Public Education an Autopsy (aláírt példány) [antikvár]

Preface From my first day in the first grade in McKinley Elementary School in St. Paul, Minnesota, I attended public schools exclusively. My experience in them was extremely positive. I admired and respected my teachers and maintained cordial relationships with them after graduadon from high school, even after college in some cases. My classmates and teammates are still among my friends, and our school experiences are among our most treasured memories. The fact that I later became a teacher in the St. Paul public schools reflects my opUmistic attitude toward public education until the 1980s. This book would not have been written if I thought that public education could function for most young people today as it did for me more than sixty years ago. I deeply regret that this cannot happen and that public education cannot fulfill the high hopes of so many besides myself: My immigrant parents and the millions like them, so many dedicated public school teachers, principals, and board members, and coundess others in all walks of life in every state. I am saddened by the anguish and the sense of loss that will eventually emerge—not necessarily or primarily or even at all from this book but from the inescapable truth of the matter. The decline of public education does not negate the fact that many individuals associated with it perform invaluable services that deserve our respect and gratitude. My analysis concerns the strengths and deficiencies of educational systems, not of the persons associated with them. Although these things are sometimes related, conclusions about a system are not automatically applicable to the individuals associated with it, or vice versa. I hope that readers will bear this crucial point in mind, as I have tried to do.