Preview of Article:

Rethinking Schools

Unfortunately, many of the educational and social ills we wrote about in our early years continue to plague us. For example, the editorial in our second issue, “Rethinking Testing,” warned against”a school system in which tests have gone beyond measuring progress to effectively dictating the content and methods of instruction.”

Sound familiar? Our new book, Failing Our Kids: Why the Testing Craze Won’t Fix Our Schools, reveals how the current obsession with standardized tests is doing just that.

Similarly, that first year we wrote about schools’ failure to implement a multicultural and anti-racist curriculum. As one writer said in an early Rethinking Schools article, “In truth, we should be embarrassed that a special time must be set aside to focus on Black history. Yet, the reality is that the ‘official’ history taught in the schools, in general, fails to reflect the many contributions of people of color.”

We may have new heroes and holidays, but we should still be embarrassed by schools’ failure to teach a more critical, diverse, and honest curriculum. Multiculturalism is an issue that remains as important as ever. We are pleased that we are able to present a special report in this issue on the current state of multicultural education.

For 15 years, Rethinking Schools has been a vigorous critic of many of the practices of our nation’s schools. We nonetheless remain deeply committed to a free, secular public school system as the cornerstone of what we imagine our country could become: a real multiracial democracy.