Hico, Texas, discusses her experience with "ungrouping" or leveling up, through multiage grouping and cooperative learning. Beyond Tracking is filled with the experiences of committed educators who are striving to create schools that have high expectations for all students.
Published by Phi Delta Kappa, P.O. Box 789, Bloomington, IL 47402-0789. Price: $35.
—Reviewed by James Hutto, Superintendent, Poplarville School District, Poplarville, Mississippi.
