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BOOK REVIEW STOKES
in the achievement of equalization of income. But Mr. Jencks should know this was never the educational objective of the schools, desirable as it might be!
Jencks sees education's aim as preparation of persons for work -- a narrow definition and only one of many educational goals and objectives. Education for responsible citizenship, social responsibility for one's fellow human beings, and self-fulfillment seem not to be a part of his concern or social vision. If this were a book about education, the author and associates would have to raise the unraised question, "education for what?"
His Harvard research team appears to have served merely as a scientific validation for his work. Probably their contribution has been to raise again those central education issues that seem seldom to get resolved in any generation.
Black educators, parents, and the community hoped that the 1954 Supreme Court decision had solved the cognitive inequality issue. But in discussing cognitive inequality, this reader wonders when Jencks and other social scientists will assess the impairment to mind, body and spirit of the 300 years of racial oppression of Blacks in the U.S. and stop measuring and expecting norms, whether on standardized tests, health, student's diet or whatever, as if this survival existence and oppression were not a fact of life for Black people in this nation.
Jencks believes that success is determined by chance, but didn't leave his extensive exposé on Inequality to chance. He used the methods of Madison Avenue such as in Love Story to insure success -- press conferences, reviews, pre-publication orders, newspaper editorials, as he suggests, a "real public relations process and methodology."
If Jencks is believed to have proved that schools do not make a difference, that they have no impact on the life of children why then this rebuke to those who advocate closing down all schools: "A N.Y.C. study found that the average child's reading scores improved almost three times as fast during the school year as during summer."
These findings imply that if all elementary schools were closed down so that growing became an endless summer, white middle class children might still learn much of what they now learn -- but most black children would probably not learn to read without schools. Jenck's conclusion: elementary schooling is helpful for middle class children and crucial for lower class children. Open Admission, Project Talent, Upward Bound all show eagerness for education.
The Jencks' report is full of unconscious sociological factors that
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 16:27:23
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 18:30:23
