Testing Wars in the Public Schools
Testing Wars in the Public Schools

Author: William J. Reese

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0674075692

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Written tests to evaluate students were a radical and controversial innovation when American educators began adopting them in the 1800s. Testing quickly became a key factor in the political battles during this period that gave birth to America's modern public school system. William J. Reese offers a richly detailed history of an educational revolution that has so far been only partially told. Single-classroom schools were the norm throughout the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. Pupils demonstrated their knowledge by rote recitation of lessons and were often assessed according to criteria of behavior and discipline having little to do with academics. Convinced of the inadequacy of this system, the reformer Horace Mann and allies on the Boston School Committee crafted America's first major written exam and administered it as a surprise in local schools in 1845. The embarrassingly poor results became front-page news and led to the first serious consideration of tests as a useful pedagogic tool and objective measure of student achievement. A generation after Mann's experiment, testing had become widespread. Despite critics' ongoing claims that exams narrowed the curriculum, ruined children's health, and turned teachers into automatons, once tests took root in American schools their legitimacy was never seriously challenged. Testing Wars in the Public Schools puts contemporary battles over scholastic standards and benchmarks into perspective by showcasing the historic successes and limitations of the pencil-and-paper exam.

School's in
School's in

Author: Kenneth Mark Gold

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13:

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Annotation Gold (education, College of Staten Island, City U. of New York) gives a history of summer classes from the 19th century to the present, addressing the question of why universal summer education is not in place in the U.S. The first three chapters examine the standardization of school calendars in the 1800s, both in the country and the city. The last three chapters address the concept of the vacation school and summer school, as introduced by cities such as Newark and Providence. An epilogue deals with the return of summer school after the Depression. Gold uses dozens of statistical tables to support his points. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The Education Trap
The Education Trap

Author: Cristina Viviana Groeger

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0674259157

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Why—contrary to much expert and popular opinion—more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger’s test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences—both intended and unintended—for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality. The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.

Reinventing America's Schools
Reinventing America's Schools

Author: David Osborne

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1632869918

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From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

Teaching What Really Happened
Teaching What Really Happened

Author: James W. Loewen

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2018-09-07

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0807759481

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“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”— Howard Zinn James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled "Truth" that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery. Book Features: An up-to-date assessment of the potential and pitfalls of U.S. and world history education. Information to help teachers expect, and get, good performance from students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Strategies for incorporating project-oriented self-learning, having students conduct online historical research, and teaching historiography. Ideas from teachers across the country who are empowering students by teaching what really happened. Specific chapters dedicated to five content topics usually taught poorly in today’s schools.

23 Myths about the History of American Schools
23 Myths about the History of American Schools

Author: Sherman Dorn

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0807769266

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In this fascinating collection, some of the foremost historians of education--including Barbara Beatty, Larry Cuban, Linda Eisenmann, Yoon K. Pak, John L. Rury, and Jonathan Zimmerman--debunk commonly held myths about American schooling. Each short, readable chapter focuses on one myth, explaining what the real history is and how it helped shape education today. Contributors take on a host of tall tales, including the supposed agrarian origins of summer vacation; exaggerated stories of declining student behavior and academic performance; persistent claims that some people are born to be teachers; idealistic notions that the 1954 Brown decision ended segregation in American schools; misleading beliefs that classrooms operate in ways designed to fit the industrial era; and more. 23 Myths About the History of American Schools will awaken the inner history nerd of everyone who ever asked, "How did we get this irrational school system?" It will affirm the truth that its readers are as entitled to think critically about schooling as anyone else. Book Features: Examines how the history of American education has been distorted and misrepresented, either intentionally or unintentionally. Provides important stories that can help guide discussion about the future of education. Anticipates what local and state politicians are likely to say (and misstate) about schooling. Provides engaging chapters that highlight why real history is important and more fascinating than the myths. Accessible to a wide range of readers from undergraduates to career educators.

The Freedom Schools
The Freedom Schools

Author: Jon N. Hale

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-06-07

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0231541821

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Created in 1964 as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Freedom Schools were launched by educators and activists to provide an alternative education for African American students that would facilitate student activism and participatory democracy. The schools, as Jon N. Hale demonstrates, had a crucial role in the civil rights movement and a major impact on the development of progressive education throughout the nation. Designed and run by African American and white educators and activists, the Freedom Schools counteracted segregationist policies that inhibited opportunities for black youth. Providing high-quality, progressive education that addressed issues of social justice, the schools prepared African American students to fight for freedom on all fronts. Forming a political network, the Freedom Schools taught students how, when, and where to engage politically, shaping activists who trained others to challenge inequality. Based on dozens of first-time interviews with former Freedom School students and teachers and on rich archival materials, this remarkable social history of the Mississippi Freedom Schools is told from the perspective of those frequently left out of civil rights narratives that focus on national leadership or college protestors. Hale reveals the role that school-age students played in the civil rights movement and the crucial contribution made by grassroots activists on the local level. He also examines the challenges confronted by Freedom School activists and teachers, such as intimidation by racist Mississippians and race relations between blacks and whites within the schools. In tracing the stories of Freedom School students into adulthood, this book reveals the ways in which these individuals turned training into decades of activism. Former students and teachers speak eloquently about the principles that informed their practice and the influence that the Freedom School curriculum has had on education. They also offer key strategies for further integrating the American school system and politically engaging today's youth.

Educational Reconstruction
Educational Reconstruction

Author: Hilary N. Green

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0823270130

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Tracing the first two decades of state-funded African American schools, Educational Reconstruction addresses the ways in which black Richmonders, black Mobilians, and their white allies created, developed, and sustained a system of African American schools following the Civil War. Hilary Green proposes a new chronology in understanding postwar African American education, examining how urban African Americans demanded quality public schools from their new city and state partners. Revealing the significant gains made after the departure of the Freedmen’s Bureau, this study reevaluates African American higher education in terms of developing a cadre of public school educator-activists and highlights the centrality of urban African American protest in shaping educational decisions and policies in their respective cities and states.