Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Teaching and Educational Practice

This debate-style reader is constructed to introduce students to controversies in education through paired pro and con articles. New topics such as drug testing, abstinence only, homeschooling, and grade inflation are included in the new edition. For additional support for this title, visit our student website: www.dushkin.com/online

PART 1. Teaching and Classroom Practices

ISSUE 1. Is Homework Harmful to Students?

YES: Etta Kralovec and John Buell, from “End Homework Now,” Educational Leadership (April 2001)

NO: Tom Loveless, from “Do Students Have Too Much Homework?” Brookings Institution Press (2003)

Etta Kralovec, vice president for Learning at Training and Development Corporation, and John Buell, a freelance journalist, present three "myths" supporting homework that they claim insulates that traditional practice from careful study and criticism. Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, suggests that there is not much substance to the anti-homework position.

ISSUE 2. Does the Practice of Grading Students Serve Useful Purposes?

YES: Robert J. Marzano, from Transforming Classroom Grading (McREL Institute, 2000)

NO: Alfie Kohn, from “From Grading to De-Grading,” The High School Magazine (March 1999)

Robert J. Marzano, a senior fellow at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), argues that grading is useful for feedback purposes, which in turn enhances student learning. Alfie Kohn, author and educational commentator, takes the position that grades reduce students’ interest in learning, their willingness to choose challenging work, and the quality of their thinking.

ISSUE 3. Do Classroom "Discipline Programs" Contribute to Ethical Behavior?

YES: Lee Canter, from “Assertive Discipline: More Than Names on the Board and Marbles in a Jar,” Phi Delta Kappan (September 1989)

NO: John F. Covaleskie, from “Discipline and Morality: Beyond Rules and Consequences,” The Educational Forum (Winter 1992)

Lee Canter, developer of the "Assertive Discipline" program for classroom management, posits that students learn valuable lessons from this structured approach. John Covaleskie, assistant professor at Northern Michigan University, argues that the behaviorist re-enforcement model does nothing to promote ethical character.

ISSUE 4. Are "Abstinence Only" Programs the Best Approach to Sex Education Instruction?

YES: Robert E. Rector, from “The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity,” Paper of the Heritage Foundation (April 2002)

NO: National Coalition Against Censorship, from “Campaign Against Abstinance-Only Education,” Paper Against Abstinence Only Education (June 2001)

Robert E. Rector, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, argues that abstinence education helps young people to develop the "foundations of healthy marital life" that will serve them well as adults. The National Coalition Against Censorship argues that abstinence-only programs represent censorship and endanger young people by withholding important sex education information.

ISSUE 5. Is "Whole Language" a Legitimate Approach to Literacy Education?

YES: Constance Weaver, from “On Myths About Whole Language Education,” in C. Weaver, et al., Creating Support for Effective Literacy Education (Heinemann, 1996)

NO: Louisa Cook Moats, from “Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of ‘Balanced Reading’ Instruction,” Paper of the Fordham Foundation (October 2000)

Constance Weaver, a professor of English at Western Michigan University, defends whole language by addressing what she labels as "myths about the approach." Louisa Cook Moats, project director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Interventions Project, states that whole-language ideas are contradicted by scientific studies and need to be confronted.

ISSUE 6. Can Web-Based Learning Transform the Classroom?

YES: Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum, from “Much to Gain, and Many Barriers,” Education Week (May 29, 2002)

NO: Alan Warhaftig, from “But the Prom Will Not Be Webcast,” Education (May 29, 2002)

Gwen Solomon, a former analyst for the U.S. Department of Education and Lynne Schrum, an associate professor of instructional technology at the University of Georgia, argue that teachers who guide their students to learn with Web resources prepare them for lifelong learning. Alan Warhaftig, a national board-certified high school English teacher believes that "educators’ current fascination with technology" is an attempt to find "a magic bullet to cure education’s woes."

