The Abyss: The Woeful State of the Nation's Public Schools and How Common Sense Can Save Them from Ruin

Veteran teacher Schinzel launches his focused plan to rescue America's failing schools by recalling an administrator's ""obtuse,"" ""disturbing"" argument that ""good teachers do not fail students."" From that opening salvo, Schinzel argues convincingly that the concept of the teacher as scholar has been lost, replaced by a more personal, emotional notion of the teacher as therapeutic confidant and self-esteem booster. Schinzel alludes to (but doesn't cite) studies from the first half of the 20th century showing that the primary reason people entered teaching was interest in an academic subject. Studies from the second half of the 20th century, however, indicate that ""fondness for children and favorable working conditions"" are foremost in teachers' minds. Schinzel advocates a return to academic rigor, by increasing teachers' salaries, eliminating or modifying the teacher certification process (which, he says, fosters ""a closed and intolerant society of bureaucrats all hailing from the liberal breeding ground called the college of education""), reducing the size and power of a school district's central office and enforcing meaningful codes of discipline, among other strategies. He fails to analyze broader cultural reasons to explain why America's high schools might not be as demanding as they once were, and he weakens his argument by fixedly attributing the ills of America's schools to administrative bureaucrats (whom he calls ""educrats"") and their progressive ideas. But still, this is an original and rather contrarian look at public education, and an impassioned call for reform. (Apr.)