Volume 11, No.1

Fall 1996

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  • What Happened To the Golden Door?

    By Linda Christensen

    A teacher comes to grips with the myths about immigration she learned as a child and the sometimes-brutal realities they obscured, as she considers how to teach her own students about this critical subject. 

  • The Power of Words

    A Lesson on the Japanese-American Internment

    By Mark Sweeting

    World War II, like so many other issues in history, presents the classroom teacher with an overwhelming range of topics. The rise of Nazism and fascism in Europe, the Holocaust, […]

  • Tales Out of School

    Stories, Politics, and the Presidential Election

    By Mike Rose

    An analysis of the myths and misconceptions about public schools that pervade U.S. political rhetoric, with a special focus on the 1996 platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties.

  • MPS Revamps Admissions Policies for High Schools

    Will Attendance Policy Promote Tracking at Milwaukee Schools?

    By Barbara Miner

    An analysis of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ decision to let high schools give preferential admission to 8th-graders with better attendance.

  • MPS Screening a Step Backward

    Criticism of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ decision.

  • To Sell or To Be Sold – Is That Really the Question?

    An Elementary Teacher’s Concerns About School to Work

    By Bob Peterson

    A critique of School-to-Work programs and the implicit values they often impart about the roles that businesses and other powerful institutions play in society.A Different View on School to Work in MPS By Peter McAvoy A leader of Milwaukee’s School to Work program says an article in a previous issue of Rethinking Schools unfairly criticized the program, and offers a different perspective.

  • How My Schooling Taught Me Contempt for the Earth

    By Bill Bigelow

    Why is the degradation of natural environments so often interpreted in schools as”progress” or development? One teacher explores the shallow perspective on the environment the was taught as a child, and how he tries to lead his students to a fuller understanding.

  • City Kids, City Dreams

    By William Ayers and Patricia Ford

    The authors urge urban educators to stop thinking of urban students as “problems” or “challenges.”

  • Civil Rights 101, Tex-Mex Style

    How an El Paso School Took on the Border Patrol

    By Leon Lynn

    How a high school in El Paso, Texas stood up to abuse and harassment by the US Border Patrol and won.

  • Nike Nearly Gets the Boot

    By Bill Resnick

    Coverage of the controversy that arose when Nike, accused of exploiting child labor in Asia, decided to donate $500,000 to the Portland, Oregon school system.

  • When Things Turn Ugly

    Threats in the Student-Teacher Relationship

    By Donn K. Harris

    How meeting the challenges of the school day with an attitude of nurturing, not punishment,can help calm potentially disruptive conflicts between students and teachers.

  • Sending Kids to Market

    By Douglas D. Noble

    A review of Giving Kids the Business by Alex Molnar, a book which details the commercialization of America’s schools.