Book Description
This compelling book tells the history of the past two decades of efforts to reform mathematics education in California. That history is a contentious one, full of such fervor and heat that participants and observers often refer to the "math wars." Suzanne M. Wilson considers the many perspectives of those involved in math reform, weaving a tapestry of facts, philosophies, conversations, events, and personalities into a vivid narrative. While her focus is on California, the implications of her book extend to struggles over education policy and practice throughout the United States.
Wilson's three-dimensional account of math education reform efforts reveals how the debates tend to be deeply ideological and how people come to feel misunderstood and misrepresented. She examines the myths used to explain the failure of reforms, the actual reasons for failure, and the importance of taking multiple perspectives into account when planning and implementing reform.
Customer Reviews:
Scholarship and objectivity?.......2003-05-29
I opened this book believing the jacket hype - that it was a scholarly work which fairly represented all sides in the California math wars. The author does make some platitudinous (and true) statements about balance, but the overall tone of the work is biased and the research (much of which came from personal interviews and observations) is stunningly incomplete. Important issues are, consequently, completely overlooked. The story which emerges is one of the failure of "wondrous" reforms, led by teachers, reforms which failed only because the reformers failed to communicate with all stakeholders (e.g. parents and mathematicians). We are presented with a saga detailing the "disastrous" end of something great, derailed due to the efforts of a few disgruntled "critics" who refused to enter into civil debate.
I am one of those critics. The author never spoke to me. I recently canvassed most of the key "traditionalist" players. Nobody whom I know received my question reported speaking with her either, although there is evidence in the book that she did interview a couple of the mathematicians. Readers are presented with glowing biographical pages about various math reformers, but "traditionalists" are often quoted one-dimensionally from their writings, and only to provide a platform to attack their arguments. If the author had spoken with me (and yes, I have conversed with several prominent members of the reform community at some length in the past) she'd have picked up on a real concern about the level of material which purported to teach "higher-order" thinking. It is clear from the "authentic assessment" items included in the book itself that the issue of content level never crossed her mind. A good problem for second graders (such as explaining how to make fifty cents in US coinage) is a ridiculously limiting target for high schoolers. High school graduates deserve an equal shot at all career choices, many of which require honest, generalizable, algebra. And there isn't much math concept in a lot of these quoted test items.
If she had spoken with me (or any of a number of my friends) she'd have discovered that it is precisely issues of equity and excellence for all that motivate many of us to oppose NCTM reform. I learned a lot from the years of discourse, and one thing which is now clear to me is that disadvantaged students benefit most in school settings which are less progressive, more structured, more advanced, richer in content. So much of the "less emphasis" content in reform documents is just a listing of topics perceived as hard. I'm not a fan of "traditional" math education either, but I think the reformers correctly diagnosed the disease while getting the treatment entirely wrong. Anecdotal to be sure, but the best programs I've seen build the fundamental skills and concepts in a highly organized way (insisting on mastery) and add interesting problems and applications as they go. I believe that's a big part of the lesson from the Asian countries, too.
If the author had spoken to us, she might also have replaced innuendo -- "rumors were flying" comments -- with some facts, and with the view from the other side of the room. She'd have avoided some (often trivial) errors in fact which crop up from time to time. She more importantly might not have overlooked the role of site and district administrator (reform) zealots, who in some cases made it difficult for teachers to act on their natural pragmatism. I see my own stance, in part, as an effort to protect good teachers. But I see it mostly as a deep equity issue for American society - the parents in Palo Alto and other wealthy communities can always find the resources to overcome watered-down programs.
Also missing from this book (copyright 2003) is any follow-up on the progress of the counter-reforms in California. Rank-and-file teachers tend to speak highly of the new framework. Several have told me it's the "first one they can really use." And those pesky standardized test scores, at least in elementary school - a good start - have crept upward steadily since the new textbooks were adopted. It remains to be seen if secondary performance will improve as those children advance in their educational careers, but I have hope.
One thing the book did well was detailing the pre-history of the California math reform, recounting the things that happened before I saw my first (misnamed) College Preparatory Mathematics text. [...]
Alphabet Soup To Suck Out The Math Teachers Soul.......2003-01-30
California Dreaming by Suzanne Wilson is a well-written history of math education reform in the State of California during the last half of the 20th Century. This focused and objective look at one state's attempt at educational reform should be a revealing read for anybody who wants to know why the process of educational reform resembles the production of chorizo [Mexican sausage] and often fails to work. As a science [and math] teacher in California for the last 18 years, I found it an often frustrating experience to relive this process. In education today, there are too many groups with too many acronyms producing too many and often conflicting mandates [make the material more rigorous and more enjoyable AND reduce the failure rate]. Most classroom teachers try to absorb anything good from the reforms while they are teaching as well as they know how. I like Wilson's suggestions for fixing the reform process at the end of the book, but I fear the teachers in California and elsewhere are in for more of the same.
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Reforming College Composition: Writing the Wrongs (Contributions to the Study of Education)
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313310939 |
Book Description
As colleges and universities have responded to the demand of businesses and industries for graduates who can write effectively, Composition Studies has gained significance. However, while new theories and approaches to the teaching of writing have been proposed and implemented, many composition courses do not satisfactorily educate their students. This volume includes essays by writing specialists who are concerned with their own failure to improve their students' writing skills. These contributors examine why entering college students still write poorly and why our various attempts to improve such poor writing skills have largely failed. They compare the promise of previously touted new methods, paradigm shifts, and curricular innovations with the reality of little change or improvement; they describe what their students can and cannot do in the writing classroom, even after 12 years of primary and secondary education; and they address what they see as needed reforms in the whole idea of college composition, especially for the first-year college student.
