www.EDUCATIONUPDATE.com AwardAward Volume XI, No. 4 • New York City • DECEMBER 2005 Winner FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS & STUDENTS THE LEGACY OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY U.S. POSTAGE PAID U.S. POSTAGE VOORHEES, NJ Permit No.500 PRSRT STD. PRSRT 2 EDUCATION UPDATE ■ FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS & STUDENTS ■ DECEMBER 2005 SummerSforforu highhimgh schoolscmhoole andanrd middlemSSeminarsiddele schoolsmchooiln teachersteaachrerss aandnd nationalnational parkpark serviceservice rangersrangers the Gilder Lehrman institute of american history The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History announces summer seminars for 2006. Seminars are tuition-free. Participants receive a $500 stipend, books, and room and board. In-service and new teacher credit available. Public, parochial, independent school teachers and National Park Service rangers eligible. Seminars limited to thirty participants per seminar by competitive application. Preference given to new applicants. DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS Applications must be postmarked by February 1, 2006. To download an application, or to apply online, visit www.gilderlehrman.org or call us at 646-366-9666 June 25-July1 Rhetoric and American Visions of the North American Slavery in The Great Depression, World Democracy American Environment Comparative Perspective War II, and the American West James Engell Patricia Limerick Ira Berlin David Kennedy and Harvard University University of Colorado, Boulder University of Maryland Richard White Stanford University July 2-8 The Great Plains: Reconstruction Lincoln America’s Crossroads Eric Foner The Colonial Era: Gabor S. Boritt Elliott West Columbia University Structure and Texture Gettysburg College University of Colorado, Boulder John Demos July 23-29 Yale University The American Revolution America between the Wars The Cold War (4th-8th grade teachers only) Alan Brinkley and Odd Arne Westad The American Civil War: Andrew Robertson Michael Flamm Cambridge University, U.K. Origins and Consequences, New York University Columbia University Battlefields and Homefront The Worlds of Gary Gallagher and July 9-15 New York in the Gilded Age Thomas Jefferson Ed Ayers Passages to Freedom: Kenneth T. Jackson and Douglas L. Wilson University of Virginia Abolition and the Karen Markoe Monticello and Underground Railroad Columbia University the University of Virginia The Civil War in David Blight, James O. and Global Context Lois E. Horton The Era of George Washington July 30-August 5 Thomas Bender Gordon Wood Yale University The Civil Rights Movement New York University Brown University Anthony Badger The Age of Lincoln Cambridge University, U.K. Interpreting the Constitution July 16-22 Richard Carwardine Jack Rakove and The Atlantic World Oxford University, U.K. Larry D. Kramer Philip Morgan Stanford University Princeton University DECEMBER 2005 ■ FOR PARENTS, EDUCATORS & STUDENTS ■ EDUCATION UPDATE 3 EDUCATION UPDATE GUEST EDITORIAL Mailing Address: Itʼs Time To End The Old Distinction Between 17 Lexington Avenue, A1207 New York, NY 10010 Email: [email protected] Vocational And Academic Education And so was born the junior high school—or www.EducationUpdate.com By JERRY F. CAMMARATA, Ph.D. sion maker. Today, people are expected to have intermediate school, or middle school—where Tel: 212-477-5600 & JERROLD ROSS, Ph.D. the flexibility to take on a multitude of tasks, to youngsters would be guided into a track based on Fax: 212-477-5893 Once upon a time, we could make a distinction approach unforeseen exigencies with clever solu- evaluations made possible by the burgeoning sci- between “educating for making a living” and tions, and to constantly improve the product; in ence of intelligence testing. At about age 13, stu- “education for life.” short, to be information workers. dents decided, or had decided for them, whether PUBLISHER AND EDITOR: The liberal arts and the humanities—educa- A recipe for disaster: we hear a renewed call for they were college and professional material, or Pola Rosen, Ed.D. tion for life—helped us live our lives well and “career-oriented” curricula in high schools. The whether they belonged in manual labor. ADVISORY COUNCIL: decently. Liberal studies also trained our minds to National Association of Scholars recently issued A new vocational education: the skills needed Charlotte K. Frank, Ph.D., Senior VP, think creatively and imaginatively. A liberal arts a proposal for reforming secondary education that today are, in fact, precisely not the ones acquired McGraw-Hill; Augusta S. Kappner, Ph.D., education was meant to train us in critical think- would ask entering ninth-graders to select one of by this sort of consignment to a myopic, preem- President, Bank St. College; Alfred S. ing. They were an exercise in seeing patterns, in two tracks of study: a “subject-centered” curricu- ployment education, but those acquired through Posamentier, Ph.D., Dean, CCNY; Adam understanding the different ways of looking at the lum (similar