ISSUE 7. Is the Traditional Approach to American History Too Exclusionary?

YES: Gary B. Nash, from “The History Wars of the 1990s,” Lecture in History at East Carolina University (November 1996)

NO: Walter A. McDougall, from “First Fruits of Those History Standards,” Foreign Policy Research Institute (April 1997)

Gary B. Nash, professor of history at UCLA and director of the National Center for History in the Schools, states that to "invoke historical revisionism as form of foul play serves democracy poorly," Walter A. McDougall, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that revisionist history is a function of political correctness.

ISSUE 8. Should the Study of Literature Focus on the Classics?

YES: Carol Jago, from With Rigor for All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students (Calendar Islands Publishers, 2000)

NO: Donald R. Gallo, from “How Classics Create an Aliterate Society,” English Journal (January 2001)

Carol Jago, a high school English teacher and director of the California Reading and Literature project at UCLA, states that "[A] critical reading of classical literature results in a deep literacy that I believe is an essential skill for anyone who wants to attempt to make sense of the world." Daniel R. Gallo, a former professor of English who writes and edits books for teachers and teenagers, posits that "we are a nation that teaches its children how to read in the early grades, then forces them during their teenage years to read literary works that most of them dislike so much that they have no desire whatsoever to continue those experiences into adulthood."

ISSUE 9. Are Single-Sex Classrooms Better for Students?

YES: Leonard Sax, from “What’s the Evidence? What Have Researchers Found When They Compare Single-Sex Education with Coeducation?,” National Association for Single Sex Public Education (February 2003)

NO: Wendy Kaminer, from “The Trouble with Single-Sex Schools,” The Atlantic Monthly (April 1998)

Leonard Sax, MD, PHd, author of Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Gender Differences (Doubleday, 2005) and founder and executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Single-Sex Public Education, argues that students in single-sex schools not only do better academically, but they also have more positive attitudes about education. Wendy Kaminer, senior correspondent for American Prospect and contributing editor for Atlantic Monthly, contends that single-sex schools "reinforce regressive notions of sex differences."

ISSUE 10. Should Classroom Instruction Focus on Preparation for the Workplace?

YES: New Hampshire Department of Education, from “Practices in Work-Based Learning,” School to Work (1998)

NO: John I. Goodlad, from “Education and Democracy: Advancing the Agenda,” Phi Delta Kappan (September 2000)

New Hampshire’s School to Work Initiative states that its goal is to prepare all students with the skills, abilities, and knowledge necessary to make good career choices and thereby enhance the state’s economic strength. John I. Goodlad, co-director of the Center of Educational Renewal at the University of Washington, cautions that "to make the dozen of more years of schooling instrumental to the future needs of the workplace, however carefully predicted, is immoral and dangerous."

PART 2. School and Educational Practices

ISSUE 11. Should All Students Follow a Common Curriculum?

YES: Robert M. Hutchins, from The Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society (Harper & Row, 1953)

NO: Theodore R. Sizer, from “No Two Are Quite Alike,” Educational Leadership (September 1999)

Robert M. Hutchins, former chancellor at the University of Chicago and a proponent of the Great Books curriculum, argues for a liberal education and states, "If all men are to be free, all men must have this education." Theodore R. Sizer, University Professor Emeritus at Brown University and Chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools, states, "What, in particular, one studies is less important than that it sparks legitimate interest in each learner."

ISSUE 12. Is Achievement Level Tracking of Students a Defensible Practice?

YES: Tom Loveless, from “The Tracking and Ability Grouping Debate,” Fordham Report (August 1998)

NO: Jeannie S. Oakes, from “Limiting Students’ School Success and Life Chances: The Impact of Track ing,” In Allan C. Ornstein and Linda S. Behar-Horenstein, eds. Contemporary Issues in Curriculum (Allyn and Bacon, 1999)

Tom Loveless, senior fellow, government studies, and director of the Brown Center on...