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Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 373.73
EAN: 9780312148232
ISBN: 0312148232
Label: St. Martin's Griffin
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: September 15, 1996
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Studio: St. Martin's Griffin
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Editorial Review:
Nowhere has the flight from quality plaguing American life these days been more obvious than in our primary and secondary schools -- on the whole, the graduates seem less well-read and less well-spoken, less knowledgeable and less able to compute. In this book, Charles Sykes asks why, and lays most of the blame at the feet of the trainers of teachers, the writers of textbooks and the educational policy wonks who influence them. He convincingly shows that in many different school systems, and in many different academic fields, with the help of goofy text-books, watered-down requirements and "recentered" test grade scales, American students have come to value feeling good about a subject over being good in it. Sykes's recommended reforms include abolishing the federal Department of Education and its state counterparts, abolishing undergraduate schools of education, establishing more alternative routes to teacher certification and merit raises for good teachers. Good ideas all -- now if we can only get politicians to put them into action!
Dumbing Down Our Kids is a searing indictment of America's secondary schools-one that every parent and teacher should read.Dumbing Down Our Kids offers a full-scale investigation of the new educational fad, sometimes called "Outcome Based Education" -the latest in a long series of "reforms" that has eroded our schools.-Why our kids rank to, or at the bottom of international tests in math and science
-Why "self-esteem" has supplanted grades and genuine achievements
-How the educational establishment lowers standards and quality in our schools-while continuing to raise their budgets and our school taxes
-The dumbing down of the curriculum so everyone can pass-but no one excel
-How parents, students, and teachers can evaluate schools and restore quality learning
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Explained: Educators Gone Wild
A must-read investigation. Although now 12 years old, this book doesn't seem dated. Educators are still recycling the same old gimmick, which is basically to devise hifalutin excuses for teaching less.
The big shift is that Whole Word hit its peak just after this book was published, and has been in decline ever since. One feels hope at that. Still, the overwhelming impression is one of sadness. It's as if we put hippies and illegal aliens in charge of our banks and water works. You ... Read More
Rating:  - Didn't you get the email? Then why buy the book?
There's nothing new in this book. It's all the same clueless right-wing blather that was in Sykes' other book. This book is also a re-hash of the "chain letter" email, erroneously attributed to Bill Gates, that is still making its way around the Internets. (No doubt Charlie is trying to profit off of his association with that email.) Seriously, though, Charlie, we get it--you don't like public schools, you don't like government, you don't like infrastructure. Then why don't you DO something ... Read More
Rating: - Dumb kids....smart teachers
Millionaire in 365 Days: The Daily Plan to Get There
Unbelievable revelation as to how our kids are dumbed down....and it is getting worse each year....while it is all covered up....we need to know this if we have children in school because we are NOT getting our money's worth and our kids are getting a dumb education by dumb teachers (of course not all teachers)...but the massive unions push the lowest common denominator on our kids in order to increase their memberships....while the ... Read More
Rating: - Dumb on Purpose
Sykes is just one of scores of people who've been warning Americans that public schools are no longer failing; PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE A FAILURE, period. Why aren't parents listening?! Feeling good has replaced facts in government schools. Knowledge and learning itself is secondary to having fun in its classrooms. SAT scores dropped way back in 1963 and haven't risen. No, today's average SAT score of about 1020 reflects the College Board's 1995 decision to re-center SAT scores, which in layman's terms ... Read More
Rating: - We Should Worry About Our Dumbed Down Journalists
Charles J. Sykes reinforces every paranoid conservative American fantasy about American education in Dumbing Down Our Kids. By confirming the fears of parents and the great mass of middle America what about the educational system, he tries to create hysteria about "educationists" (his awkward, politically-shaded word for teachers and administrators). His book is something like the Pancake Feed Breakfast of educational critique: with some fake maple syrup, it tastes yummy going down but sits in your stomach ... Read More
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