to the college prep courses of old) the challenges of a broad, liberal arts curriculum: same event, or in grasping the creative possibili- and a “career-oriented” curriculum (similar to the the ability to focus on detail, yet also comprehend Sugerman, Publisher, Palmiche Press; ties broadened by the very strictures that might old commercial course or vocational education the whole; the intellectual curiosity to ask not just Laurie Tisch, Chair, Center for Arts seem to limit them. but reflecting jobs generated by the new technol- “how” and “what” but “why” things can’t be differ- Education Education for making a living, on the other ogy). It is a recipe for disaster for our economy, ent from they way they are; the perspicacity to see ASSOCIATE EDITORS: hand, was what used to be called the commercial our national culture, and our students’ futures. other possibilities of interaction between discipline, Heather Rosen, Adam Sugerman, arts, the technical arts, a curriculum designed As the pace of technological change acceler- industries, or departments; the creativity to draw n Rob Wertheimer to help us find the kinds of jobs that often put a ates, the very jobs at which such specific training seemingly irrelevant analogies to better understand value on adherence to limits rather than the abil- is aimed will be disappearing as well—those of apparent conundrums; the flexibility and open- GUEST COLUMNISTS: ity to manipulate or transcend them. us who are still struggling with our VCR’s have mindedness to try new things, whether profes- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Iris Blanc, Today, it is often said that we live in the felt the breeze of DVDs, DVRs, and podcasting sionally or personally, or as Ernst Boyer stated in Jerry Cammarata, Ph.D., Andrew Gardner, “information age” and people are “information passing us by. We may soon well be receiving Scholarship revisited, to “…interpret, draw togeth- Dr. Carol Hankin, Jill Levy, Scott Noppe- workers.” Perhaps it would be better to say that three-dimensional interactive entertainment via er, and bring new insight to bear…on ideas.” Brandon, Jerrold Ross, Ph.D., Randi T. our information economy has blurred the old chips implanted directly in our brains. A friend of ours told us about a talk given Sachs, Amanda Sina definitions of thinker and doer, creating everyone This applies not only to the technical careers, recently at an alumni dinner for a Jesuit high STAFF WRITERS: anew as manager, entrepreneur, and creative deci- but to business as well. TiVo and similar ser- school. “The Jesuits taught us Latin and litera- Jacob Appel, J.D., Stevanne Auerbach, vices are about to render obsolete the traditional ture, calculus and chemistry, philosophy and pure Ph.D., Joan Baum, Ph.D., Gillian Granoff, advertising executive, and the New York Stock physics,” he said, “They trained us for nothing Richard Kagan, Mitchell Levine, Sybil IN THIS ISSUE Exchange trading floor may well be housed but prepared us for anything.” Maimin, Martha McCarthy, Ph.D., Merri entirely on a CPU chip within our lifetimes. That’s the kind of vocational education we need Rosenberg, Emily Sherwood, Ph.D., Liza Editorial . 3 History repeating: recall that the very notion of now. That’s the kind of education we need for liv- Young vocational education has its roots in the early part ing and for life.# Letters . 3 of the 20th century, when the “line jobs” meant Jerry Cammarata is a former member of BOOK REVIEWERS: Spotlight on Schools . .4-7,9-11,23-24, 26 assembly lines. In Left Back: A Century of Failed the NYC Board of Education and a former Harris Healy III, Lillian Shapiro, School Reforms, the highly regarded scholar Diane NYC Commissioner of Youth and Community Selene Vasquez Special Education . 8-9 Ravitch noted that, around the time of World War Development. Jerrold Ross is dean at the school MEDICAL EDITOR: Colleges & Grad Schools . .12-15,19-22 I, education reformers decided an academic curric- of Education at St. John’s University, Queens, Herman Rosen, M.D. ulum for all students was not “socially efficient.” New York. Calendar of Events . 15 MODERN LANGUAGE EDITOR: Adam Sugerman COVER STORY . 16-18 EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Children’s Corner . 24 LETTERS Steve Bailey Music, Art & Dance . 25 The Incredible Maxine Greene that I can to ensure that she is successful. If she To the Editor: is successful so is our school. MOVIE & THEATER REVIEWS: Moview & Theater . 26 Jan Aaron I want to congratulate you for the richness and Mable Scott MetroBEAT . 27 expansion of your newspaper and to thank you Columbia, SC MUSIC EDITOR: again for mentioning me, and the wonderful cov- Irving M. Spitz Technology & Education . 28 erage of the arts. The Fertile Crescent for Fertile Minds POLITICAL COMMENTARY: Books . 29 Maxine Greene To the Editor: Stuart Dunn New York, NY Very good site! I like it! I just wanted to pass on Resource & Reference Guide . 30 a note to let you know what a great job you have ART DIRECTOR: Medical Update . 31 15,380 Homeless Children in NYC Get Lost in done with this site.