John Dewey, Thinking in Education,

1- What are the benefits of teaching thinking skills in

schools? What kinds of handicaps do students face who have
not been taught critical thinking? skill obtained apart from
thinking is not connected with any sense of the purposes for which it
is to be used. It consequently leaves a man at the mercy of his
routine habits and of the authoritative control of others, who know
what they are about and who are not especially scrupulous as to
their means of achievement. And information severed from
thoughtful action is dead, a mind- crushing load. Since it simulates
knowledge and thereby develops the poison of conceit, it is a most
powerful obstacle to further growth in the grace of intelligence.
2- Why is experience the first stage in the development of
thinking skills? The immediate crude handling of the familiar
material of experience, and to introduce pupils at once to material
which expresses the intellectual distinctions which adults have
made. But the first stage of contact with any new material at
whatever age of maturity, must inevitably be of the trial and error
sort. An individual must actually try, in play or work, to do something
with material in carrying out his own impulsive activity, and then
note the interaction of his energy and that of the material employed.
3- What is the advantage of a direct, hands-on approach over
a theoretical approach in developing thinking skills? Direct
observation is naturally more vivid and vital. But it has its
limitations; and in any case it is a necessary part of education that
one should acquire the ability to supplement the narrowness of his
immediately personal experiences by utilizing the experiences of
others. Excessive reliance upon others for data (whether got from

reading or listening) is to be depreciated. Most objectionable of all is

the probability that others, the book or the teacher, will supply
solutions ready- made, instead of giving material that the student
has to adapt and apply to the question in hand for himself.
6- What are the four principles in teaching thinking that
Dewey lists in his summary? They are first that the pupil have a
genuine situation of experience that there be a continuous
activity in which he is interested for its own sake; secondly, that a
genuine problem develop within this situation as a stimulus to
thought; third, that he possess the information and make the
observations needed to deal with it; fourth, that suggested solutions
occur to him which he shall be responsible for developing in an
orderly way; fifth, that he have opportunity and occasion to test his
ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to discover for
himself their validity.

Carl G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro,

3- Why, according to Woodson, was the kind of education
offered to black people at that time the worst sort of
lynching? As another has well said, to handicap a student by
teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to
change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching. It kills
ones aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime.
4- How was education in fields such as mathematics different
in the black schools and the white schools in Mississippi? the
teaching of arithmetic in the fifth grade in a< backward county in
Mississippi should mean one thing in the Negro school and a
decidedly different thing in the white school. The Negro children, as

a rule, come from the homes of tenants and peons who have to
migrate annually from plantation to plantation, looking for light
which they have never seen. The children from the homes of white
planters and merchants live permanently in the midst of calculations,
family budgets, and the like, which enable them sometimes to learn
more by contact than the Negro can acquire in school. Instead of
teaching such Negro children less arithmetic, they should be taught
much more of it than the white children, for the latter attend a
graded school consolidated by free transportation when the Negroes
go to one-room rented hovels to be taught without equipment and
by incompetent teachers educated scarcely beyond the eighth
grade.
6- Why was a black student of that time who had been well
educated in higher education not well equipped for success?
For the arduous task of serving a race thus handicapped, however,
the Negro graduate has had little or no training at all. The people
whom he has been ordered to serve have been belittled by his
teachers to the extent that he can hardly find delight in undertaking
what his education has led him to think is impossible. Considering
his race as blank in achievement, then, he sets out to stimulate their
imitation of others. The performance is kept up a while; but, like any
other effort at meaningless imitation, it results in failure
8- How did education in industrial classes differ for black
students and white students? Negroes attended industrial
schools, took such training as was prescribed, and received their
diplomas; but few of them developed adequate efficiency to be able
to do what they were supposedly trained to do. The schools in which
they were educated could not provide for all the experience with
machinery which white apprentices trained in factories had. Such

industrial education as these Negroes received, then, was merely to

master a technique already discarded in progressive centers; and
even in less complicated operations of industry these schools had no
such facilities as to parallel the numerous processes of factories
conducted on the plan of the division of labor. Except what value
such training might have in the development of the mind by making
practical applications of mathematics and science, then, it was a
failure.

Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth,

1. What kinds of benefits derive from the greater disparities
of wealth found in industrial societies than the equality of
more primitive societies?
2. How has the manufacture of products changed over time?
How has this change led to differences in work between
employer and employee?
3. How is the change in manufacturing been beneficial to
the poor and working classes? How has this led to distrust
between the classes?
4. What, according to Carnegie, is wrong with the kind of
equality that communism attempts to establish?

