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62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hurting Our Best and Brightest, December 31, 2003
This review is from: The War Against Excellence: The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America's Middle Schools (Hardcover)
This is one scary book. Its disturbing message: our middle schools (and presumably, schools at other levels), under the influence of a well-intentioned but pernicious social engineering philosophy, have sacrificed high academic standards, and thwarted the intellectual development of our brightest, highest achieving youngsters. The author, a mother of schoolchildren frustrated by her dealings with education experts, decided to become one herself. Yecke obtained a doctorate in education to find out why the middle schools were holding back "gifted" students like her own, instead of enabling them to advance as far as their intellects permit. Her conclusion is that there has been a "radical takeover of middle schools" manifested by three policies: "heterogeneous grouping" (mandating classes of mixed ability; grouping by intellect prohibited), "cooperative learning" (breaking classes into small groups with collective responsibility for work) and "peer tutoring" (smarter students forced to teach the less bright). Yecke carefully documents the sources and evolution of the ideas behind these policies. She persuasively argues that the cumulative effect has been to retard the education of the best students, while dumbing down the curriculum overall. Yecke is fairly optimistic that the academic standards movement will reverse the mediocrity tide. She asserts that the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind policy, which she sees as a "standards-based reform," is "remaking the educational landscape." However, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that No Child Left Behind is encouraging schools to shift resources away from gifted students in order to meet overall student proficiency requirements. Obviously, whether or not Dr. Yecke's optimism is justified remains to be seen. It is clear, however, that something must be done to, in Yecke's words, foster a "rebirth of respect for achievement." Schools - and colleges - should be emphasizing the transmission of knowledge, the accumulated wisdom of our (and other) civilizations. They should be enabling our youth to learn as much as they can as fast as they can. When we read the words of a principal (!), who tells us that "When we come to the realization that not every child has to read, figure, write and spell . . . then we shall be on the road to improving the junior high curriculum," we know that something is decidedly wrong. Cheri Pierson Yecke has done a great service by pulling together the middle school activists' central policy prescriptions and their supporting arguments and exposing them. Although she has focused on one sector of the K-16 structure, it is obvious that "the war against excellence" has battlefronts at more than one level of the educational system.
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cutting Through Herd Opinion, December 27, 2003
This review is from: The War Against Excellence: The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America's Middle Schools (Hardcover)
Should education be a great leveler, or rather a place where proclivity and genius is recognized and encouraged as an asset to the future of the community, state, and nation? This author asked herself the question and felt so strongly about her deliberations that she wrote this highly informative treatise. Her voice is impassioned and rational, a combination often not found together, and it makes her assertions quite convincing indeed. The rise of standarized testing may make the issue a moot point, however, as schools in competition with one another for federal funds and the high regard of parents may no longer be so 'progressive' about how they manifest the dubious need to socialize their students. They will perhaps begin to see through the mist of the educationally cloudy 90's that the best way to make a student feel good about himself is to instill knowedge in him, and that the best way to socialize a student is to allow her to learn the rewards of hard work and the consequences of being a slacker. This work was needed and is serving as a spearhead into the misguided folly of middle school philosophy. Read it!
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Middle school has become a play ground for social radicals, June 25, 2004
This review is from: The War Against Excellence: The Rising Tide of Mediocrity in America's Middle Schools (Hardcover)
Other books have reviewed the decline of education in American with a broad general view. Cheri Pierson Yecke focuses on the middle school movement over the last 30 plus years, and how many facets of the middle school movement have hurt specifically the talented and gifted children, but also children in general. She does a great job in reviewing various pieces of the middle school change. She has hundreds of footnotes; many of them are as interesting as the main text of the book. The author starts off with a historical perspective of education and then covers how recently there has been a push to change to a K-5, middle school, and high school structured approach. The motivation of many behind the middle school movement has been a desire to "fix" society. Historically education has meant learning how to read, write, and how to do math. Many in the middle school movement wanted to do social engineering. Instead of trying to teach each student as much as the child could learn, the middle school radicals have pushed for equal outcomes. This is in direct contrast to what advocates for the talented and gifted want. Over time many of the middle school radicals have become hostile to the needs and interests of the talented and gifted. Cheri Pierson Yecke acknowledges that this was one of the main motivations for her going back to school and get a PhD, to try and understand why the needs of her own children were not being meet. Chapter three was on how the middle school curriculum has been dumbed down, so everyone can pass the same course. Next was a chapter on "Ability Grouping" and how the middle school movement has fought "Ability Grouping" as being elitist. The next chapter was about "Cooperative learning" which has small groups of children working together. This may be a good idea once in awhile, but the middle school movement does a lot of it. Cooperative learning advocates defend it by saying it is good for the gifted, but by and large the gifted students find it a waste of time. The gifted students often end up doing a lot of the work, and the rest of the group gets a free ride, or the gifted student doesn't contribute, and the group suffers. In effect the gifted students is being forced to be a teacher's assistant. This is explored even more in the chapter on "Peer tutoring." For me a very key part of the problem is the gifted students, at a young age, are being forced to teach those who don't want to learn. Mature adults may be able to find reasonable solutions, but most young children often find this an impossible situation to deal with. Chapter seven does some analysis of the beliefs and driving convictions of those pushing the middle school movement. Based on what they say publicly Cherie Pierson Yecke finds that many of them want equal outcomes. Rather than having a level playing field where everyone has an equal chance to succeed, the middle school radicals want coercive egalitarianism, they want to force everyone to be the same. Chapter eight points out that often to implement their goals they will hide or misdirect parents and the public in general about what is happening in the middle school. Chapter nine discusses the ethical considerations of the middle school movement. The author quotes a number of people who study ethics, who say that people should have voluntary informed consent. The radical activists are using children to achieve the ends the radical activists want. I felt the author was too gentle here. If I go to a dentist for a filling and he gives me a root cannel, he has been unethical, and I'll sue. If I go to a lawyer for a will, and he takes my money without producing what I want, he clearly is being unethical. But when parents and the public, who pay taxes, voice their desires about what they want in an education, many in the middle school movement will ignore the direction of the public and go off and do what the middle school radicals want. The last chapter addresses what does all of this mean for the twenty first century. If middle schools keep dumbing down our children, then we as a nation will not be able to compete. I greatly enjoyed this book. It is well thought out, addresses a serious problem in our society, and is well documented. If you have young gifted and talented children, and if you want them to get a strong academic education, then this would be a very good book to read.
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