While I think his views on the problems certain interest groups cause the American education system are spot-on, I didn't like his dogmatism in choosing what to teach in schools. As someone said earlier, certainly PE shouldn't be the most important part of the school day, but that doesn't mean it doesn't promote some exercise.

Written in the early nineties, it is only more relevant today. Or maybe because I am living it with my kids now, it's just more relevant to me. In any case, I did not read the book cover to cover, but did skim through most of it pretty thoroughly. I think that if you already feel the way the author does, this book pretty much validates any preconceived notion you may have had about the failure of our schools to challenge our kids now. Inventive spelling from kindergarten on ( my 5th grade daughter still comes home spelling errors in her written work that are not identified by her teachers), group projects in lieu of tests, getting rid of class rank - these are all examples of what our schools do now so that kids don't feel bad badly if they are not doing well. What about challenging them to do better? What about expecting more, not less? It's a grim look at the trend of public education.

Written in 1995, this book shows in graphic detail how our children's education has been watered down to the point that high school graduates are barely literate, can't spell or write coherent sentences, and are completely at sea when asked to perform simple arithmetic. the emphasis is geared toward enhancing self esteem and feeling good about one's self rather than on teaching the basic three R's upon which all further education is based. Frankly I found the book just a little scary. What becomes of America when we raise generations of semi-literate oafs with high self esteem but few critical thinking skills? I guess for starters we end up with people like Donald Trump in the White House.

A scathing, yet necessary, vivisection of our current public education system. As an educator for nearly four decades I have witnessed the "dumbing down" of our expectations. A must read for every educator, legislator, school board member and parent.

Scathing it it's criticism of how our public schools are not educating our kids. Even offers some solutions. Is anybody listening?

Written awhile ago, but still full of interesting points. Actually, pretty true.

A fairly scathing review of the school system in the United States. Sykes is not critical of schools Prussian beginnings, but of the direction the school system has been going for the last 75 years or so. He believes not enough time is spent on actual learning and studying, the curriculum is watered down, the teachers union is too corrupt and powerful, and that our national textbooks are severely lacking. Sykes also takes issue with the 'self esteem' philosophy purported by the teaching establishment in that instead of teaching kids to read, write and compute, the business of schools is to artificially inflate self esteem by not requiring any real work or mastery and by praising mediocrity. He believes the focus has turned to the end produce without any attention placed on how to get there. I appreciated that the author didn't delve into any conspiracy type arguments and instead dealt just with facts and extensive research for each of his points. This books is a good read with relevant information, though a bit outdated.

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I'm pretty sure this book will make me pretty angry, based on the reviews of those who have read it. But I'm hoping there will also be some good points that I can incorporate into my ever-changing, vague fixit scheme for the US education system. There are definitely plenty of kids out there who have been taught that their mediocrity is great - how can we encourage students to strive for academic achievement and find something to love about learning? Maybe I just want to create a modern tribe of philologists...