By any other name

Published on September 12, 2008 in Education. 1 Comment By Joanne

What do you call schools that transform inner-city students by teaching diligence, resilience and manners in addition to academic skills? In Sweating the Small Stuff, David Whitman described “paternalistic” schools. Jay Mathews has picked a winner in his contest for a less contentious name. He likes “no excuses” schools.

1 Responses to “By any other name”

Feed for this Entry
  • allen
    September 13, 2008 at 2:54 am

    I suppose referring to them as “successful” schools carries the stigma of judgmentalism. The more so since the schools that don’t produce similar results are, by implication, unsuccessful.

    Of course if there are a number of clearly successful approaches to structuring a school that transforms inner-city students into academic successes then it’s a matter of differentiating between the approaches and that’d be alright, wouldn’t it?

Comments are currently closed.