Authors: Jack L. Nelson, Stuart B. Palonsky, Mary Rose McCarthy
ISBN-13: 9780073131368, ISBN-10: 0073131369
Format: Paperback
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
Date Published: August 2006
Edition: 6th Edition
Jack L. Nelson a professor of education at Rutgers, obtained his doctorate from the University of Southern California. He is experienced teacher in schools at the elementary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels; his university teaching experience includes California State University, Los Angeles; the State University of New York at Buffalo; San Jose State University; and Cambridge University. Nelson has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University, University of Colorado; and Curtin University and the University of Sydney in Australia. Critical Issues in Education is his sixteenth book; he has also published about 150 articles and reviews. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Contemporary Authors.
Stuart B. Palonsky is professor of education and director of the Honors College at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A former public school teacher in New York and New Jersey, Palonsky earned his doctorate at Michigan State University. His publications include 900 Shows a Year, an ethnographic study of high school teaching from a classroom teacher’s perspective. In addition, Palonsky has published numerous articles and reviews in educational and social science journals, and has presented scholarly and professional papers on educational issues at national association conferences.
Critical Issues in Education is designed to be used in courses that examine current, relevant pro and con disputes about schools and schooling. By exploring the major opposing viewpoints on these issues, the text encourages education students to think critically and develop their own viewpoints. The clear writing and dramatic dialectic approach are conducive to dynamic classroom discussions that help students grasp the many sides of these complex issues. Three integrating themes provide a solid framework for examining the eighteen topics covered. Each part begins with a chapter-length introduction that provides background material and organizing themes for the issues that follow. Each issue is then presented from two divergent viewpoints, each one written in advocate language to be as compelling as possible. The book's objective, in addition to informing the reader about the issues, is to develop critical thinking skills within the context of education.
1 | Introduction : critical issues and critical thinking | 1 |
2 | School choice : family or public funding | 56 |
3 | Financing schools : equity or disparity | 81 |
4 | Gender equity : eliminating discrimination or accommodating differences | 104 |
5 | Standards-based reform : real change or political smoke screen | 125 |
6 | Religion and public schools : unification or separation | 147 |
7 | Privatization of schools : boon or bane | 170 |
8 | Corporations, commerce, and schools : complementing or competing interests | 199 |
9 | The academic achievement gap : old remedies or new | 243 |
10 | Values/character education : traditional or liberational | 268 |
11 | Multicultural education : democratic or divisive | 295 |
12 | Technology and learning : enabling or subverting | 315 |
13 | Standardized testing : restrict or expand | 345 |
14 | Discipline and justice : zero tolerance or discretion | 376 |
15 | Teachers unions and school leadership : detrimental or beneficial | 397 |
16 | Academic freedom : teacher responsibilities or rights | 415 |
17 | Inclusion and mainstreaming : common or special education | 441 |
18 | Violence in schools : school treatable or beyond school control | 470 |