The Educated Child

Book excerpt: If you care about the education of a child, you need this book. Comprehensive and easy to use, it will inform, empower, and encourage you. Just as William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtues has helped millions of Americans teach young people about character, The Educated Child delivers what you need to take control. With coauthors Chester E. Finn, Jr., and John T. E. Cribb, Jr., former Secretary of Education Bennett provides the indispensable guide. Championing a clear "back-to-basics" curriculum that will resonate with parents and teachers tired of fads and jargon, The Educated Child supplies an educational road map from earliest childhood to the threshold of high school. It gives parents hundreds of practical suggestions for helping each child succeed while showing what to look for in a good school and what to watch out for in a weak one. The Educated Child places you squarely at the center of your young one's academic career and takes a no-nonsense view of your responsibilities. It empowers you as mothers and fathers, enabling you to reclaim what has been appropriated by "experts" and the education establishment. It out-lines questions you will want to ask, then explains the answers -- or non-answers -- you will be given. No longer will you feel powerless before the education "system." The tools and advice in this guide put the power where it belongs -- in the hands of those who know and love their children best. Using excerpts from E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, The Educated Child sets forth a state-of-the art curriculum from kindergarten through eighth grade that you can use to monitor what is and isn't being taught in your school. It outlines how you can help teachers ensure that your child masters the most important skills and knowledge. It takes on today's education controversies from phonics to school choice, from outcomes-based education to teaching values, from the education of gifted children to the needs of the disabled. Because much of a youngster's education takes place outside the school, The Educated Child also distills the essential information you need to prepare children for kindergarten and explains to the parents of older students how to deal with such challenges as television, drugs, and sex. If you seek high standards and solid, time-tested content for the child you care so much about, if you want the unvarnished truth about what parents and schools must do, The Educated Child is the one book you need on your shelf.