Song of Solomon,
Chapters 1-3,
2. The residents of the area call the hospital No Mercy. Why?
It is on Mains Avenue, which the people call Not Doctor Street. How
did the street get this name? People call the Mercy hospital no
mercy hospital because it does not admit any African-American
patients. The hospital was located on Main Avenue, which was called
Not Doctor Street by locals. The street got its nickname because the
only black doctor of the city used to live on this street and the street

used to be called the Doctor Street. Then, some of the city legislators
gave out a notice to say it had been always and would always be
known as Main Avenue and Not Doctor Street. So, the locals
continued calling the street Not Doctor Street.
7. How does Milkman get his nickname? Who knows and who
doesnt know how he got the nickname? Milkman aka Macon
Dead got his name because Freddie the janitor found Ruth breastfeeding him. Ruths neighborhood and Southside where Macon Dead
owned rent houses. Freddie sees Ruth giving milk Macon III, Even
though he is old enough to walk, and gives the child a nickname
Milkman. Macon II doesnt know how his son got the nickname,
however, he has guessed that the nickname is in regard to relation
between Ruth and Milkman. Freddie, since he put the nickname,
knows as well as Ruth, her 2 daughters, and also Macon IIs sister,
Pilate. In other words, whole community knows the story behind the
nickname.
8. How did Milkmans grandfather, Macon Dead I, get his
name? How did his aunt, Pilate, get her name?
A. How did Milkman's grandfather get his name? It was a accident by
a drunken Yankee when he went to register. the man asked him
where he was born he told him "mascon" and when he asked him
who his father was he said "dead" the drunken Yankee doing the
form wrote it down wrong and his name became" Macon Dead",
which he decided to keep.
B. Where did Pilate get her name,? Her father Macon 1 , Milkman's
Grandfather went thumbing threw a Bible (looking for a name) and
put his finger down in a certain area, after choosing a group of
letters on a picture he liked , he wrote them down( that became her
name, because he couldn't read..
20. At the age of twenty-two, Milkman hits his father. Why

does he do this? Milkman hits his father because he is defending

his mother, Ruth.
22.Milkmans father explains to Milkman why he hit his
mother, which involves her relationship with her father, Dr.
Foster. What was Dr. Fosters attitude toward his black
patients? What was his attitude toward Milkmans sisters
when they were born? Dr Foster was reluctant to treating Black
patients, he only cared about the most respected ones. When
Milkmans sisters were born, he was mostly worried about the color
of their skin. Dr. Foster is an arrogant, self-hating racist so his
attitude toward his black patients is impolite and rude as much as he
calls African-Americans Cannibals and when Milkmans sisters were
born, Dr. Foster checked that how light-skinned his granddaughters.
23.What habit did Dr. Foster have before he died? What did
Ruth do with Dr. Foster after he died? Dr. Foster is a self-hate
racist. He calls African-American "cannibals while he himself is an
African-American. He checks his granddaughters skin to see hoe
"white" they are. After his death, Ruth laid naked next to him with his
fingers in her mouth.

Chapters 4-7, questions

5. Milkman stays at Guitars place, and they discuss how
someone is planning to kill Milkman. Who is trying to kill
him? Why? Hagar is trying to kill Milkman, since Milkman broke up
with her and after that,she saw him with another girl. It seems the
love hagar had for Milkman was so much, that she was ready to kill
him in order to prove her love.
7. Later that night, Milkman follows his mother. Where does
she end up going? Why does she go there? . Milkman follows
his mother and ends up at the cemetery where her father, Dr. Foster
was burried. She visited his grave site frequently to talk to him.

