The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Businesses.In a recent interview about adequate yearly progress Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, is a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country is performing academically. with a reporter from my local newspaper, I was asked why raising test scores is so difficult despite state standards and federal legislation. I used an analogy about widgets and students in an effort to underscore The underscore character (_) is often used to make file, field and variable names more readable when blank spaces are not allowed. For example, NOVEL_1A.DOC, FIRST_NAME and Start_Routine. (character) underscore - _, ASCII 95. the profound differences between products manufactured on assembly lines and the education of children. Why then are school reform models often shaped by marketplace principles and practices ? That is the question Larry Cuban, an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. and a scholar on the history of U.S. education, tackles in The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Businesses. Take the slogan "All children can learn," made famous by the effective schools movement in the 1980s, add industry-supported standards-based reform bolstered by federal clout, and we wind up with No Child Left Behind legislation. Cuban provides insightful historical, social and political perspectives on the influence business and industry has had on education from 1890 to 1930 and again over the last three decades, right up to NCLB NCLB No Child Left Behind (US education initiative) . Why have industry-founded reforms been so influential in establishing new goals and modifying curricula, school organization and governance, yet they have had only a minor impact on the effectiveness of teaching and the level of student achievement? Among his more interesting angles, Cuban chronicles the introduction of the personal computer in American classrooms. He describes its mostly uneven and unproven effect on teaching and learning. More broadly, Cuban, a former superintendent, asserts that assessments of school reform policy implementation and results are largely absent. Even when present, he adds, such assessments tend to be ignored by educational leaders, thus perpetuating traditional school organization and teaching practices. (The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Businesses by Larry Cuban, Harvard University Press The Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. , Cambridge, Mass., 2004, 253 pp. with index, $23.95 softcover soft·cov·er adj. Not bound between hard covers: softcover books; a softcover edition. ) Marilyn H. King Assistant Superintendent Assistant Superintendent, or Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), was a rank used by police forces in the British Empire. It was usually the lowest rank that could be held by a European officer, most of whom joined the police at this rank. for Curriculum and Instruction, Bozeman, Mont. |
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