AUTHOR: Elaine K. McEwan, Ed.D: Education consultant, 30 years in public education as teacher, elementary principal, assistant superintendent for instruction. Author of 25 books for parents wrestling with education issues & administrators struggling with education's disarray. Says about schools:
Careful parents should not believe what they hear without verifying it. A bad marriage can be largely undone. A bad education is a lifetime curse.
This small book is for people who hope their local schools are great but sometimes wonder. If you're concerned for your children's education, read it! It's full of surprises, some of them unpleasant. You'll learn how to cope, what to be wary of.
Taking no cheap shots it but pulling no punches either, the book tells how the reader can find out from inside the school, from library research and the internet what the school is doing and what the school's education outcomes really are. It's not easy but it's not brain surgery either. Basic to the work is caveat emptor!
McEwan warns readers that everybody believes, ". . .the schools our kids go to are very good schools", while acknowledging that education everywhere else may be poor. She adds that careful parents should not believe that they hear without verifying it. A bad marriage can be largely undone. A bad education is a life-time curse, never to be overcome.
College-bound graduates with honor roll records and advanced placement transcripts have discovered they must take remedial math and/or remedial English before they may take any college level math or English courses. And they're the lucky ones!
Verify what you hear! And McEwan gives every reader -regardless of education background- the tools to work with.
Chapter One: A summary of the 10 traits. Describes what the people in the school should be and tells also how parents usually -and often wrongly-- form their "good" opinions of schools. Describes principals, teachers, students and their parents, says parents are involved in educational life and "are never shut out of the system". Learning standards are clear, measurable by outsiders, comprehensive. Teaching materials are supported by research and academic outcomes. Excellence is required. Information flows freely between everybody in the education equation, the school's mission is focused on learning and behavior standards are clear and understood all around. Where and how to get unbiased information about the school is set forth making verification of what you hear simple.
Chapter Two is about the people who make the building into whatever kind of school it is. There are 12 pages devoted to recognizing a good principal or a bad one and how to deal with either one, there are 18 pages devoted to separating good teachers from poor ones and how to deal with either and several pages about how the students as a body will speak volumes about good the school is. The role of parents and the staff's view of the importance of that role is succinctly dealt with.
Chapter Three is 45 pages about where the rubber hits the road and about finding out how much traction there is around learning issues. You'll learn more about children's learning in these pages and how important good administration and high standards are and how to recognize good from bad than you thought possible.
Chapter Four teaches you, the consumer, how to recognize the common diseases that can kill off the education process of your community Does the school's mission statement have a steel backbone? Do the executives circle the wagons to protect themselves? Are parents talked to as if they were ere the owners of the establishment and people whose ideas are valued? This interesting chapter sticks pins in a lot of hot-air balloons and it tells you what hot-air balloons look like!
Chapter Five: Do you know good the reading instruction is? Do you want to know? Chapter five is a "must read".
The remainder of this small book is devoted to listing resources for parents and others about education quality. Web sites (more than 40) and instruction about surfing for the information you want on any topic, library references for parents who want to know how to judge how good/bad reading instruction is. And some instruction about how not to get taken in by some sweet smelling mission statement attached to a hot-air balloon.