Shortly after Ruth explained to Milkman her relationship with her

father.
8. Why was Dr. Foster buried in the cemetery in Fairfield? Dr.
Foster was buried in the cemetery in Fairfield because Ruth wanted
to bury her father someplace other than where Negroes were all laid
in one area. She was able to bury her father in the cemetery in
Fairfield because when the doctor was buried forty years ago,
Fairfield was farm country with a county cemetery that was too tiny
for anybody to care whether its dead were white or black.
11. What happens when Milkmans intended killer breaks into
his room to murder him? Milkman closes his eyes and wishes
Hagar to die when he hears her approaching. Hagar enters and stabs
Milkman in the collarbone with a knife but does not really harm him.
Hagar could not stab him again and so Milkman opens his eyes and
turns away.
13. Pilate tells Ruth her story. After her father died, she went
to find some members of her family. She lived for a time
among a group of pickers until they forced her to leave. Why
did they want her to leave? They found out that she didnt have a
navel. And in their eyes she was not normal, she was not born
normal and therefore they wanted here to leave. She has no navel
and it's a bad omen and bad for business. So two groups kick here
out. She says that men will make love to anything but they won't
make love to a woman with a belly button. Causes her fear and hides
from most people.
14. Pilates father came to visit her after her daughter,
Reba, was born. What did he tell her to do? Pilates ghost of her
father visits her and tells her to sing (this is why she sings all the
time and "you just cant fly off and leave a body." So she goes back

to Pennsylvania, to a cave where Macon killed the white man, gets

his bones, and brings them back.
16. Guitar tells Milkman that he belongs to a group known as
the Seven Days. What does this group do? This group is to
revenge white people for every blacks death by murder them in the
ways same as the original murder happen to those black victim.
18. Milkman tells his father that Pilate has a green sack
hanging in her house. What does Macon believe is in the
sack? How did Pilate get it? Macon believes the sack is full of dead
mans treasure. She took it when Macon was outside of the cave
tried to hide from hunters.

Chapters 8-11, questions

1. What does Guitar, as a member of the Seven Days, have to
do? Why does this make him willing to help Milkman steal
Pilates gold? Guitar has Sunday as his day; this means that if a
killing of some Negroes happens on a Sunday. It is his duty to kill
some white people the same way the Negroes got killed the Sunday
after. Guitar helps Milkman steal Pilates gold because he needs
money, and he sees it as a golden opportunity to get some. The
killing that he is required to do is starting to be more and more
complicated and he needs for example explosives for his next
murder. All that costs a lot more than he thought, so he is in need for
money.
2. What does Guitar tell Milkman when he asks Guitar why a
peacock cant fly any better than a chicken? All the jewelry on
its tail weighs it down. Nobody can fly with all that, if you want to fly
you have to get rid of all the materials.
16. Who does Milkman meet when he goes into the Butlers
house? What does she tell him happened to the body of his

grandfather? Milkman meets an ancient woman, his fathers

midwife named Circe. She is colorless with age, on the top of the
staircase and hugs Milkman. She tells him that after his grandfather
was killed and a month after his burial, the murdered Macon Dead Is
body floated out of its grave during the first rain and was deposited
by hunters in the same cave where Macon Jr. and Pilate stayed.
20. One of the men in Solomons General Store tells Milkman
that someone has been looking for him. Who has been
looking for him? Guitar. and his message was your day is here
which is the executioners call of the Seven Days
24. The day after the hunt, Milkman asks the men about his
grandmother. What was her name? Where do they tell him to go
in order to find out about her? His grandmothers name is Sing and
she is a daughter of a woman name Heddy. They told him to go to
the place of Susan Byrd, another of Heddys descendants.

Chapters 12-15, questions

3. Back in town, Milkman sees Guitar and Guitar tells
Milkman why he has tried to kill him. Why is Guitar trying to
kill Milkman? Guitar is trying to kill Milkman because he thinks that
he has taken all the gold for himself. Guitar saw him at the station
when he was helping a man to lift a box that was being shipped to
Virginia. So Guitar assumes that the box is filled with gold; and then
he when he finds Milkman in Virginia it is even clearer according to
him. Guitar thinks that Milkman found the gold and decided to keep
it to himself. That is why he thinks he has to kill Milkman.
5. Milkman listens to the song the children sing and tries to
figure out what it means. What does he decide the song
means? Milkman realizes that the song is about his own people.
Soloman was Jakes father, Milkmans great grandfather, and he

