No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
by Abigail Thernstrom, Stephan Thernstrom
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Book Summary Information
Author: Abigail Thernstrom, Stephan ThernstromEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-14
ISBN: 074326522X
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743265225
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
Book Review: Facts, Not Political Correctness or Wishful Thinking!
Summary: 4 Stars
"No Excuses" opens with a harsh dose of reality. By the 12th grade, on average, black students are four years behind whites and Asians. This gap exists both in urban and suburban school, though is somewhat smaller in the former. Hispanics don't do much better. The gap begins at kindergarten, and grows each year. Students hit the hardest by disorder in the schools are those with the greatest educational needs.
"No Excuses" (the slogan, not the book) is the message that superb schools (and parents) deliver to their youngsters. Nowhere is this made more clear than in our Asian pupil population, placing a much higher priority on education in surveys. Roughly 4% of Americans are of Asian background, while making up 27% of MIT's 2000 freshman class, 25% at Stanford, 24% at Cal Tech, 17% at Harvard, etc. They are also more likely to graduate than white - 54% of Asian-Americans 25-29 had a B.A. or more in 2000, vs. 34% of whites.
Hispanics have less commitment to the U.S. In 1997, 53% of European-born immigrants had become citizens, 44% of Asians, and 15% of Mexicans. The bulk of the Hispanic high-school dropout rate statistic is associated with Mexican immigrants who never attended U.S. schools, according to the authors; I'm highly doubtful. Over one-third second-generation Mexican-American students have not mastered English.
Increasing per-pupil funding has not proven effective - it doubled from 1970-2000; only about one-fifth of that increase was due to Special Education increases. In addition, pupil spending is more closely related to socio-economic status than race.
The authors reference both the Coleman Report and the K.C. integration "experiment" of 1985-2000, but do so far too briefly. The former is the largest careful analysis of pupil performance ever conducted in the U.S. - it found little/no relationship between typical school expenditures such as reduced class size, increased teacher experience (beyond the first two years), increased teacher education, etc. and pupil achievement. Only teacher vocabulary and parental factors were statistically and operationally significant. The K.C. schools reduced average class size to 13 as part of a $2 billion increase in spending. Pupil performance did not improve, and in 2001 the district lost its accreditation.
Texas' efforts were offered as a positive sign. Unfortunately, later assessments revealed that most/all the improvement in dropout rates and pupil achievement was due to data and test-taking manipulations.
Barriers to significant improvement include limitations on the superintendent's authority, weak colleges of education, a dysfunctional pay and seniority system for teachers, potential civil rights protests, tenure, teacher unions and their ability to influence school-board elections, and politically-manipulated criterion-referenced tests used to assess progress. (The latter was not mentioned in "No Excuses."
Summary of No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
The racial gap in academic performance between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and Latinos and blacks, on the other hand, is America's most urgent educational problem. It is also the central civil rights issue of our time, say Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom. Unequal skills and knowledge are the main sources of ongoing racial inequality, and racial inequality is America's great unfinished business.A wide and tragic gap in learning is evident in affluent suburbs as well as inner cities. But great schools are scattered across the country, as described in inspiring detail by the Thernstroms. These schools are putting even the most highly disadvantaged children on the American ladder of economic opportunity.
There are no good excuses for the perpetuation of long-standing inequalities, the Thernstroms argue eloquently. The problem can be solved, but conventional strategies will not work. Fundamental educational reform is needed. Carefully researched, accessibly written, and powerfully persuasive, this book offers both a close analysis of the current landscape and a blueprint for essential and overdue change.
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