Customer Reviews

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools

5 star:		(8)
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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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In my 33-year career in public schools I've implemented one hare-brained scheme after another imposed by "well-intentioned" administrators, politicians and academic theorists. Finally, here is a book which exposes the total futility and impotence of the endless parade of one-size-fits-all cure-all programs which are foisted upon students, parents, schools and educators.

Thank you Professor Weissberg for having the fortitude, honesty and courage to confront the taboos and explain why expert solutions always fail. "Honesty" is the operative word. When parents seek out "good schools" or flee "bad" ones for their youngsters, how many face the truth about why schools earn these labels? Is it the bricks and windows which encompass them? Do you buy into the latest theories about teachers or administrators being responsible for a school's reputation? A careful reading of Bad Students, Not Bad Schools will convince any open-minded reader that full responsibility deserves to be shifted back where it always was: students.

The author bluntly identifies the real culprits in today's educational mess: lack of innate ability and sloth. If you run from the room when differences in IQ are mentioned, this book is not for you. If you think that The Bell Curve is junk science and low self-esteem explains student failure, I leave you to your delusions. If, however, you are a realist, this is a must-read. Robert Weissberg skewers the all the pet programs from both the left and the right that ignore ability and ambition.

Countless books may correctly identify "the problem" but never supply a real solution. Bad Students, Not Bad Schools is different and shuns all the politically correct clichés. What Weissberg offers is common sense at a time when common sense is in short supply.

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, astonishing in both its honesty and its perceptivity, devastatingly demonstrates the scientific illogic and misrepresentation of so much of the "research" on education.

In exposing the fallaciousness of claims that smaller classes (or more money or ... put in here the latest claimed panacea) will much help solve our education problems, Weissberg demonstrates how difficult is the task of improving American education and puts us on the right track by helping us avoid the wrong ones.

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools is mandatory reading for all professionals concerned with education. But it is also of immense value for anyone concerned with the country's future. The book is not merely definitive, it is also a wonderful read.

It takes someone from outside the educational establishment to see and say that that the Emperor has no clothes. Weissberg's book is like a breath of fresh air. Finally, someone tells it like it is. He explains to those with open minds and a serious interest in education--using empirical data from sociology, psychology, human development, economics--why and how the countless billions of dollars that have been spent on educating the children of the urban poor with little or no benefit have been wasted. He shows how misguided the Ed schools are and how they deny the realities of classroom chaos. He opens our eyes to various follies and cant touted by educational theoreticians to solve the problems of the schools. And finally he makes suggestions to help deal with the problems that cognitively bad (not morally bad) students present.

This book should be read by all teachers, school administrators, Ed school professors, and educational philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates. Not only is the book eye-opening but brightly written to boot.

'Bad Students Not Bad Schools' is a breath of fresh air compared to the toxic fumes of convolutin spewed out by the Education Departments of colleges & university, the news media, and BOEs all across the country.

Each chapter is a gold mine of insights, with my personal favorite being Chapter 5, "The 'War' on Academic Excellence."

Lip service is paid to academic excellence alright, but in fact it is under-funded at all levels and actually hated by the education establishment. [And although Robert Weissberg does not say so, I will. Much of this hatred towards academic excellence is becasue so few in the education establishment, even at its highest levels, possess it themselves.]

Other reviewers have pointed to the courage of Robert Weissberg in writing this book. This is with good reason. So much of what passes for public education & reform in this country is down right crazy. But, it is a form of craziness that is highly protected by taboos, powerful political correct mandates, and well-organized special interest groups like the NEA.

Bob Weissberg had the courage to write this 279 page, well referenced, book. See if you have the courage to read it.

Painful Truths (4 stars). I admire Professor Weissberg for having the courage to honestly present what research has shown for decades, and what most people already know: group differences are aggregated individual differences; individual and group differences in academic skill are largely innate; therefore (although counterintuitive to many) schools actually have little impact on student academic skill/achievement. Teachers and administrators in "bad" schools receive far too much blame, and in "good" schools they receive far too much credit. Note to aspiring teachers: you will look much better in terms of your students' work and standardized test scores by being a mediocre teacher in a high achieving school than by being an excellent teacher in a low achieving school (i.e., where there is a critical mass of low ability students).