recognized the name Heddy,Susan Bryds grandmother on her

fathers side. He also realizes that Susan Byrd had not told him
everything she knows.
7. When Milkman goes back to Susan Byrds house, she tells
him the truth about his grandmother. What does she tell
him? Why didnt she tell him this sooner? Susan tells Milkman that
Sing had never ended up going to the school she was supposed to in
Boston, but instead had left in a wagon with Jake and a whole lot of
slaves toward the North. She didnt told him this sooner because
Grace was present and she didnt wanted her to know since she has
a reputation of gossiping.
8. Susan Byrd also tells Milkman about Solomon. Who was
Solomon? What did he do? Susan Bryd called Solomon a flying
African. She tells milkman some Africans as slaves could fly and
Solomon is one of them. Solomon is the origin and a pioneer of the
idea that Africans can fly. It is his store that leads Milkman to the
long way of finding his ancestry to some extent. He flew away
toward freedom leaving his wife and his babies while they were all
working in the fields.
11. Milkman tells Pilate what the bones in her sack really are.
Whose bones are they? What do they decide to do with the
bones? Milkman tells Pilate that the bones belong to her father and
that she should bury them. Pilate lets Milkman go and sends him
home with a box of hair belonging to Hagar.
13. What happens to Pilate after she buries the bones? Guitar
shoots her by accident and she dies in Milkmans arms.
15. What do the birds that have been circling Milkman do?
What does this symbolize? One dive into the new grave and scooped

something shiny in its beak before it flew away. Birds are a symbol of
life which means death is not the end of Pilates existence.
16. What does Milkman do at the end of the story? Why does
he do this? He had a short conversation with Guitar and then
fought him. Maybe for the revenge for Pilate.

The Death and Life of the Great American School

System,
Chapter 1, questions
3.

What idea has she consistently warned against?

Taking The royal road to learning, the notion that some savant or
organization has found an easy solution to the problems of American
education.
9.

What did Ravitch include in the history curriculum that she

developed for Californias schools in 1985?

She worked closely with teachers and scholars to draft a curriculum
framework that integrated history with literature, geograpgy, the arts,
social sciences, and humanities.
14. Why are market reforms appealing to policymakers in
education? The lure of the market is the idea that freedom from
government regulation is a solution all by itself. There is something
comforting about the belief that the invisible hand of the market, as Adam
Smith called it, will bring improvements through some unknown forces. It
appealing because depending on market forces to optimize learning is
easier than having to figure out the ins-and-outs of a new education
reform.

Chapter 2, questions

1.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), President George W. Bushs

education policy passed in 2002, relies on accountability as a
means of improving schools. What is accountability, and how does
NCLB use standardized tests as a tool for assessing
accountability? The definition of accountability is taking or being
assigned responsibility for something that you have done or something
you are supposed to do. NCLB use standarized tests to measure school
quality.

2.

What areas did tests developed to satisfy NCLB requirements

cover? What areas did they not cover? The tests that covered the
requirements were math and reading. The ones that did not cover were
areas such as the arts, science, history, geography and literature.

7.

Ravitch states NCLB was all sticks and no carrots. What does
this mean? It means that the countrys educational focus were only on
tests. And there were none deeper thought about what education should
be or how you could improve schools.

14. What did A Nation at Risk recommend about the school day and
the school year? What did it recommend about teacher salaries?
How did it recommend that teacher salaries be determined? The
ANAR recommended that a normal school day should be lengthen to
seven hours and the school year to 200-220 days (it was normally 180).
About teachers salaries it recommended that they should be raised since
those who would teach would have to meet the high educational
standards. The salaries should be professionally competitive, marketsensitive, and performance-based. Teachers salaries should be
determined by peer review.
16. This chapter is titled Hijacked. In what way were the warnings
included in A Nation at Risk hijacked by the kinds of policies

advanced by NCLB? When the report on ANAR was released, the critic to
the educational system was used when creating the policies by NCLB. It
warned about how the focus on basic academic courses was disappearing,
and NCLB took focus on accountability and choice because of it.

Chapter 3, questions
2. What is systemic school reform? What obstacles were
faced by schools that attempted systemic reform? The
systemic school reform is a central improvement for the education
system in the students performance to support higher achievements. This
involved establishing a curriculum, setting standards for proficiency in
those subjects, basing tests on the curriculum, and expecting teachers to
teach it. The greatest obstacles to the reform were the requirement for
numerous stakeholders textbook publishers, test publishers, and schools
of education.

6. What changes in employment of principals and teachers

did District 2 undergo while Tony Alvarado was
superintendent? While Tony Alvarado was superintendent he made
sure that all of his principals and teachers were trained in Balanced
Literacy and only used the new methods and those who did not abide by
that were quietly encouraged to transfer to other districts. At the end of
his term, Alvarado replaced two-thirds of his districts principals and about
half of the teachers.

