EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE: Our Schools at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

A loose series of forecasts about the state of schools and education after the millennium. In 1983, the land mark study of America's schools, A Nation at Risk, jolted many educators into reevaluating their failing schools. Futurist Cetron (coauthor, American Renaissance, 1989, etc.) and educator Gayle have teamed up to report on programs put in place since that report. Although experiments are not widespread, and not all have been successful, the authors are excited about what they see. So-called ""on-site"" management, although not without controversy, is among the most popular of the new programs. That simply means local control: letting the people most directly involved--teachers, principals, and parents--determine what methods serve their communities best. The authors also take a look at schools experimenting with programs like Mortimer Adler's back-to-the-future classical Socratic methods. They look at computers and videos in the classroom and agree that these are tools that could free students and teachers for more creative work, but educators simply don't know how to use them yet. Among the flaws here is a series of chapters from school administrators that read like badly edited speeches and contribute little. Trend charts are included (not seen in context). The authors mince no words about the inadequacy of some teachers and the tyranny of the bureaucracy, but their excitement about the innovative programs that are in place and the possibilities to come is clear. It's rewarding to read something good about schools for a change.