Making Our High Schools Better: How Parents and Teachers Can Work Together [Hardcover]

Anne Wescott Dodd (Author), Jean L. Konzal (Author), Dodd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999

The deep chasm between what parents want education to provide for their children and what teachers must provide for entire classrooms is one of the most vexing problems facing our nation today. Making Our High Schools Better examines how the different perspectives of parents and teachers can be understood and negotiated to improve high schools. Reformers argue that, to bridge this chasm, parents must become more involved with the education process, yet most parents of high school students remain outside the schoolhouse doors. Teachers, who view themselves as experts on teaching and learning, often see parents as problems or critics and are happy to keep them at a distance. Neither group has a good understanding of the other's perspectives. This groundbreaking book examines these diverging--and sometimes contradictory--perspectives, explains why parents and teachers should work together to help all children learn, and offers suggestions of ways to open the doors to productive dialogue and collaboration. Anne Wescott Dodd and Jean L. Konzal use in-depth interviews with teachers and parents to give faces and voices to both sides of the conflict. Making Our High Schools Better is an illuminating book that does more than acknowledge problems, it seeks and discovers the steps leading to solutions.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not just teenagers become alienated from school; it's parents who often end up on the outside when their children reach high school. Veteran educators Anne Wescott Dodd and Jean L. Konzal attempt to bridge the divide by promoting better relations between high school teachers and parents. Their book, based on case studies of two small-town New England high schools, contends that the breakdown in parental involvement at the high school level stems from schools excluding parents from discussions about education and reform efforts. The authors admit that opinions about how and what students should learn even differ among teachers, but they focus on parents' views of schooling and ask: Is there common ground? Their goal is to move parents beyond looking out strictly for their own children to advocacy for all students in the school.

In a folksy, informal manner, Dodd and Konzal go into great detail about the parental attitudes found in their case studies. They focus on reaction to key issues, such as whether students should be grouped in classes by skill level and the use of report cards versus achievement tests in evaluating students. But the unscientific manner of the study, its setting, and its small size (in one high school, only 25 parents were interviewed) raise questions about how these opinions jibe with the experiences of parents in, say, a large high school in Chicago or Detroit. The use of fictitious names--of both schools and parents--distracts, adding to the sense of disbelief that this book could benefit anyone beyond the boundaries of these two small towns. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

From Library Journal

Based on the independent studies of education professors Dodd (Bates Coll.) and Konzal (Coll. of New Jersey) involving educators and the parents of high school students, this book examines how the differing perspectives of parents and teachers can be understood and negotiated to improve high schools. Many education reformers promote the value of parental involvement, yet most parents of secondary school students never set foot in school. Normally, teachers view themselves as experts on teaching and learning and often see parents as problems or critics. The authors use in-depth interviews with parents and teachers to give faces and voices to both sides of the conflict. This nondogmatic book about a complex social reality is written for concerned parents, educators, and community members who are committed to school improvement. Recommended for all libraries.Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312213352
• ISBN-13: 978-0312213350
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,761,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)