Etta Kralovec, vice president for Learning at Training and Development Corporation, and John Buell, a freelance journalist, present three "myths" supporting homework that they claim insulates that traditional practice from careful study and criticism. Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, suggests that there is not much substance to the anti-homework position.
Robert J. Marzano, a senior fellow at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), argues that grading is useful for feedback purposes, which in turn enhances student learning. Alfie Kohn, author and educational commentator, takes the position that grades reduce students’ interest in learning, their willingness to choose challenging work, and the quality of their thinking.
Lee Canter, developer of the "Assertive Discipline" program for classroom management, posits that students learn valuable lessons from this structured approach. John Covaleskie, assistant professor at Northern Michigan University, argues that the behaviorist re-enforcement model does nothing to promote ethical character.
Robert E. Rector, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, argues that abstinence education helps young people to develop the "foundations of healthy marital life" that will serve them well as adults. The National Coalition Against Censorship argues that abstinence-only programs represent censorship and endanger young people by withholding important sex education information.
Constance Weaver, a professor of English at Western Michigan University, defends whole language by addressing what she labels as "myths about the approach." Louisa Cook Moats, project director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Interventions Project, states that whole-language ideas are contradicted by scientific studies and need to be confronted.
Gwen Solomon, a former analyst for the U.S. Department of Education and Lynne Schrum, an associate professor of instructional technology at the University of Georgia,argue that teachers who guide their students to learn with Web resources prepare them for lifelong learning. Alan Warhaftig, a national board-certified high school English teacher believes that "educators’ current fascination with technology" is an attempt to find "a magic bullet to cure education’s woes."
Gary B. Nash, professor of history at UCLA and director of the National Center for History in the Schools, states that to "invoke historical revisionism as form of foul play serves democracy poorly," Walter A. McDougall, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that revisionist history is a function of political correctness.
Carol Jago, a high school English teacher and director of the California Reading and Literature project at UCLA, states that "[A] critical reading of classical literature results in a deep literacy that I believe is an essential skill for anyone who wants to attempt to make sense of the world." Daniel R. Gallo, a former professor of English who writes and edits books for teachers and teenagers, posits that "we are a nation that teaches its children how to read in the early grades, then forces them during their teenage years to read literary works that most of them dislike so much that they have no desire whatsoever to continue those experiences into adulthood."
Leonard Sax, MD, PHd, author of Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Gender Differences (Doubleday, 2005) and founder and executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Single-Sex Public Education, argues that students in single-sex schools not only do better academically, but they also have more positive attitudes about education. Wendy Kaminer, senior correspondent for American Prospect and contributing editor for Atlantic Monthly, contends that single-sex schools "reinforce regressive notions of sex differences."
New Hampshire’s School to Work Initiative states that its goal is to prepare all students with the skills, abilities, and knowledge necessary to make good career choices and thereby enhance the state’s economic strength. John I. Goodlad, co-director of the Center of Educational Renewal at the University of Washington, cautions that "to make the dozen of more years of schooling instrumental to the future needs of the workplace, however carefully predicted, is immoral and dangerous."
Robert M. Hutchins, former chancellor at the University of Chicago and a proponent of the Great Books curriculum, argues for a liberal education and states, "If all men are to be free, all men must have this education." Theodore R. Sizer, University Professor Emeritus at Brown University and Chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools, states, "What, in particular, one studies is less important than that it sparks legitimate interest in each learner."
Tom Loveless, senior fellow, government studies, and director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings Institution, suggests that many of the charges against tracking are more political than educational and are not supported by research. Jeannie S. Oakes, professor in the Graduate School of Education at UCLA, indicts the results of tracking, especially its damaging impact on the education of minority students.
Joseph M. Carroll, a former school superintendent and a senior associate at Copernican Associates, contends that the traditional ("Carnegie unit") high school schedule is a system under which teachers can’t teach effectively and students can’t learn effectively. Reginald D. Wild, a professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia, asserts that all-year students outperform semester/block students in science and mathematics.
Gregory Stanley, history teacher at Calhoun High School in Calhoun, Georgia, and Lawrence Baines, professor of education at Berry College, Mt. Berry, Georgia, believe that too many educators subscribe to the mantra of "praise first, examine quality of work later." Alfie Kohn, author and educational commentator, avers that there are no data to support the claims regarding the existence of grade inflation.
The U.S. Department of Education endorses school uniform policies and presents suggestions for implementation and examples of successful programs. David L. Brunsma and Kerry A. Rockquemore, professors at the University of Alabama and Boston College, respectively, report the results of their research that caused them to reject the idea that school uniforms improved student performance in areas such as attendance, academic achievement, behavioral issues, and substance abuse.
Justice Clarence Thomas presents the legal justification for a urinalysis drug test and states, "Given the minimally intrusive nature of the sample collection and the limited uses to which the test results are put, we conclude that the invasion of students’ privacy in not significant." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in opposing the majority position, states "schools’ tutelary obligations to their students require them to ‘teach by example’ by avoiding symbolic measures that diminish constitutional protections."
Michael W. McConnell, a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a professor in the School of Law at the University of Utah, argues that many parents have come to believe that the First Amendment is "stacked against them" with respect to their desire to see more religion in the schools. Annie Laurie Gaylor, editor of Freethought Today, states that public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize.
Lewis C. Solmon, senior vice president of the Milken Family Foundation, and Michael Podgursky, professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, state that new compensation methods are not only feasible, but necessary, in order to attract the best and the brightest into the teaching profession, keep the most effective of these in teaching, and motivate all teachers. Wellford W. Wilms, professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Richard Chapleau, 1995 winner of the California Milken Teacher of the Year award, posit that shifting the focus of education from the student to the pocketbook erodes teachers’ professional judgment and demeans the process of education.
Sheldon Berman, superintendent of schools in Hudson, Massachusetts, posits that both the academic content of the school curriculum and the ethics of young people can be positively impacted by student engagement in community service learning. Educational and social commentators Chester Finn and Gregg Vanourek argue that "service learning," a euphemism for mandatory volunteerism, is not only an oxymoron but also fosters a left-of-center approach to political activism.
Thomas W. Washburne, Esq., director of the National Center for Home Education, suggests that as the home schooling movement continues to grow, the educational establishment will become increasingly troubled. Rob Reich, assistant professor at Stanford University, states that students should encounter materials, ideas, and people that they or their parents have not chosen or selected in advance.
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