The Erosion of Education in America, written by a veteran educator with over 30 years of classroom experience, examines the cultural shifts, both philosophical and practical, that have impacted American education. Rather than presenting a single focus on what schools themselves can do internally, the author documents the significant changes in both the content and agent of education; and discusses the roles of family, State, and religious faith in shaping the emerging generation. Education is built upon certain philosophical commitments and values, and is therefore religious in nature, to some degree, even if God is ignored or left out of the equation. In the current era, secular education has chosen the gods of tolerance, diversity, and human achievement. The coherence of truth has been suppressed in the process. Enter Technology, a welcome tool, yet it cannot overcome more foundational deficiencies which the author argues is due in part to the diminishment of the Judeo-Christian world-view in our culture. The seeds of the shifts examined in this book were sown in the 19th century, bore fruit in the 20th, and continue into the 21st century. The reader will come to understand what led to the educational revival in America's past, how divergent ideas and outlooks took root, leading to our current situation where the cost of maintaining, the values within, and the return on investment in American schools leaves many parents searching for alternatives. In the final portion of the book, some thoughts on the future and suggestions on navigating the present are offered.

How can child care be structured to protect both the interests of children and the rights of women? Must children suffer the "loss" of their childhood through institutional care? Polakow uses her observations of pre-school centers-including profit-run, federally funded, community, and Montessori institutions-to open the "windows of daycare."

This title tackles the burning question of how to nurture young children's well-being and learning to reverse the erosion of childhood.

Winner of the 2000 Outstanding Book Award presented by the American Educational Research Association Winner of the 2001 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award Honorable Mention, 2000 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards Subtractive Schooling provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and U.S.-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. Valenzuela argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education and secondly, through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language. A key consequence is the erosion of students' social capital evident in the absence of academically oriented networks among acculturated, U.S.-born youth.

Americans need to know that the public education system in America is rapidly eroding and is in need of a quick fix. You also need to know that there are solutions, a matter that I will discuss in this book. Concerned citizens have attempted for years to get education leaders to evaluate and reform education to meet the needs of a rapidly growing global society. It is interesting that power-hungry people in positions of authority value their positions and privileges more than the children whose futures they are destroying. They do not want American citizens to know the truth about what is really going on in the schools and classrooms. Department of Education gives away millions of dollars in funding to help students who are not achieving at grade level. Yet, little if any change occurs in increasing student achievement. The Department of Education funding provides real educational hope for millions of Americans, yet every twenty-nine seconds a child drops out of school, the achievement gap widens, and more and more students are placed in the juvenile justice system. Wake up, Americans! Read this book and become an advocate for quality education for children.