The Wasted Years

Listen to the voices of practitioners and of researchers in an attempt to identify the factors that are perpetuating the literacy gap in American secondary schools. Since the early 1980s, the literacy gap in the United States has not changed. African-American and Latino teenagers in 12th grade have the same reading skills as white teenagers in 8th grade. What factors in our public schools are creating this gap? Is the system of state-mandated courses at fault? Is the low level of spending on books in public school systems, usually under one percent of total expenditures, a factor? And what about the teachers themselves? Do they have the authority, the training, and the schedules needed to be effective sponsors of literacy? With The Wasted Years, parents who desire information about, and are concerned about the literacy gap, can learn of the missed opportunities for reading and writing in American secondary schools and see the complexity of the problem; teachers seeking new ideas for reading assignments can use the reading lists and the descriptions of silent reading programs as a source of new ideas; and administrators and policymakers charged with improving reading and writing skills will see the best literacy practices in a number of schools and will benefit from an in-depth history of New York State's efforts to identify and intervene in weak schools over the last 20 years. Since the new federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, depends on state intervention to remedy deficiencies in local schools, New York's efforts in intervention since 1982 should be studied. Features include: interviews with practitioners from a variety of school systems and subject areas, budget data on classroom resources, secondary sources talking about deprofessionalization of teachers, socialization of teachers, the effects of unionization on teachers' attitudes toward their jobs