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2016 Reprint of 1953 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In the mid-1950s, Bestor became well-known in educational circles as a critic of then-common educational doctrines; "Educational Wastelands" was his manifesto about declining educational standards. "Bestor charged that professional educationists had "lowered the aims of the American public schools," particularly by "setting forth purposes for education so trivial as to forfeit the respect of thoughtful men, and by deliberately divorcing the schools from the disciplines of science and scholarship" (pp. 8, 10). For Bestor, the traditional liberal arts curriculum represented the only acceptable form of secondary education. He claimed that Progressive educators, "by misrepresenting and undervaluing liberal education, have contributed ... to the growth of anti-intellectualist hysteria that threatens not merely the schools but freedom itself." (p. 11)-Cited in WWW.Stateuniversity.com article on Bestor.
The new society that the world awaited might yet be born in the humble guise of a backwoods village. This was the belief shared by the many groups which moved into the American frontier to create experimental communities—communities which they hoped would be models for revolutionary changes in religion, politics, economics, and education in American society. For, as James Madison wrote, the American Republic was "useful in proving things before held impossible." The communitarian ideal had its roots in the radical Protestant sects of the Reformation. Arthur Bestor shows the connection between the "holy commonwealths" of the colonial period and the nonsectarian experiments of the nineteenth...
This provocative new study of the American high school examines the historical debates about curriculum policy and also traces changes in the institution itself, as evidenced by what students actually studied. Contrary to conventional accounts, the authors argue that beginning in the 1930s, American high schools shifted from institutions primarily concerned with academic and vocational education to institutions mainly focused on custodial care of adolescents. Claiming that these changes reflected educators' racial, class, and gender biases, the authors offer original suggestions for policy adjustments that may lead to greater educational equality for our ever-growing and ever more diverse population of students.
"The American public is losing trust in its higher education institutions. Americans are increasingly divided about the purposes of a college education, with opinions split along partisan lines. The country's higher education leaders have responded with a litany of conferences, op-eds, and commissions aimed at regaining the public trust. While these efforts are necessary and important, they are more likely to be successful if supplemented with a view from abroad. The independent American university abroad is the oldest and most successful expression of U.S. higher education outside the United States. First established by Protestant missionaries in the Ottoman Empire during the U.S. Civil War...
In this authoritative history of American education reforms in this century, a distinguished scholar makes a compelling case that our schools fail when they consistently ignore their central purpose--teaching knowledge.
First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.