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Reforming the World Trading System: Legitimacy, Efficiency, and Democratic Governance (International Economic Law)
James Harrison
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0199282633 |
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The 1994 agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) regulates over 95% of world trade amongst 148 member countries. The November 2001 Declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Doha, Quatar, has launched the Doha Development Round of multilateral trade
negotiations in the WTo on 21 topics aimed at far-reaching reforms of the world trading system. On August 1st 2004, the WTO General Council reached agreement on a detailed Doha Work program with the aim of concluding negotiations in 2006.
This volume provides discussion and policy recommendations by leading WTO negotiators and policy-makers, and analysis by leading economists, political scientists and trade lawyers on the major subjects of the Doha Round negotiations. Over 30 contributors explore the complexity of the world trading
system and of the WTO negotiations for its reform from diverse political, economic and legal perspectives.
Book Description
The authors of this volume argue that urban education is in urgent need of reform and that, although there have been plenty of innovative and even promising attempts to improve conditions, most have been doomed. The reason for this, they agree, lies in the failure of our major cities to develop their "civic capacity"--the ability to build and maintain a broad social and political coalition across all sectors of the urban community in pursuit of a common goal.
Drawing upon an ambitious eleven-city study funded by the National Science Foundation, the authors synthesize and make sense of the enormous amount of data from Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Not only is this a vivid report from the front lines of big city schooling, but this work challenges us to rethink our approach to the crisis in our schools.
The authors vigorously contend that it is essential for all (or most) important actors in an urban community to join together in a shared vision of what is wrong in the schools and how to fix it, and to pursue that vision strongly and systematically over a long time. That can only happen, however, if those same actors develop the ability and willingness to set aside narrow aims and opportunistic behavior in favor of pursuing the collective good.
Written for a wide spectrum of potential readers-including educators, social scientists, policymakers, and every citizen who cares about his or her child's education--this book restores coalition politics to the center of educational reform and reminds us to look well beyond pedagogy and management theory for solutions to problems that are immune to the usual remedies. Drawing on select cases, the authors show that effective civic coalitions can be built. The struggle for reform can be won.
This book is part of the Studies in Government and Public Policy series.
Book Description
Portrays the progressive school reform work of the Harmony Education Center over a 12-year period.
Book Description
When the Asian financial crisis began in the summer of 1997, almost no one thought that South Korea would be caught up in it. After all, the South Korean economy had been for more than 30 years one of the highest performers in the world. Indeed, this nation, in the early 1960s amongst the world's poorest and most technologically backward, had by 1997 become one of the 20 richest nations on a per capita basis and one of the technologically most advanced. But the Asian financial crisis did affect Korea—the South Korean government had to seek a bailout from the IMF in December 1997, and, during the year that followed, the economy went into deep recession. Moreover, when Koreans sought the reasons for the sudden downturn in their economic fortunes, they found that many of the problems centered on the large industrial conglomerates (the chaebol) that had been at the heart of Korean economic progress. These groups proved to be riddled with excessive debt, low rates of return on investment, and in many cases, bankrupt operations.
This book examines the history of the chaebol and their role in creating the "economic miracle" as well as the role that they played in bringing about the 1997 crisis in Korea. Author Edward M. Graham argues that, while substantial reform has been accomplished both within the chaebol and in the Korean economy as a whole, the process is far from complete. Indeed, weaknesses within the industrial groups of Korea persist that could cloud Korea's economic future, despite the impressive rebound that the Korean economy has experienced since 1998. Graham explores the uncorrected weaknesses in depth and lays out the steps that should be now taken.
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- A Provocative Political Theology of Worship
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The Politics of Worship: Reforming the Language and Symbols of Liturgy
William Johnson Everett
Manufacturer: United Church Press
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ASIN: 0829813411 |
Customer Reviews:
A Provocative Political Theology of Worship.......2004-01-03
In The Politics of Worship, social ethicist William Johnson Everett examines how "the language of feudal monarchy" pervades Christian worship, a language that is inconsistent with Christian ethics. Many other critiques of patriarchy don't go far enough for Everett because they don't go far enough in critiquing the monarchist power structure that underlies patriarchy.
After tracing the political, philosophical, theological, and liturgical reforms of the modern era, Everett applies his analysis to contemporary forms of Christian worship. In the end, he imagines a radically restructured, egalitarian form of worship more consistent with the republic (rather than kingdom) of God.
Everett acknowledges in his discussion guide that the book "raises many difficult and emotion-laden questions." I think that whether or not you fully agree with his analysis and suggestions for reform, these questions are well worth considering.
Table of Contents:
1. Beyond the Worship of "Kingafap"
2. The Need for Integrity in Worship
3. Worship as Political Rehearsal
4. Sunday Monarchists and Monday Citizens
5. Choosing the Political Imagery of Our Worship
6. Some Guiding Principles for Regenerating Worship
7. Praying for God's Republic: A Worship Fantasy
8. Ethical Challenges of Worship Reform
Appendix A: A Conversation with President Jesus
Appendix B: Guiding the Discussion
Customer Reviews:
How students learn:Reforming schools.......2007-01-10
A difficult text to follow. Needs more applicable examples to education.
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