9. How might changes in demographics in some schools in

District 2 have contributed to the districts successes? The
changes in demographics in some schools of District 2 contributed to the
districts success because the highest performing schools were those with
a majority of white and/or Asian students, while the lowest-performing
schools were highly segregated. Also the students that were relatively

affluent were more likely to receive a higher test score. Five schools that
were recorded as problematic were assumed to have some schools that
were more than 75 percent African American or Hispanic particularly those
where fewer than 10 percent of students reached the top quartile of
achievements on reading tests.

12. What differences were there among achievements of

fourth graders of different ethnic backgrounds in District 2?
What differences in achievements were there among eighth
graders? The differences in achievements among the fourth graders of
different ethnic backgrounds in District 2 were that there was a large
achievement gap among students with different racial and ethnic
backgrounds. Among the fourth grade students, 82 percent of white
students, 61 percent of Asian students, 45.7 percent of African American
students, and 37.8 percent of Hispanic students met the state standards
(Level 3 and 4) for reading. Among eighth graders, the differences were
just as large or larger. 80 percent of white students, 61 percent of Asian
students, 53 percent of African American students, and 40 percent of
Hispanic students achieved that state standard on the reading test.
Although the minority students achieved higher testing scores than those
in other districts, District 2 did not close the Achievement gap among
different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Chapter 4, questions
6. What was the strategy Bersin used in implementing his
reforms? Bersins strategy to implement his reforms was to have
Alvarado turn to Elaine Fink, and have her run the new Educational
Leadership Development Academy to train principals for the San
Diego public school. Alvarado also used consultants to lead
professional development sessions for principals and teachers on
Balanced Literacy.

7. What effect did these reforms have on the retention of

teachers and principals?
During the reform, there was a poor retention rate of principals and
teachers due to the reform; 90% of districts principals were
replaced, thousands of teachers resigned each year, and many took
the early retirement offer.
11. What did Sheila Byrd tell Ravitch about the curriculum
and standards in place in the San Diego schools? When it
came to curriculum, Shiela Byrd wrote that they did not go by the
states academic framework and chose to focus on professional
development for the teachers and principals. There was an
emphasis on how the teachers should be teaching their students
rather than a curriculum to follow to improve the San Diego
education.
12. What did a retired principal tell Ravitch about the school
she had founded and what was done to her school during
Bersins tenure? A retired principal and founder of an elementary
school had everything she built her school on stripped away; they
had to remove the activities that were mostly run by the children.
When the reform was implicated, she completely disagreed with
everything the superintendent was doing, there was a negative
attitude with the instructional leaders, and they did more damage
than anything else. Once the principal retired, the entire staff left the
school, leaving it to close down and the principals dream dead.
13. What were the results of a 2001 survey administered by
the San Diego teachers union, the SDEA? The results of the
survey administered by the SDEA all showed that the teachers did
not believe that the reform was going to improve the quality of
education, there was a poor teaching morale, there was no

confidence in the Superintendent and his administration, and they

frequently described his attitude towards the teachers and parents
as a dictator, or dictatorship, arrogant, disrespectful, and
condescending.

Chapter 5, questions
3. How did Joel Kleins plans for reform in New Yorks schools
resemble those of Alan Bersin in San Diego? It required
balanced literacy, the same method pioneered in District 2 and later
implemented in San Diego.

5. How did the program reduce rather than increase parental

involvement? With the elimination of local school boards and the
central boards parents had troubles reaching anyone in authority

11. What was the Monday Night Massacre? In March 2004 when
some members of the panel disagreed with the mayor over the issue
of social promotion. The day of the vote the mayor fired two of his
appointees to guarantee the pass of his proposal.

12. How were the New York schools able to drastically reduce
the number of students scoring at the lowest level in reading
and math? By lowering the scoring bar and made it easier for
students to pass.

13. How many charter schools were established under Klein?

How did these charter schools disadvantage homeless
children? Fifty charter schools, and it was because homeless people
had difficulty meeting the deadlines and following through with the
application process.

Chapter 6, questions
2.

What four principles were at the heart of NCLB?

First, that every child should be tested every year in grades three

through eight (using state tests, not national tests).

Second, that decisions about how to reform schools would be made

by the states.

Third, low-preforming schools would get help to improve.

