Dumbing Down Our Kids Why America's Children Feel Good about Themselves But Can't Read, Write, Or Add

In this book, Sykes argues that the school wars of the 1990s will be the defining cultural and political debate of our time. While many parents bask in the glow of complacency about their own children's education, Dumbing Down Our Kids documents the collapse of standards in our schools, the flight from learning, and the triumph of mediocre, feel-good education that is more concerned with pumping up self-esteem than it is with passing on knowledge.

This dubious triumph includes the latest educational fad, "Outcome Based Education." Although known by different names in some states, OBE is the most recent in a long series of "reforms" that have eroded our schools. Charles Sykes traces these fads from their roots in the early "progressive" theories of John Dewey, through Dick and Jane and Spot, Life Adjustment, New Math, Mastery Learning, and other reforms-gone-wrong.

Sykes concludes with a checklist for parents, students, and teachers who want to evaluate their schools, and a series of recommendations to restore quality learning to America.