IALA » Competition

New Book Blames Students

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:27:44 +0000

Bad Students Not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg, U of Illinois professor emeritus of political science, is a throwback to highly traditional education when principals exercised the power to throw kids out. This easy read, colorfully written with a degree of exaggeration, ultimately lapses in frustration at how to fix schools. Several chapters describe the failures of many efforts at reforming schools with big money, big ideas and big organizations. These are some of the best and most useful parts of the book evidencing considerable research.

Weissberg skewers movements like diversity and equity as distracting for educators and destructive to goals of academic achievement. Weissberg’s single focused interest in academics would eliminate students without demonstrated school success. He has no time for the whole child and other “soft” movements or even the choice movement though he seems ambivalent on that.

We are beginning to see a spate of articles along the lines of Bad Students impatient with the pace of academic achievement and irritated in general with immigration, rights, mandates and law suits. The new Core Standards, constant calls for rigor, increased testing and graduation exams remind me of the 1950s when Why Johnny Can’t Read and other books launched attacks on public education that put educators on the defensive for a decade until Kohl, Dennison, Holt, Silberman and others questioned seats bolted to the floor education. Bad Students Not Bad Schools needs to be read and confronted to better understand the many uncomfortable people frustrated with current schooling.

Posted via email from waynebj’s posterous

Significant Choice Information and Reports

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:47:49 +0000

The National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University is a repository of useful information and research reports on the subjects of privatization, charter schools, vouchers, choice, homeschooling, etc. They provide crisp definitions and background briefing on these topics plus 133 (and counting) research reports. For example, the two recent reports discuss how parents make choices and school choices among public, private, or homeschooling.

They also include Policy Briefings, Book Reviews, FAQs, Hot Topics and other helpful information. This is a valuable resource you will want to bookmark.

Can competition really improve schools?

Wayne Jennings — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:03:06 +0000

An article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Can competition really improve schools” reviews the concept of choice of schools ranging from open enrollment to vouchers. It points out that people of means have always had a choice of schools by where they choose t0 live or the ability to purchase a private school education. There’s no definitive research on the question of what choices provide the best education. Still, people like choices and are using them to a greater extent. This creates competition among systems and thereby tensions and disagreements.

Private Companies Providing Alternatives

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 23:25:34 +0000

The story, “Multimillionaire Buys Major Charter School Manager” tells how a wealthy couple created a new company, Imagine Schools, Inc. and purchased a chain of existing charter schools to become the second largest for-profit manager of schools involving more than 70 schools and 20,000 students. Their principles mention that schools should be places of integrity, justice and fun. Dennis and Eileen Bakke plan to invest an additional $140 million in their schools.

Edison Schools, the largest for-profit firm, manages schools serving some 132,000 public-school students in 40 states. A good source information on the fast-growing educational entrepreneurship sector is the Education Industry Association.