Fourth, that students stuck in persistently dangerous or failing

schools would be able to transfer to other schools.
5.

Under NCLB, what would happen to schools that did not

achieve their Adequate Yearly Progress goals toward 100

percent proficiency in testing areas by 2013-2014? The
schools that did not achieve it would be labeled as a school in need
of improvement.

The first year of failure, the school would be put on notice

In the second year, it would be required to offer all its students the
right to transfer to a successful school. And the transfer should be paid

from the districts federal funds.

The third year, the school would be required to offer free tutoring to
low-income students, paid from the districts federal funds.

The fourth year, the school would need to make big changes, such as
in curriculum, staff, or by having a longer school day or year.

After five years, the school would need to restructure.

9.

Why was choice not a successful strategy under NCLB?

Because there were only a very few students that asked to be

transferred to a better school. Scholars discussed whether or not this

could be because the information of the transfer-opportunity were

sent out to late in the school year, or because parents did not want
to send their children on a bus travelling alone a long way. Many
schools did also not have enough seats for eligible students. And
many students and parents did not want to leave their neighborhood
school.
13. What is the most toxic flaw of NCLB? What makes it such
a bad flaw? The most toxic flaw was the command that all students
in every schoo must be proficient in reading and mathematics by
2014. This meant that all students had to be proficient, even
students with special needs, or whose first language is not English,
or students that are homeless and lacks in social advantage. All
these were condemned under the same requirements, and if not all
students accomplished the goals, the entire school would suffer the
consequences.

Chapter 7, questions
2. How did the school choice movement develop out of
reactions to school desegregation? When the U.S Supreme Court
issued its decision against school segregation in 1954, some political
leaders refused to employ the policy. Some school districts, instead,
adopted the freedom of choice policy, which meant that students
could enroll in any public school they wanted. So, black students
could stay in all-black schools and white students could stay in allwhite schools. When the federal government began to force students
to attend integrated schools, some public officials encouraged the
creation of private schools so white students werent forced to
attend an integrated school.

3. What argument did Milton Friedman advance in favor of

tuition vouchers in his 1955 essay, "The Role of Government
in Education?" Milton Friedman believed that governments should
fund schooling but not run the schools. He proposed that
government should supply vouchers to every family so every student
could attend a school of choice. He predicted that a wide variety of
schools would spring up to meet the demand. He believed that
vouchers would improve the schools quality and also the salary of
the teachers.
11. Why did Albert Shanker change his position on charter
schools? As Shanker watched the charter movement evolve, as he
saw new businesses jump into the education industry, he realized
that his idea was being taken over by corporations, entrepreneurs,
and practitioners of do your own thing. He came to see charter
schools as dangerous to public education.
13. How many charter schools had opened and how many
students were attending charters by 2009? By 2009, the Center
for Education Reform reported that there were about 4600 charter
schools with 1.4 million students.
15. What did studies in 2009 conclude about the success of
voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Washington,
D. C.? Studies showed that there were relatively small achievement
gains for students offered educational vouchers, most of which are
not statistically different from zero.
17. Why are traditional public schools at a disadvantage
against charter schools? It is not only because charter schools
may attract the most motivated students but also because the

charters often get additional financial resources from their corporate

sponsors to do extracurriculum activities. Many charters enforce
discipline codes that would be challenged in court if they were
adopted in regular public schools.

Chapter 8, questions
6. What factors, according to Robert Linn, could result in
variations in test results other than student or teacher
performance? Higher achieving students, number of Englishlanguage learners, number of students with disabilities, and student
body.

7. What ways have some schools cheated in order to produce

higher test scores? First type is plain old-fashioned cheating where
teachers correct students answers or leak the questions in advance.
Second type is to restrict the admission of low performing students,
English-language learners, or unmotivated students.

8. What are "skimming" techniques that some schools use?

How do these techniques improve test scores? Schools weed
out the lowest performing students and still be able to boast the
most or all of its students are African American, Hispanic, or lowincome. They may transfer the disruptive students to other schools.

12. What is Campbell's Law, and how does it apply to testing

in schools? Campbells law: the more any quantitative social
indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will
be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and

corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. As Koretz

shows, the changes induced by accountability pressures corrupt the
very purpose of schooling by causing practitioners to focus on the
measure rather than on the goals of education.

