This article offers an analysis of the dimensions of consensus on education using Diane Ravitch's statement: "The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why they educate." The interesting problem is to determine which consensus on educational issues varies, whose consensus it is, and how and why it varies. The author…

In this article, the author talks about the school's moral responsibility and illustrates the extent that a K-12 school and its staff are responsible for its students' economic success. All school reform is based on a relatively simple model: an intervenor (the reform agent) produces change(s) in certain school variables to cause a change in…

"Testing for Justice Rationale" calls for schools to meet the needs of all children. The needs of children can be determined by comparing what children can do with what they can learn to do. Any discrepancy between achievement and potential indicates a need and it is only through adequate testing that these needs can be determined. This article…

In olden days, back in the Oldcountry, it was much easier to choose. Back then the Club Manager told you what costume to wear. Even the Ax-wielders recognized the advantages of the Costume: it reduced resistance to their ministrations. Ordinary people came to recognize the advent of the Costumed Ax-wielder as a sign of their own shortcomings. If,…

We tend to overlook the fact that we judge performances in context. That is why people who are generally competent outside the classroom can appear so inept inside it. "Can you read this text?" is not merely a demand to make some sense of it, but often, in school, to identify plot, character, author intent, or at a minimum, to be ready to recast…

American education is a vast junkyard of curricular innovations that in their own heydays were promoted as panaceas for much that ails the schools and society. It's not that good ideas and usable methods were lacking there. It's that they live in a culture where people expect too much, in too short a time, for too little an investment in…

Beliefs underlying underlying education reform movements are reviewed in the context of three common principles of need: option, probability, and possibility. The causes of problem behavior, the idea that schools will improve when students' individual needs are met, and pressures from the community are explored. The reality is that student needs…

Nietzsche overlooks some possibilities. Something may not kill us, yet leave us sickly or crippled. But he is right, too. It may make us stronger. It is ancient wisdom that we grow through facing adversity: ad astra per aspera?to the stars through adversity. We know, too, that too much of something good may do us harm. One can overstudy, or…

Much criticism has it that teachers are ill prepared in college for the reality of their jobs in schools. Little attention has been paid, however, to how teachers are subjected, once they have been hired, to group-think processes of indoctrination, usually called "staff development." Staff development works not infrequently to increase their…

This document examines where the concern for at risk students comes from. It discusses some of the causes and effects related to students who are at risk, looking at multiculturalism and the role it plays for these students.

Discusses the ease with which solutions to educational problems are offered and the difficulty with which they are implemented. Considers expectations, consensus, tasks, and resources in showing the political complexity of schooling issues. (JOW)

Criticizes America 2000 as an archaic document full of facile slogans rather than substantive reform strategies. (SK)

The biggest problems with public schools is that they are public, big, compulsory, and pluralistic. Their powerlessness to achieve a broad consensus for common methods of socialization harms the education of both students who come to school already socialized and those whose background of deprivation did not give them these social values. (SK)

Investigates what makes a vigorous interaction violent and how much vigorous interaction is permissible in the schools. Suggests that the justice of punishment, or its cruelty, can be judged independently of the vigor of its interactions. (JOW)