New Battles of an Old Liberal

...This debate has gone on in American education since John Dewey's work at the beginning of the 20th century, and it can be traced back even further to Rousseau and other European pedagogues...

...Born in Baltimore, where he attended public schools, he is a professor of political science at the University of Missouri in St...

...Critics assert that the ill effects of ability grouping have not been proven, nor have the benefits of heterogeneous grouping...

...The problem with school reform, as Rochester learned to his dismay, is that parents are rarely welcome to become involved in their children's education...

...They might prefer schools that stress traditional notions of merit and academic excellence, but such schools are no longer the mainstream of American education...

...One of the critical issues that divides progressives and traditionalists, for example, is whether students should receive "direct instruction" or should learn by experience and discovery...

...Separating children by their ability, the progressives imply, is elitist and must end...

...Parents who dare to dissent about reading and math methods, or who want their children to take their studies seriously, as Rochester and his wife did, are likely to seek out an option instead of endlessly fighting a losing battle against misguided authorities...

...Even though his children were enrolled in one of the best suburban districts in Missouri, he became convinced that the administrators' muddled egalitarianism filled them with scorn for academic studies and contributed to a general collapse of standards for all students...

...Unfortunately, there are far too many schools where teachers describe themselves as "facilitators of student learning" and earnestly proclaim that they are a "guide on the side," not "a sage on the stage...

...As a young man he was active in antiwar protests and the civil rights movement...

...Parents who share his views will sympathize with his frustration in battling a hardy consensus that emanates from the colleges of education...

...Rochester even dares to criticize the most sacred of cows in education: full inclusion...

...Formosi of his life he thought of himself as a garden-variety liberal...

...Some disabled children benefit from this policy...

...Contrary to the caricature created by progressives, traditionalists do not reject projects and inquiry...

...Fortunately, there are a growing number of alternatives, even within the public school system, such as charter schools and Core Knowledge schools...

...Rochester traces the way MI has not only promoted an emphasis on self-esteem and affective, feelgood activities, but has strengthened those who try to diminish the academic mission of schools...

...Inspired by MI, progressive pedagogues say that linguistic and logical intelligence is no more important than musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, and half a dozen other "intelligences...

...But he knows that much education research reflects the reigning biases in the schools of education, where political and ideological diversity is virtually unknown...

...they see such methods as a part of good teaching, but not a substitute for teacher-led instruction...

...The author's sons were beneficiaries of a track for the gifted, and he sharply criticizes the efforts by Clayton administrators to abolish it...

...When the decision was made to eliminate the award-winning middle school jazz band (in which the older Rochester son performed) because it was too "elitist," that was the last straw...

...Education researchers have been saying for years that ability grouping is antidemocratic, elitist, and harms lowperforming children, while mixed-ability grouping builds everyone's self-esteem without harming anyone's achievement...

...Schools are so "preoccupied with promoting an ideological agenda that includes equity, diversity, multiculturalism, gender-neutral instruction, abilities awareness, inclusion, and assorted other commitments," Rochester observes, "that it is remarkable that they have any time left over for what used to be defined as education...

...Teachers are frequently overwhelmed by the mix of children in their classrooms, some of whom need special medical treatment or have emotional problems...

...Class Warfare is Rochester's recounting of his own education in school politics and of what he opposed as a parent activist...

...While paying lip service to diversity, they sought to abolish merit-based ability grouping and to put students into a "one-size-fits-all classroom" that delivers "lowest-common-denominator education...

...But beyond being one man's story of woe, the book is a useful critical catalog of the fads that have been sweeping through public schools in recent years...

...A mainstay of progressive ideology in our time, Rochester says, is Howard Gardner's theory of "multiple intelligences," because it seems to provide intellectual validation for the agenda of leveling...

...Because his wife works in an office that directly serves the disabled student population, he is well-informed about misguided policies that order schools to mainstream children with special needs into regular classrooms...

...On one level, the book is a diary of the author's personal struggle to protect his children from educational malpractice...

...THE issue that continually irks Rochester is the animus of progressive educators toward ability grouping and honors programs...

...He became alarmed when he noticed that the newsletters sent home by principals "contained fewer and fewer references to words like 'rigor,' 'homework,' 'standards,' and 'discipline,' and more and more references to 'equity,' 'diversity,' 'self-esteem,' 'inclusion,' 'multiculturalism' In the abstract, Rochester had no objection to any of the new words, but he soon recognized them as signs that the University City school system was undergoing a sea change in philosophy...

...Louis Post-Dispatch, and made himself a thorn in the side of the district's leadership...

...Wise parents are well advised to ignore claims about what research has shown, at least until it is far better grounded in scientific method than most of today's education research...

...The fights the author valiantly fought are played out almost daily in school districts across the country (as well as in many private schools...

...Then, in the 1980s, he and his wife sent their two children to the local public schools in University City, once renowned for their academic excellence...

...Alfie Kohn, a leading new progressive, disparaged parents who want these things as "Volvo vigilantes," racists and plutocrats in league with the "Christian Right...

...Reviewed by Diane Ravitch Historian of education...

...Time and again, on almost every issue he cares about, Rochester has encountered a unified opposition by administrators and education theorists...

...Their mantra is, "research shows...

...Anyone who wants to understand the ideological school battles of the past decade-the math wars, the reading wars, the testing wars, and so on-would do well to start here...

...His scholarly field of interest for the past 30 years has been international relations...

...But the family's seeming escape from trends it disliked was short-lived...

...Armed with a doctorate in education, she was firmly committed to transforming Clayton's schools into "a progressive utopia...

...Many administrators suggest otherwise, but they certainly do not want parents to have a say about where their children go to school or what they learn...

...Its former dedication to academic excellence was being replaced by a fervent commitment to leveling, to reducing standards so that all kids would feel good about themselves...

...Since anything that singles out certain children for their successful achievements threatens the self-esteem of those who did not earn equivalent attention, competition and merit-based awards become the enemy...

...Rochester charges, also oppose grading, uniform testing, and anything else that supports established standards...

...Rochester quite rightly acknowledges that none of today's panaceas are original...

...many others are less likely to get the attention they require...

...Louis...

...The new progressives...

...Another prominent fad the book treats is the "therapeutic classroom...

...The brunt of Rochester's anger, though, is directed toward the progressive child-centered philosophy that "anything goes" as long as the child feels good about himself or herself...

...Rather than switch to a private school, as so many university faculty did, the Rochesters moved to Clayton, a nearby suburb that had excellent public schools...

...author, "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn," forthcoming from Knopf J. Martin Rochester was not a likely candidate for combat in the education wars...

...That's why progressives invariably oppose testing, ranking, required courses, or whatever else might jeopardize the students' positive attitudes by demanding sustained attention and hard work...

...Despite their new names and new rationales, all have been repeatedly recirculated in the schools over the past several decades...

...Progressives deride direct instruction (sometimes called teaching) and instead demand experiential or discovery learning...

...He organized other parents, wrote Op-Ed articles for the St...

...A new assistant superintendent arrived in Clayton soon afterward...

...The battle was joined: Martin Rochester spent the 1990s resisting the buzzwords that undermine academic excellence...

...In this approach building the child's self-esteem is almost always in conflict with any external requisites, incentives ormeasures...

...Here academic excellence is given a back seat to the psychological well-being of the student and the social harmony of the classroom...

...To take a case in point, Rochester's personal bête noire is heterogeneous grouping...

...It is these goals, not improved learning, that rationalize the multiage classroom, where the older children are expected to teach the younger ones...

...In short, all children are gifted, even if not all can read and write...