SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF

About this book

The most exciting innovation in education policy in the last decade is the emergence of highly effective schools in our nations inner cities schools where disadvantaged teens make enormous gains in academic achievement. In this book David Whitman takes readers inside six of these secondary schoolsmany of them charter schoolsand reveals the secret to their success: they are paternalistic. The schools teach teens how to act according to traditional middle-class values set and enforce exacting academic standards and closely supervise student behavior. But unlike paternalistic institutions of the past these schools are warm caring places where teachers and principals form paternal-like bonds with students. Though little explored to date the new paternalistic schools are the most promising means yet for closing the nations costly and shameful achievement gap. Visit www.edexcellence.net for more information.