Only Connect: The Way to Save Our Schools

by Rudolph Crew, Thomas Dyja (Contributor)

An inspiring new vision for America's public schools from one of the nation's top educators American fourth graders score twelfth in the world in math skills, after Latvia and Hungary. Our eighth graders are fifteenth, below Malaysia and Slovakia. And by the time they’re fifteen years old, our students have slipped off the map—to twenty-fourth place internationally. If these stats don’t make you angry or ashamed or plain sad, then at the very least they should make you afraid. If matters don’t change soon, tens of millions of our sons and daughters will grow up unable to function—let alone compete—in a global economy. And the impact of that on all of us will be devastating. All is not lost, though, says Rudy Crew, who has headed some of the largest and most daunting school systems in America. Not by any means. Only Connect is a call for not just parents but the entire nation to reconceive our relationship with public education. If we’re to survive, we must place our schools at the center of our communities and partner with them to produce children with the full set of the tools they’ll need—personal, civic, and occupational as well as academic—to face the economic challenges that lie ahead. Much like Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat , Crew shows us the reality of our schools in a new century, and what we each must do to create the next generation of mature and conscious contributors to society. From parents who demand only the best from their children and their schools, through our teachers and administrators, all the way to Washington, D.C., everyone has a role in restoring American education and America’s competitive edge.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 7, 2007

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

up to p228
requested from library got it right away. couldn't renew because there are only two copies and there are already several holds.

no index and no bibliography

this book has to cover certain areas to do what it claims to do:

It has to cover sex education, money management. not just STEM.


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Contents
Chapter One: Where We Are, and Where We Have to Go
Chapter Two: What Each Child Needs
Personal Integrity
Workplace Literacy
Civic Awareness
Chapter Three: Where We Do It: The Classroom
Caring
High Expectations
Diverse Approaches to Learning
Chapter Four: Connected Schools
Chapter Five: What the federal government will have to do
National Standards
National Assessments
Teacher Pay
Teacher Certification
Universal Preschool
Middle school: The Fork in the Road
Chapter Six: Demand Parents
Hope Needs Help: The Parent Academy
Chapter Seven: Money
Vouchers
Charter Schools
Philanthropy
Chapter Eight: How To Connect
The State: Spreading Success
The School System: Keeping all eyes on the Prize
School Boards
Superintendents
The School: All hands pulling
The Principle
The Teacher
Demand parents and the system
Demand Parents in the Community
The Business Community
Institutions of Higher Learning
The Faith Community
The Service Community

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ref to study on p 134
http://www.lenababy.com/Study.aspx
The 1995 Hart & Risley Study

Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children describes the remarkable findings of Betty Hart, Ph.D., and Todd R. Risley, Ph.D. Their longitudinal study of parent-child talk in families in Kansas was conducted over a decade. A team of researchers recorded one full hour of every word spoken at home between parent and child in 42 families over a three year period, with children from seven months to 36 months of age. The team then spent six additional years typing, coding, and analyzing 30,000 pages of transcripts.

Follow-up studies by Hart and Risley of those same children at age nine showed that there was a very tight link between the academic success of a child and the number of words the child’s parents spoke to the child to age three.

Hart and Risley’s Three Key Findings:

1. The variation in children’s IQs and language abilities is relative to the amount parents speak to their children.

2. Children’s academic successes at ages nine and ten are attributable to the amount of talk they hear from birth to age three.

3. Parents of advanced children talk significantly more to their children than parents of children who are not as advanced.



•“With few exceptions, the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies were growing and the higher the children’s IQ test scores at age three and later.”
•“The data revealed that the most important aspect of children’s language experience is its amount.”

•“Differences in the amount of cumulative experience children had ... were strongly linked to differences at age three in children’s rates of vocabulary growth, vocabulary use, and general accomplishments and strongly linked to differences in school performance at age nine.”




Betty Hart, Ph.D. and Todd R. Risley, Ph.D.

The Authors of Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

In the early 1960s, Drs. Hart and Risley demonstrated the power of learning principles influencing young children. Along with a colleague, they introduced parenting techniques such as time-out. Procedures such as shaping speech and language now widely used in special education were also introduced by the team.

Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

[Devin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy any book that tackles the vast and complex issue of education. However, I never was able to fully understand Rudy Crew's true goals for the education system. It's easy to promote better teacher-parent-student cooperation, but often it sounded as if he imagined a school run as a corporation rather than a center for creative learning. Overall, it wasn't bad insight on the education system and many of his ideas were practical and appealing. However, it's best to err on the side of caution and not become enthralled with someone who may well be envisioning a further hierarchial school system run as a business is.

[Hollowell Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is clear how much Rudy Crew cares about children. As a young person, he taught an upstairs adult neighbor how to read. His commitment to multiple forms of literacy remains to this day. Crew's flexibility and fortitude stem from his upbringing. I give this rare book by a school superintendent five stars. * By the way, Crew is also mentioned in both Peter Sacks' book Standardized Minds and Diane Ravitch's book The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

[Kimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very inspiring. This book was well written and very straight-forward. What he says makes sense, more community environment, national standards, more parental support, more dedicated teachers and an education department that is less segregated and run more like a successful corporation.

[Ismail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for those who believe in public education!