Cheri Pierson Yecke

The War Against Excellence

The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America's Middle Schools

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Radical activists do not see the American middle school as an organization to impart academic knowledge, but as an instrument through which they can force social change. Yecke, an experienced teacher and administrator, shows how these activists have implemented their plans and endangered the education of all middle school children-especially those who are gifted. In 1983 A Nation at Risk declared, If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. How did American educators respond? In their quest to establish a more egalitarian society, middle school activists and social reformers made it clear that the middle school was not just a new educational organization, but a means promoting social egalitarianism by coercing gifted students to be like everyone else. This was nothing less than a declaration of war against gifted children. Yecke shows that the inadequacies of our systems of research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national security over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine. The achievement of students in other nations now regularly surpasses that of American students, and it will be impossible to reverse this trend within the confines of the contemporary middle school concept. Yecke asserts that it is time for the American public to reject the radical middle school movement before too much damage is done.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Praeger
• Seitenzahl: 282
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Oktober 2003
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 161mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 592g
• ISBN-13: 9780275981167
• ISBN-10: 0275981169
• Artikelnr.: 21749301

Autorenporträt

Cheri P. Yecke

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Prologue Introduction The Growth of the Middle School Movement
Middle School Curriculum Ability Grouping Cooperative Learning Peer
Tutoring Analysis of Beliefs and Driving Convictions Activist
Implementation Ethical Considerations Implications for the 21st Century
Appendices Selected Bibliography

Rezensionen

Cheri Yecke has made a profoundly important contribution to education policy research. Her meticulously documented study exposes the ongoing threat to the academic achievement of middle school students. She chronicles the destructive agenda of social hygienists and educational theorists to put a glass ceiling on student achievement in the name of an equity of mediocrity. And it shows what parents and policymakers can do to protect the integrity of this nation's public education. -- Michael Poliakoff, president, National Council on Teacher Quality Cheri Pierson Yecke's [book] illustrates a vital but poorly understood aspect of education policy making: Educational improvement campaigns are often infused with social engineering motives. Dr. Yecke does an extraordinary job of documenting how the American Middle School Movement has become just such a campaign. Parents and policymakers often endorse educational innovations without any real understanding of how or whether they work. With regard to the Middle School Movement however, they can read The War on Excellence and judge for themselves... -- Dr. John E. Stone, president, Education Consumers ClearingHouse & Consultants Network Cheri Yecke offers a chilling yet accurate account of how an army of elite educators can successfully manufacture an adolescent crisis that resulted in the flawed middle school concept. That concept, by every measure, has failed our students and shortchanged their abilities. -- Jeanne Allen, president, Center for Education Reform The War against Excellence reveals the left's agenda that is turning public schools into academic wastelands. That the American middle school is an educational wasteland is not news, but in Dr. Yecke we finally have someone who convincingly reveals how middle schools were led down the paths of political correctness, academic sloth, and mediocre achievement-all of which endanger the American way of life. The results of Dr. Yecke's extensive research will frighten every parent in America, for although the liberals will deny it, their battle plan has now been laid bare and their covert means of using public schools to implement left-wing egalitarian ideas are exposed for all to see. This book is a manifesto for parental control of education. -- Michelle Easton, president, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute This lucid and passionate book does two great services for today's education policy debates. It shows-and explains-the extent to which American education has shamelessly turned 'giftedness' from a blessing and asset into an embarrassing mark of 'elitism.' And it begins the overdue task of unmasking the 'middle school' for what it has all too often become: not an educational institution where children learn important skills and knowledge but a social engineering vehicle that attends endlessly to dogma and dreamy notions while teaching very little. That turns out to be particularly damaging to the ablest of our children, on whom so much of our future will depend. -- Chester E. Finn Jr., president, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Cheri Pierson Yecke's [book] illustrates a vital but poorly understood aspect of education policy making: Educational improvement campaigns are often infused with social engineering motives. Dr. Yecke does an extraordinary job of documenting how the American Middle School Movement has become just such a campaign. Parents and policymakers often endorse educational innovations without any real understanding of how or whether they work. With regard to the Middle School Movement however, they can read The War on Excellence and judge for themselves. -- Dr. John E. Stone, president, Education Consumers ClearingHouse & Consultants Network