- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Oct 7 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743204468
- ISBN-13: 978-0743204460
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,700,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The Thernstroms, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, deliver "a tough message" about how "to close the racial gap in academic achievement." Although the 48 graphs and tables, 566 footnotes and statistics galore may muffle the work's polemical aspects, the Thernstroms produce a case for standards-based testing and charter schools. Despite caveats (e.g., "Not all Asian parents and their children fit the stereotype... and Asian Americans are not actually one `group' "), the authors' assessment of success and failure attributes much to ethnic cultural factors. Family expectations and hard work lead to success for Asian-Americans, who embrace "the American work ethic with life-or-death fervor," while "the limited education of many Hispanic parents" and "their propensity to work in unskilled jobs that don't require a knowledge of English" underlie the poor performance of Latino students. African-American failure rests in "the special role of television in the life of black children and the low expectations of their parents." "Conventional wisdom" about improving schools (more money, improved cleanliness, smaller classes, etc.) is inadequate, they say. Title I and Head Start appear to have accomplished little, they lament, but Bush's No Child Left Behind (and its mandatory testing program) gets high praise. For the Thernstroms, ideal schools break from tradition and are liberated from such "roadblocks to change" as "hands-tied administrators" and unions. Enter vouchers (implicitly) and charter schools (quite explicitly), where the Thernstroms seem particularly taken by students chanting "answers-with claps and stomps and fists held high" and reciting "rules in unison."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Authors of America in Black and White (1997), the Thernstroms take on the troubling and stubborn gap that persists in academic achievement between white students and black and Hispanic students, a gap that translates into a lifetime of uneven opportunities. They begin by citing statistics based on standardized test scores that verify the woeful achievement gap, which has become the burning issue in the continued struggle for racial justice. In separate chapters, the authors look at the historic and cultural factors at work in the low academic achievement of blacks and Hispanics and the high achievement of Asians, compared with white students. But the heart of the book focuses on several inner-city schools across the nation that have succeeded in educating minority children and provide models for educational reform. The success factors include independence from district control, discretionary budgetary power, and latitude in hiring nonunion teachers. Although it is sure to provoke some controversy, this book provides a thoughtful look at a pressing social problem. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The student body of Cedarbrook Middle School in a Philadelphia suburb is one-third black, two-thirds white. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The student body of Cedarbrook Middle School in a Philadelphia suburb is one-third black, two-thirds white. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating how the evidence doesn't matter,
By Jmark2001 (Florida) - See all my reviews
This review is from: No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Hardcover)
I find it fascinating that several reviewers here "refuse" or "categorically reject" data that there may be intellectual differences between ethnic groups. This is exactly what the authors of this book do - without giving any alternative research or evidence to support their stand. In other words, if you don't like a fact, you think you are free to reject it - without any reason to offer except that you don't want to hear about it. This isn't thinking; it's emoting. If this is the low level that your intellect operates on, you need to go back to the middle ages and enjoy witchcraft, astrology, and the flat earth. The rest of us prefer to come to conclusions based on evidence - not your personal superstitions, emotionally charged prejudices, or ideas that you gleaned from watching daytime talk shows. The evidence is there whether you like it or not. Ignore it at your own peril. If you don't agree with it, come up with evidence that supports your view or get out of the way. African-American children score 16 points lower on every IQ test devised. And no, the tests are not culturally biased. The American Psychiatric Association already ruled that out after an exhaustive study. And some tests don't have ANY cultural referents. Example: One IQ test requires nothing but the pushing of buttons when a light comes on. How is that culturally biased? There are plenty of black athletes and entertainment performers but where are the chemists? The physicists? The Nobel Prize in science winners? Why are African nations an economic and social disaster? Why wasn't the compass, the wheel, or written language in use in Africa even in the 1600's? Facts are facts and the current widespread dismal educational non-achievement of African-Americans continues to be a clear sign that more is at work here than the supposed effects of slavery. Even at an all African-American university such as Howard University, the drop out rate is close to 50%. And Howard is not considered a difficult school. When the church forced Galileo to recant, he signed the papers and then said, "but the earth still revolves around the sun," - meaning: no amount of political nonsense/bullying is going to change the facts.
2.0 out of 5 stars
No Excuses: Misleading View of Racial Gap in Learning,
By A Customer
This review is from: No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Hardcover)
On a positive note, I found No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning insightful and accurate on many fronts and helpful in breaking through some of the deeply held assumptions pertaining to the racial gap in academic achievement between whites and minorities. However, I could not help but fume as I moved through the book because the Thernstroms' clearly have a narrow viewpoint of what it will take to close the racial gap in learning and systematically proceed to discredit any prior credible research that provides evidence to the contrary. For example, the authors cite works advanced by those associated with the Minority Student Achievement Network (www.msanetwork.org), that support their beliefs, but fail to cite work by the same organization that clearly finds African Americans and Latinos value a good education just as much as Asians and whites - that there is little cultural difference between people in that respect. Likewise, I am concerned with the authors' frequent references to the American work ethic, as if somehow African Americans and Latinos are un-American in their work ethic. African Americans and Latinos were significant constructivists in the American work ethic. The entire book resonates from an acutely conservative tone, convinced that vouchers and traditional educational methods (phonics instruction) will do wonders to close the gap. I walked away from this book feeling the Thernstroms must not have spent much time in the schools about which they write and in dialogue with the people they seem to belittle.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Should be required reading for all educators,
By
This review is from: No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Hardcover)
I was very impressed with the factual information contained in No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom (Simon & Schuster, 2003). Their data unequivocally identify huge academic achievement gaps in America, with Blacks and Hispanics on one (the lower) side, and Whites and Asians on the other. However, the solutions the authors propose--essentially running schools more like businesses--left me a little cold. Still, the book is a thoughtful, insightful work worthy of a close examination.Kelvin L. Reed, Author of "Rookie Year: Journey of a First-Year Teacher" (Peralta Publishing, 1999)
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