Painfully Presented (2 stars). Professor Weissberg has a rambling writing style that often lacks clarity. One gets the feeling he dictated the book stream-of-consciousness, didn't do much proofreading, and had an editor with other priorities. Here are some examples of stinker sentences taken verbatim just from the final chapter:

p. 267: "We also confess that achieving this aim may too arduous even if possible and this grim assessment hardly condemns Americans."

p. 268: "We have argued that today's claim that the last three components of right side fail to perform as advertised."

p. 272: "Yet, it is plausible that conventional, especially advanced mathematics is essentially a nineteenth-century endeavor and which is less relevant than computer programming skills only loosely related to 2+2."

p. 275: "Further add egotistic philanthropists looking "to do good" who just want to hear upbeat news and will happily hire experts to supply it. Meanwhile, parents will relish cheerful news about their children even it is fiction."

One hopes Professor Weissberg will continue to write fearlessly and factually about important topics, and that he will obtain a skillful and diligent editor.

In this important book, Weissberg painstakingly demonstrates why generations of quack remedies for the improvement of the American system of public education have failed. The patient is simply unwilling to work hard to get well. Weissberg aptly illustrates what many already know; academic success requires hard work, and is often met with arrogant disdain for intellectual achievement. Failure is much easier, and is often met with sympathy, increased financial support, misguided foundation grants, and a jobs machine pumping out counselors, instructional aids, "wrap around" support personnel, and others whose careers have very little to do with academics. Weissberg recognizes that the vast majority of teachers are dedicated professionals, and that most students have all the material support that they need. What they often lack is the parental support and sheer will to do the heavy lifting that success requires. Weissberg bravely stands like Hans Christian Andersen's child in the crowd, and proclaims that the Emperor of Education has no clothes.

At last, someone has put his finger on the problem. Anyone in the classroom can tell you that too many kids come to school unwilling to learn and too many "parents" have abandoned the role parents should play. The author is courageous enough to speak the unspeakable,but is anyone listening? I doubt it.

The book's subject is clearly and accurately stated in its title. Ideally everyone would read it and be convinced of the truth it contains.
In actuality relatively few will read it. Readers who are committed members of the academic, public education industry are unlikely to take kindly to this book. It is probably beyond the reading capacities of most urban, public high school graduates. It could be beyond what some of their teachers are able to take in.

The hoi polloi and political classes of the U.S. are fully committed to the following concepts: (1), More money spent on public education equates with higher efficacy of such education; and (2), The considerable intellectual gap between White and "Minority" students as measured on the bell curve, can be closed by means of spending more money on fancier schools offering even more trivial programs ill-described as Substantive.. This means that much public money is being spent in the quest to achieve the impossible. The man in the street is either too dense or too uncaring to recognize the truth contained in the previous sentence. (My words, not the author's).

This book is well organized, clearly written, and is chock- full of depressing truth.

This book is well worth the price if you have a serious interest in education. It openly states what we all know: some people are smarter than others. The author does a good job of explaining the value factor of education. If the student does not value education or is not interested in the subject matter then motivation is gone. It is refreshing to see a writer express hard opinions with clear thinking and evidence. I have some experience in the modern classroom. It is a miracle we have any teachers left.
Kenneth

At the outset let me state that I agree with most of Weissberg's thesis. However, as someone who ascribes what some have called the Voldermort view of education, that group differences are biologically rooted and that changes in pedagogy are unlikely to overcome the nation's shifting demographics, the fact that this books makes such an important and controversial point so poorly only gives ammunition to critics who support the politically-correct status quo. When writing a book like this you need to hit your audience over the head with data, every assertion needs to be carefully stated and built on the data you have already cited. Weissberg is sadly negligent in providing enough rigor to seriously challenge the views of those who don't already agree with him. This book is a rant that preaches to the converted. There are some interesting ideas in this book, and presented well they would be a welcome addition to the debate on education. His best idea is that given unequal starting points, and equal resources, gaps between groups won't disappear, ie Kipp schools only narrow the racial achivement gap because white kids aren't in kipp schools. Unless you believe in diminishing returns for more rigorous schools for white kids, a small possibility, its hard to argue against this point. Additionally that individual achievement is more a function of an individual's endowment, is another important point that people need to hear in a clear and sober way. The book is at it's best when he compares education to sports and points out the absurdly different ways we handle talent in those domains.