Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add [Hardcover]

Charles J. Sykes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1995

The author of A Nation of Victims offers an expose+a7 of American public education, charging that faddish educational theories and the drive to inflate students' self-esteem are causing standards to decline. National ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nowhere has the flight from quality plaguing American life these days been more obvious than in our primary and secondary schools -- on the whole, the graduates seem less well-read and less well-spoken, less knowledgeable and less able to compute. In this book, Charles Sykes asks why, and lays most of the blame at the feet of the trainers of teachers, the writers of textbooks and the educational policy wonks who influence them. He convincingly shows that in many different school systems, and in many different academic fields, with the help of goofy text-books, watered-down requirements and "recentered" test grade scales, American students have come to value feeling good about a subject over being good in it. Sykes's recommended reforms include abolishing the federal Department of Education and its state counterparts, abolishing undergraduate schools of education, establishing more alternative routes to teacher certification and merit raises for good teachers. Good ideas all -- now if we can only get politicians to put them into action!

From Publishers Weekly

Sykes, a journalist who specializes in education issues (A Nation of Victims), weighs into the current school wars with this polemic. A particular target is the school reform movement, epitomized by educators who, as Sykes characterizes them, emphasize students' feelings rather then their learning. In Sykes's view, the usual scapegoats for the decline of American education?parents, society, money?are not the cause of low scores in reading and mathematics; instead, he points the finger at "the schools themselves and the values that dominate American education in the 1990s." He compiles here a sobering catalogue of failed approaches, "self-esteem" programs, political correctness and other trends that militate against the learning of basic skills. He forcefully offers proposals that could work (open up teaching to non-educationists) and others that would initiate a sea change (eliminate tenure). Baltimore's famed private Calvert School is a suggested model. To an ongoing debate, Sykes brings viewpoints and evidence to which attention should be paid. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312134746
• ISBN-13: 978-0312134747
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles J. Sykes is senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and a talk show host at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has written forThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today and is the author of six previous books: A Nation of Victims, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Profscam, The Hollow Men, The End of Privacy, and 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

184 of 198 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book every aspiring teacher should read., August 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add (Paperback)

As a 30-year-old returning to school for teacher certification, I was distressed by the "cooperative learning" techniques currently trumpeted at the university I attend. After several courses in which I was encouraged to "discuss with my group" the objectives being tested (in lieu of a formal review), given "group tests" for final exams (which were also open-book), and being assigned in yet another group to divide up chapters of text and "discuss what was learned" with each other (without any input or insight from the Professor), I began to feel abnormal for being less than enthusiastic about the methods my instructors were promoting. By showing me that I am not alone in my criticism of such shallow techniques, and my desire to teach in a manner that focuses on skills and knowledge, Sykes' book has somewhat eased my disillusionment. What passes for instruction in schools of education across the country is nothing more than theory, rhetoric, and a lot of coddling that insults the intelligence - a simulation of what teaching has become in K-12 schools across the country. Something needs to be done about the schools of education that shape our nation's fledgling teachers, many of whom gobble up this nonsense eagerly, content with easy A's in their education courses and final exams that require little preparation. This book should be required reading on all college campuses where students are prepared to teach in our public schools, in place of the fatuous textbooks we are forced to consume.

81 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars numb with dumb, January 1, 2006

By 

Patrick Hubbell (Victoria, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add (Hardcover)

There is that moment of sublime revelation experienced by Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984 when he reads a book that explains everything he already intuited from his experiences with the bureacracy and Big Brother. I experienced the same epiphany as soon as I began reading Dumbing Down Our Kids.

As a teacher, I have already endured the idiocies chronicled in this book. Cooperative learning? That was a two-day seminar. Self-esteem? Another inservice. Hey, I attended one in which the presenter passed out a packet of information including - so help me God - a "hugging homework" assignment. Did someone say "mission statement?" As a member of the campus Site-Based Decision Management Committee, I put in my two cents' worth when I tried to insert the notion that education should develop individual knowledge and responsibility. It was okayed and seconded by fellow teachers. Somehow, the version now hanging in our school district boardroom omitted my input. Equity? Been there, done that with our equity specialist. Here's an updated version of Mother Goose rhymes from an inservice handout I saved:

Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candlestick.
Jill be nimble,
Do it, too.
If Jack can do it, so can you.

If Winston Smith were a teacher, he'd know the party line is preceded by the phrase "research is showing." Party committees are headed by hacks with self-important titles like "equity specialist" and "curriculum coordinator". The language is corrupted to the same extent as Oceania. Students engage in "cooperative learning" formerly known as cheating. "At-risk students" is preferred to "just plain lazy".

The aeries of districts are crowded with doctors of education. It should come as no surprise that universities dole out honorary doctorates in education to distinguished guests because they are less likely to perpetrate the least amount of damage, unless he or she attempts to put it to use as an administrator or, worse, a consultant.

"Dumbing Down Our Kids" is filled with samples of impermeable writings by people who are so besotted with their own self-importance that sarcasm would be wasted on them. A dissertation for a doctorate in physical ed stated "The purpose of this research was to create a connectionist model for simulating contextual interference effects in motor skills. The model was a multiple layer, heteroassociative, nonlinear, feedforward interpolative recall network trained by back-propogation of errors."

Oh.

Another pioneer in New Math curriculum frankly admits that "I do not do long division or long multiplication anymore." He helpfully and frankly admits he's lazy and found a better method of doing math which "involves pushing a few buttons on my calculator." Incredibly, this pioneer is the founder and director of a mathematics project at the University of Chicago. From the same people who brought us the A-bomb, yet another bomb. I leave it to you to decide which bomb is more deadly.

Textbooks are largely "books without authors. . . slaves to readability indexes, and mandated never to offend any conceivable special interest group."

It simply amazes me that so many dunderheaded fools, from federal to state to local level, actually get to make decisions that affect how I work in the classroom. I work in a business that is ostensibly set up to make people smarter. And yet the very same people who run the business are as dumb as a crate of anvils. It is as if NASA contracted a company that specializes in running fireworks stands to design heat shields for the spacecraft. I can't make people walk a mile in my moccosins, but if reading this book makes them boil with anger, then at least I'm not alone.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful and well-reasoned critique, June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add (Paperback)

As a parent and psychologist who works in a special education preschool, I found this book unsettling and accurate. Unfortunately, my co-workers have almost all been converted to the latest fad and are increasingly militant in their desire to "include" children in regular education when they enter kindergarten. More and more children with severe diabilities are being placed in classrooms who cannot follow directions, are very disruptive and who cannot possibly understand the lessons. The trend in New York City and Long Island is to give these children their very own "behavioral paraprofessionals", who sit with them all day to try to keep them engaged in the routine as much as possible.As Mr. Sykes pointed out, there is no research supporting this practice, or any of the other fuzzy-headed, feel-good theories currently in vogue. His analysis of the research that is out there was informative, compelling and wryly amusing, when it wasn't frightening me.This book inspired me to stand up for high educational standards, both in my job and in my district.