HW41

Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York, NY: Basic, 2010. Print.
Divided into chapters on how each specific aspect in undermining American education. Talks in depth about testing and includes benefits and problems with it. Deals mainly with the school reform debate. Also talks about faults in the "No child left behind" project.

Very interesting book, Interesting how it gives the reason on why we rely on standardized testing so much more than other countries. Numbers are easier to compare than personalities. Diane Ravitich shows why our present day education does more harm than good based on what is actually being taught in the classroom. I like how it talks about more than just curriculum and breaks down how different children learn.

Johnson, Dale D., and Bonnie Johnson. High Stakes: Poverty, Testing, and Failure in American Schools. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Print.
Written in story form on how a very impoverished elementary school was affected through standardized testing through having less "common knowledge" Touches on how instead of learning from the basics and moving up gradually, the school was given the same curriculum as a rich white school and was therefore unable to prepare students properly.

I found this book interesting because it explained how careless the board of education gives each school the same curriculum to every elementary school. Some children come in with certain knowledge and ability while others do not. Some parents are not able to read to there children at night and do homework with them while some are, yet still they are expected to learn the same stuff instead of splitting the class based on ability to make it more even and to group students with other children that are closer to there current level.


Lawler, Jennifer. Drug Testing in Schools: a Pro/con Issue. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2000. Print.
Discusses how the debate whether drug testing in schools should be allowed. Shows peoples reactions and thoughts on drug tests and many articles by NCAA coaches with what they think about the process of drug testing players.

I thought this book was interesting and the part I found most appealing was a coach from NCAA football team discussing drug tests and his approach towards them. They do not give his name or the institution he is coaching for but he is under the opinion that drug tests used to find marijuana, cocaine etc. should be used more and less drug tests should be used for athletic enhancers such as steroids. I found it interesting that a coach would in a sense support steroid use and as a head coach I would imagine he would know the side affects of steroids and be completely against it.


other sources researched:

Lewis, James. Implementing Total Quality in Education to Produce Great Schools: Transforming the American School System. Westbury, NY: National Center to Save Our Children, 1993. Print.

Schneider, Mark R. Disconnect: Why Americans Don't Understand the World and How We Can Learn. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2009. Print.

Homework 42 first part:

Urban, Wayne J., and Jennings L. Wagoner. American Education: a History. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Goes all the way back from pre colonial education to present day education. Talks a lot about how the education in America was changed when the British came over. Brings up testing very briefly but places more focus on old education and is written as a time line.

I liked reading parts of this book because it talked about native american education methods and how they were not even looked at when European settlers came over. They were ironically quite similar to the practices that the native americans had. I also think that the changes in education made throughout history rarely had the childrens purpose in mind.


Zhao, Yong. Catching up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2009. Print.
Talks about how education needs to be changed in America because of the technology and globalization our society has been faced with. Does a good job of showing what is being done right in the American school system but seems to argue that the foundation that it is based on is wrong and that we are currently at a crossroads. Often mentions how we place less emphasis on the creative part of school and more on the effectiveness of school, where other countries are heading in the other direction.

I found this book to be a bit boring because it was so similar to other books I looked at. Not much of what it said really stood out to me, very few original ideas. I certainly did not agree that the creative part of school is becoming less and less because although many schools are having there music and art programs cut out due to budget cuts, I think now more so than ever teachers are getting more creative with their assignments because it will inspire the students more and I think that often basic work from a textbook is just simply not done by the students because it is so grueling and boring to them.