Rating: 
Summary: If You Care About Children, Read this Book
Review: Susan Ohanian has written a startling book. Parents need to read this book. They need to understand the fallacies inherent in standardized testing and standards-based education. In the name of "world class standards" California has pushed middle school academics into 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, and first and second grade work into kindergarten. Parents need to know that their children aren't failing; the system is failing by setting up inappropriate standards evaluated by inadequate tests. "People don't understand how testing is used to control the curriculum and how that might connect very intimately with our democratic rights." (p. 240)Reporters need to read this book. They need to understand what the "test scores" they report in their newspapers and on television actually describe. They need to do some investigative reporting, showing the corporate money trail involved in evaluating teachers, schools, and students. Legislators need to read this book before they mandate yet another program or yet another "reward" system to improve "failing" schools, schools which may really not be failing at all. "Since when did 'being average' become a dirty word?" (p. 239) Teachers need to read this book. They need to understand that if they don't take action, everything they say and do will be specified by people who haven't been in a classroom in years, if ever. Teachers are the professionals who know what children need, and how to help them learn it. Ohanian quotes Professor Linda McNeil, who says, "..standardized reforms drastically hurt the best teachers, forcing them to teach watered-down content required because it was computer-gradable." (p. 70) Anyone who cares about children needs to read this book. If we want to raise children who are creative thinkers and problem-solvers, children who don't accept just one solution as the answer, children who will be the inventors, explorers, and leaders of the future, the system of standards-based education and standardized testing needs to be changed. Susan Ohanian presents a pithy, radical explanation of the destructive actions being taken to "fix" children who aren't broken. Read this book! Take action!
Rating:
Summary: What are we Doing to our Children?
Review: Susan Ohanian has written a startling book. Parents need to read this book. They need to understand the fallacies inherent in standardized testing and standards-based education. In the name of "world class standards" California has pushed middle school academics into 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, and first and second grade work into kindergarten. Parents need to know that their children aren't failing; the system is failing by setting up inappropriate standards evaluated by inadequate tests. "People don't understand how testing is used to control the curriculum and how that might connect very intimately with our democratic rights." (p. 240) Reporters need to read this book. They need to understand what the "test scores" they report in their newspapers and on television actually describe. They need to do some investigative reporting, showing the corporate money trail involved in evaluating teachers, schools, and students. Legislators need to read this book before they mandate yet another program or yet another "reward" system to improve "failing" schools, schools which may really not be failing at all. "Since when did 'being average' become a dirty word?" (p. 239) Teachers need to read this book. They need to understand that if they don't take action, everything they say and do will be specified by people who haven't been in a classroom in years, if ever. Teachers are the professionals who know what children need, and how to help them learn it. Ohanian quotes Professor Linda McNeil, who says, "..standardized reforms drastically hurt the best teachers, forcing them to teach watered-down content required because it was computer-gradable." (p. 70) Anyone who cares about children needs to read this book. If we want to raise children who are creative thinkers and problem-solvers, children who don't accept just one solution as the answer, children who will be the inventors, explorers, and leaders of the future, the system of standards-based education and standardized testing needs to be changed. Susan Ohanian presents a pithy, radical explanation of the destructive actions being taken to "fix" children who aren't broken. Read this book! Take action!
Rating:
Summary: If You Care About Children, Read this Book
Review: We live in an age when researchers, politicians and corporations who have never been teachers themselves are mandating what real teachers in complex classroom environments must do. In detached, aloof and arrogant positions, they ignore the fact that children are wonderfully unique, have not complied to the political rhetoric and will not be standardized. Ohanian takes us back to what schools and education are really about- the children. Not numbers on spreadsheets or potential fodder for political and financial gain, but children. And she can do so because she is not a drive by researcher or politician but a liflelong teacher. Ohanian knows what it is to teach and she eloquently and often humorously - brings us back to true basics as she cuts through the extremism and the insanity of the glut of standards and testing that are choking the life out of schools. The forward by Alfie Kohn alone is worth the price of the book. Every parent, teacher and yes... politician... in this country should read Susan Ohanian.
Rating: 
Summary: When Kindergarten Becomes "Kinder-Grind"
Review: WHAT Happened to Recess and WHY are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten? by Susan Ohanian In his foreword for this book, Alfie Kohn writes Ms. Ohanian is "our archivist of educational absurdities, fearlessly clipping newspapers and trawling the Internet" who "insists that we think about children as children." RECESS is long on documentation of educational absurdities. The bibliography is almost 12 pages of small font and many of the referenced newspaper, magazine, and journal articles can be read on Ms. Ohanian's website. Almost overwhelming! Ms. Ohanian records students' triumphs and states: "Such triumphs are not objective. They don't appear on standardized printouts, so no high-powered committee on excellence will pay attention. But I insist that even if one anecdote is just that-a story-two anecdotes are data. And so I persist with stories..." (125) She invites us to "look beyond the corporate charts and chants and see real children." (160) She intersperses relevant stories about real children from her own teaching experiences, as well as stories told to her by parents and teachers. Dennis eats his pencils to avoid writing. Charles learns that it's OK to be different when he reads "The Ugly Duckling." Leslie's friend Jessica teaches her to understand knock-knock riddles, a must-have skill for children. Michael learns the power of personal letters. And, kids cry over and vomit on tests. There are others. Stories about children are the heart of this book: Ms. Ohanian's unique gift to us. Personally, I would like to have read more success stories about real children in today's public schools where they are often treated like numbered robots being processed for the global economy and fewer horror stories about the "Standardistas." In the final chapter, Ms. Ohanian documents honorable efforts of parents and educators to change the test-prep curriculum back to kid-driven instruction for life-long learning. Some parents and educators are encouraging others to just say no to this harmful test mania by opting out of the standardized tests. There may be consequences for these battles, but we must win the war to re-establish our schools as places where people are more important than test scores. Buy it, read it, and give a copy to any parent, teacher, or politician who reads and who cares about the future. Our children are our future. What kind of citizenry are we creating when test scores are more important than character? Character is supposed to count. We must learn from the kids in the Seattle Special Olympics who demonstrated by their actions that "what matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others to win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then." (51)
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