Making School Better

Examples of the different inexpensive educational strategies used in public schools from Los Angeles to Hamilton, Indiana, act as a manual to help parents and teachers take action in their own communities. Original. 50,000 first printing.

Martz ( Ministry of Greed ) focuses his examination of educational reforms on two principles--first, that the best changes come not in big gulps but in "small bites"; and second, that students' belief in adults' caring about them is more important than the spe cific manner in which that care is shown. Martz profiles a dozen programs that are changing American education: one replaces the traditional slow-learners class with mainstreaming combined with supplementary skills lessons; another teaches moral education through a program of limited democracy administered by students and teachers together. A suburban L.A. teacher shows what one energetic, dedicated educator can do: his classes have written simplified voting booth instructions and gotten the California legislature to support landscaping with drought-resistant plants. The parent involvement programs in Indianapolis include innovations such as homework for parents and brown-bag seminars in the workplace. Martz pleads his case for small-bite reforms persuasively; this book should be required reading for presidential aspirants and anyone else who would lead America--not to mention for concerned parents. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An upbeat look at a dozen schools where innovative programs are boosting academic performance and helping troubled students at the same time. Martz, a contributing editor to Newsweek, gives no quarter to the US educational system: ``Our schools are fortresses not of violence and despair, but of mediocrity.'' But his book is about hope, not blame. The experiments in these schools from Long Island to California, from high school to preschool, are templates for parents and teachers everywhere. Some, like the Fannie Mae/Woodson High School partnership in Washington, D.C.--which offers college scholarships and corporate mentors to struggling teenagers--cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Others, like a student-tutoring- student program in Texas, cost about $300 per child. What all of the programs have in common is one committed person with an idea, the eventual support of enlightened administrators and concerned parents, and a focus on the children. But most important, according to Martz, is the ``Hawthorne effect,'' by which achievement is enhanced simply because a select group of students becomes a focus of concern. Each chapter concludes with a list of guidelines that could help other schools launch their own Hawthorne-effect programs. Some of the programs discussed here have been mentioned in other, recent books on American schools (e.g., George H. Wood's Schools That Work, p. 245); the duplication reflects not on Martz's research but on the dearth of such efforts. A book full of human interest, designed to inspire more teachers and parents to take one small step for the children that could lead to a giant step for American schools. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Martz, a contributing editor to Newsweek , believes that reform is constantly occurring in American schools. His mission is to report which ideas have succeeded and why. Lacking confidence in school improvements on a national scale, he sees no great merit in some of today's leading educational reform ideas. Martz argues instead that there is no single formula. He claims that the problem lies with teachers, at the same time admitting that society fails to value teaching enough. His dozen or so chapters describe a variety of approaches and "small-bite" reform efforts in many parts of the country, yet only a few deal with inner-city schools. Martz's choices will work best in small groups or in small communities where neighbors are known and anybody can lend a hand. An excellent appendix lists sources for materials on the programs Martz sites. Recommended for most education collections.
- Arla Lind gren, St. John's Univ., Jamaica, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.