'Our present generous system, sad to say, keeps on rewarding the failing, including students, and as any economist will tell you, if you reward it, you get more. If students refuse to attend school, forcing them is wasteful and hurts those wanting to learn'. Americans are increasingly alarmed over our nation's educational deficiencies. Though anxieties about schooling are unending, especially with public institutions, these problems are more complex than institutional failure. Expenditures for education have exploded, and far exceed inflation and the rising costs of health care, but academic achievement remains flat. Many students are unable to graduate from high school, let alone obtain a college degree. And if they do make it to college, they are often forced into remedial courses. Why, despite this fiscal extravagance, are educational disappointments so widespread? In "Bad Students, Not Bad Schools", Robert Weissberg argues that the answer to this is something everybody knows to be true but is afraid to say in public - America's educational woes too often reflect the demographic mix of students. Schools today are filled with millions of youngsters, too many of whom struggle with the English language or simply have mediocre intellectual ability. Their lackluster performances are probably impervious to the current reform prescriptions regardless of the remedy's ideological derivation. Making matters worse, retention of students in school is embraced as a philosophy even if it impedes the learning of other students. Weissberg argues that most of America's educational woes would vanish if indifferent, troublesome students were permitted to leave when they had absorbed as much as they could learn; they would quickly be replaced by learning-hungry students, including many new immigrants from other countries. American education survives since we import highly intelligent, technically skillful foreigners just as we import oil but this may not last forever. When educational establishments get serious about world-class mathematics and science, and permit serious students to learn, problems will dissolve. Rewarding the smartest, not spending fortunes in a futile quest to uplift the bottom should become official policy. This book is a bracing reminder of the risks of political manipulation of education, and argues that the measure of policy should be academic achievment.
I was born in New York City and attended public schools there until I was twelve. My family moved to New Jersey and I eventually graduated from Teaneck High School in Teaneck, NJ. I received an AB degree from Bard College and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 1969 I have taught political science at Cornell University, the University of Illinois-Urbana and am currently an adjunct professor of politics (graduate) at New York University.
I have written eleven books, the most recent are Political Tolerance, The Politics of Empowerment, Polling, Politics and Public Opinion, The Limits of Civic Activism and Pernicious Tolerance. Professional articles have appeared in the major political science journals plus more general publications such as Society and The Weekly Standard.
Many recent education-related writings are on the web, especially The American Thinker.com.
These include:
The Futility of American Education Reform (March 24, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/how_todays_failed_educational.html
Demand, Not Supply Drives Educational Achievement (April 26, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/demand_not_supply_drives_educa.html
The Long March of Kevin Jennings (October 6, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/the_long_march_of_kevin_jennings.html
The Liberal Plot Against American Education (December 28, 2009) http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_liberal_plot_against_ameri.html
Should the Worst Schools Get the Best Teachers (January 20, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/should_the_worst_schools_get_t.html
Obama and Education: Pork You Can Believe In (February 3, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/obama_and_education_pork_you_c.html
Uplifting the Poor One Lie at a Time (March 28, 2010) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/uplifting_the_poor_one_lie_at.html
