Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg Tells It Like It Is

(Continued from front flap) “In this fine debunking book, Bob Weissberg hacks his way across the landscape Education of current American education like a marauding army, trashing bogus theories, Policy and Reform exposing the futility of pointless ‘reforms,’ showing no mercy to the charlatans, Sociology students, including many new immigrants rent-seekers, and fools who promise academic excellence for all. He even dares from other countries. to argue that our educational failings are not of supply, but of demand, and are American education survives since therefore not failings at all in any moral sense, just expressions of human liberty. BAD StUDENTS, we import highly-intelligent, technically Stuffed with facts, statistics, and research, this book is a relentless attack on the NOT BAD SCHOOLS skillful foreigners just as we import oil, absurdities of educational romanticism, and on what the author calls the ‘culture but this may not last forever. When of mendacity’ that has taken over educational theory and practice in the U.S.A.” Robert Weissberg educational establishments get serious —John Derbyshire, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism Americans are increasingly alarmed over about world-class mathematics and our nation’s educational deficiencies. science, and permit serious students to “In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg tells it like it is. This brilliant Though anxieties about schooling learn, problems will dissolve. Rewarding and brave book dares to challenge the nostrums of right and left as it presents are unending, especially with public the smartest, not spending fortunes in a irrefutable evidence that the numerous politically-correct responses to our failure to institutions, these problems are more futile quest to uplift the bottom, should educate our young are doomed to fail. No amount of money thrown at the schools, complex than institutional failure. become official policy. This book is a no structural or managerial changes, none of the usual answers cut to the heart of Expenditures for education have exploded, bracing reminder of the risks of political the problems that plague the system from kindergarten through higher education. and far exceed inflation and the rising costs manipulation of education and argues Making real changes that can prepare our young to excel in a complex world of health care, but academic achievement that the measure of policy should be requires acknowledging some hard truths. Professor Weissberg does so with rare remains flat. Many students are unable academic achievment. honesty—which is bound to make this a controversial book. He marshals irrefutable to graduate from high school, let alone research results to back up his assertions about what should be done—and what obtain a college degree. And if they do About the Author will never succeed—in order to cure the ills that plague American classrooms make it to college, they are often forced today. Reading this book is a transformative experience. It should change our way into remedial courses. Why, despite this Robert Weissberg is professor of political sci- fiscal extravagance, are educational ence emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana. of looking at our children, our schools, and our country.” —Rita Kramer, Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America’s Teachers disappointments so widespread? He is the author of numerous books, including In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Polling Policy and Public Opinion, The Politics Robert Weissberg argues that the of Empowerment, The Limits of Civic Activism, Transaction Books of Related Interest answer is something everybody knows and Pernicious Tolerance. to be true but is afraid to say in public— America’s educational woes too often PERNICIOUS TOLERANCE reflect the demographic mix of students. How Teaching to “Accept Differences” Undermines Civil Schools today are filled with millions Society of youngsters, too many of whom struggle with the English language Robert Weissberg or simply have mediocre intellectual Recent decades have seen a consistent effort by the American educational ability. Their lackluster performances establishment to instruct schoolchildren about the importance of “appreciating are probably impervious to the current differences,” all in the name of “tolerance,” so as to quell burgeoning “hate.” In reform prescriptions regardless of the Pernicious Tolerance, Robert Weissberg argues that educators’ endless obsession remedy’s ideological derivation. Making with homophobia, sexism, racism, and other alleged hateful disorders is part of matters worse, retention of students a much larger ongoing radical ideological quest to transform America, by first in school is embraced as a philosophy capturing education. even if it impedes the learning of other 183 pages • 978-1-4128-0695-4 • 2008 students. Weissberg argues that most of America’s educational woes would vanish if indifferent, troublesome students were permitted to leave when they had absorbed as much as they could learn; they would quickly be replaced by learning-hungry Library of Congress: 2010002948 Printed in the U.S.A. Jacket design by Seema Mazhar ISBN: 978-1-4128-1345-7 www.transactionpub.com (Continued on back flap) ii Bad Students, Not Bad Schools Preface iii iv Bad Students, Not Bad Schools Copyright © 2010 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo- copy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers, Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042. www.transactionpub.com This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010002948 ISBN: 978-1-4128-1345-7 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weissberg, Robert. Bad students, not bad schools / Robert Weissberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4128-1345-7 (alk. paper) 1. Problem children--Behavior modifi cation--United States. 2. School discipline--United States. 3. Classroom management--United States. I. Title. LB3013.W4615 2010 371.93--dc22 2010002948 Contents Preface vii 1 Introduction: A Nation at Risk or a Nation in Denial? 1 2 Bad Students, Not Bad Schools 23 3 Motivating Students or You Can Take a Horse 53 to Water and Make a Dehydrated Equine Feel Better about Herself 4 Closing the Racial Gap in Academic Achievement 83 5 The “War” on Academic Excellence 113 6 The Museum of Failed Educational Reforms 145 7 Business-like Solutions to Academic Insuffi ciency 177 8 The Alluring Choice Solution or Why Educating Students 205 Is Not Manufacturing Cheap Flat Screen TVs 9 Reforming Education Is the New Great 233 Society and Why Fixing Schools May Well Subvert the Social Peace 10 Hope? 267 Works Cited 281 Index 299 Preface Bad Students, Not Bad Schools might be called an Emperor’s New Clothes book—it says what everybody (or nearly everybody) knows to be true but is fearful of expressing in public—America’s educational woes just refl ect our current demographic mix of students. Today’s schools are fi lled with millions of youngsters, many of whom are Hispanic immigrants struggling with English plus millions of others of mediocre intellectual ability disdaining academic achievement. Their lackluster performances are impervious to the current reform prescriptions regardless of the nostrum’s ideological pedigree. In the past they would have just been pushed harder, and if that failed, they would be shown the door. Today, by contrast, schools have become the refashioned Great Society putting bread on millions of tables so slackers must be retained regardless of educational value. Worse, retention is embraced even if this impedes learning among their classmates. To be grossly politically incorrect, most of America’s educational woes would vanish if these indifferent, troublesome students left when they had absorbed as much as they were going to learn and were replaced by learning-hungry students from Korea, Japan, Vietnam, India, Russia, Africa, and the Caribbean. In an instant, all the clamor for vouchers, smaller classes, additional social services, teaching the test, innovative pedagogy, recruiting better teachers, accountability, junking Progressive education, and all the rest would seem antiquated, perhaps akin to the once popular lament over America’s youngsters being undernourished. Putative experts refuse to confront this obvious truth, at least publically, so we lurch from one guaranteed failed reform to the next, squandering hundreds of billions while progress is, we are assured by opportunistic politicians, just over the horizon. Perhaps this neglect is explainable since our diagnosis raises the awkward issues of unchecked immigration plus the possibility of group-related differences in intellectual talent. Further facilitating this silence is that down deep Americans disdain educational excellence. Just ask any parent who has pleaded that funds for football vii viii Bad Students, Not Bad Schools should instead be reallocated to more AP math courses. Better yet, com- pare how we tolerate rampant grade infl ation to obscure unexceptional

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