15. What is the difference between "positive accountability"

and "punitive accountability" Why does Ravitch think that
the former is more effective? Good accountability is when low
scores trigger an effort to help the school, but punitive accountability
is when low scores provide a reason to fire the staff and close the
school.

Chapter 9, questions
6. Why was Mrs. Ratliff not a member of a teachers union?
How might a union have benefitted a teacher like Mrs.
Ratliff? Because in Texas is a right to work state, and there were
no teachers union. It couldve helped protect their academic
freedom, since she was frequently harassed by an ultraconservative
group called the Minute Women.
7. What do the relative performance of students in schools in
Southern states, in Massachusetts, and in Finland indicate
about the relationships of teachers unions and student
performance? Massachusetts, the state with the highest academic
performance, has long had strong teacher unions. Where there are
affluent communities student performance tends to be higher,
whether or not their teachers belong to unions.
9. What are the advantages of tenure to unionized teachers?
Tenure is not a guarantee of lifetime employment but a protection
against being terminated without due process.

14. What inherent limitations are there in using value-added

assessments as the sole method for measuring teacher
performance? Test scores are not a reliable in the measurement of
student and teachers achievement quality. Also, VAA applies only to
those teachers for whom yearly test scores are available, possibly a
minority of a schools staff. There is not enough long-term test
scores data.

Chapter 10, questions

4. What are the major foundations involved in education
since 2002? How do their efforts differ from those of earlier
foundations?
The top two philantrophies by 2002 were the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the newly concieved
Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Gates, Walton, and Broad differed
from earlier foundations because there investments were targeted.
They were to be called venture philantropies because they
borrowed concepts from venture capital finance and business
managment. The venture philanthrophies treated their gifts as an
investment that was expected to produce measurable results, or the
business mindset of return of investment.
5. In what ways are these new foundations not accountable?
Since these new foundations are private agencies, they are not
subject to public oversight or review. They take it upon themselves
to reform public education in ways that would never survive the
scrutiny of voters. They are not accountable because if their plans
fail, no sanctions can be levied against them. The have heeps of
unaccountable power.

6. What is anti-democratic about the influence of foundations

on education?
There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about
relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private
foundations run by societys wealthiest people; when the wealthiest
of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent
an unsually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic
institutions.
11. What happened to the Manual High School in Denver
after it was restructured following receipt of a Gates
Foundation grant? What happened at the Mountlake High
School near Seattle?
In 2001, the Gates foundation awarded more than $1 million to
restructure Manual High School into three small, autonomous high
schools, each on its own floor of the building. It was a complete
failure. The three schools competed for resources, cafeteria,
textbooks, and the library. When they were suppose to collaborate,
they were instead competing, which eventually led to its shutdown in
February 2006.
17. What does Ravitch think is the benefit of traditional
neighborhood public schools?
The neighborhood school is the place where parents meet to share
concerns about their children and the place where they learn the
practice of democracy. They create a sense of community among
strangers. As we lose neighborhood public schools, we lose the one
local institution where people congregate and mobilize to solve local
problems, where individuals learn to speak u and debate and engage
in democratic give-and-take with their neighbors.

Chapter 11, questions

1. What is the most durable way to improve schools? its to
improve curriculum and instruction and to improve the conditions in
which teachers work and children learn, rather than endlessly
squabbling over how school systems should be organized, managed
and controlled.
3. Why are neighborhood schools the anchors of their
communities? Because they are places with a history laden with
traditions and memories that help individuals resist fragmentation in
their lives they have a steady presence that helps to cement the
bonds of communities among neighbors.
5. What are some examples of appropriate use of
competition in schools? In science fairs, essay contests, debates,
and athletic events.
6. What kinds of resources do children living in poor areas
need for their schools? Preschool medical care, small classes and
extra learning time.
8. What obstacles are there to effective teaching of the
sciences in public schools? There are not enough science
teachers to teach science in each grade and because of the
theological and political debate about evolution.

Epilogue, questions
2. What happened at Central Falls, Rhode Island, High School
in 2010? This school was in the states smallest and poorest district.
The school superintendent announced her intention to fire every
staff member of the citys only high school because of its low-test
scores. She had support for this by the state Education
Commissioner. None of the teachers had been individually evaluated.
Parents took the teachers side but with no effect. It happened

anyway.
6. What accounts for one-third of the increase in costs of
public education over the past forty years?
10. What will be the next great movement in education
reform? What does Ravitch think will be wrong with this
movement?