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REINVENTING EDUCATION

Name: REINVENTING EDUCATION
Author: Jr. Gerstner
ISBN: 0-525-93749-8

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AMERICA'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

by Jr. Gerstner ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 1994

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Yet another in the flurry of recent volumes advocating choice in schools; this one emphasizes ``the discipline of the market.'' By the former chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco (now chairman of IBM) and others involved in the educational policy debate, this latest thesis nailed on the door of the educational establishment invokes the quality management theories of the late W. Edwards Deming and the success stories of the RJR Nabisco Foundation's Next Century Schools Program. Funded by $30 million in grants from the foundation, the 43 schools in the Next Century group were scattered all over the country and used their grants to implement programs ranging from a longer school year (in North Carolina) to banishing grades (in Kansas) and parent education programs (in Texas). What the schools had in common was the involvement of the entire school community. A strong principal was critical to success, but so was the commitment of teachers, central administrations and school boards, and parents. The Deming approach stresses teamwork among workers and executives in creating a product that will satisfy the customer. But when talking about schools, who is the customer? Is it the students? The parents? The business leaders who complain that high school graduates are unemployable because they can't read or write? In this case, the authors have the marketplace in mind as the major ``customer'' as they advocate the application of successful business management techniques (e.g., rewards for good teachers; standards of performance to be met by all students) to the process of educational reform. This volume makes an eloquent plea for change if future generations are to meet the demands of the 21st century. As a Maine math teacher puts it, the problem is not that schools aren't what they used to be, but that ``schools are what they used to be''—designed to educate children as 19th- century factory workers, not 20th-century problem solvers. This report on the success of the Next Century schools and their wide-ranging experiments in education is heartening, as is the authors' conviction that if business (Ford, IBM, etc.) can change to quality management, so can education.

Pub Date: April 25, 1994

ISBN: 0-525-93749-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994

Categories:

EDUCATION

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MEMOIRS OF A MINOTAUR

FROM MERRILL LYNCH TO PATTY HEARST TO POETRY

by Robin Magowan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1999

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MEMOIRS OF A MINOTAURFrom Merrill Lynch to Patty Hearst to PoetryMagowan, Robin

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1999

ISBN: 1-885266-79-0

Page Count: 276

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BUSINESS | EDUCATION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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THE STUDENTS ARE WATCHING

SCHOOLS AND THE MORAL CONTRACT

by Theodore R. Sizer & Nancy Faust Sizer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 1999

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A passionate argument that moral education should be seen as an intrinsic part of high school life suffers from the very abstraction the authors seek to avoid. Sizer, noted author of a trio of school-reform books (Horace’s Hope, 1996, etc.) and his wife, who trains teachers at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, believe that most educators view character education as an “extracurricular” activity designed around a series of “absolute” nouns: respect, integrity, honesty, and so forth. The authors, on the other hand, insist that “the routines and rituals of a school teach, and teach especially about matters of character” and that becoming an ethical person ought to be an active struggle that engages students’ minds as much as calculus does. For even as the typical high school preaches a “civil religion” intended to turn out young people of good character, the Sizers point out, the sights and sounds of a typical school day may undermine these same values. Students who walk into broken-down school buildings learn that their education is not a priority. Teachers who come to school ill-prepared also teach their students how to cut corners. Schools with predominantly white honors classes teach that academic winners and losers break down along racial and class lines. Though the Sizers do a wonderful job of highlighting the hypocrisy that students see all too clearly, the authors frequently use “real-life” situations as springboards for airy theorizing. Rather than discussing the frightening rise in student violence, for example, the chapter on “Shoving” contemplates pushing in the hallways, dirty jokes, and rudeness, before redefining ’shoving” past the point of absurdity to mean breaking new intellectual ground. This book makes an eloquent case that schools need to practice what they preach. But because the authors define their moral categories so broadly, the values they champion lose their power. When words mean too much, they ultimately mean too little.