The learning gap

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No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning

by Abigail Thernstrom and Stephen Thernstrom

Simon & Schuster $26, 274 pages

Study the problems of the public schools long enough and you find the same questions remain unanswered year after year: Why do our students do so badly? Why can't they perform better on tests? What can be done to make sure that students come to school ready and eager to learn?

Such questions are especially pertinent for blacks and Hispanics. Numerous studies have shown that, on average, blacks and Hispanics don't learn as much as whites and Asians do, leaving them ill-prepared to do well in college, get good jobs or succeed in life.

Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom are both fellows at the Manhattan Institute (for which I am a consultant). They have studied education issues for many years, and Mrs. Thernstrom is a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education. In "No Excuses," their provocative and timely new book, they conclude that excellent schools have a few simple (and old-fashioned) rules. The best schools are places where the principal is clearly in command, and has the power, among other things, to freely hire and fire staff. Teachers should have a deep knowledge of the subjects they teach. And students should be prepared to work hard in and out of school, and should be doing more homework and watching less TV.

These principles are, of course, not new. But they don't guide many of our public schools. The Thernstroms are at their best when showing the reasons why most education reforms don't work. Among them:

• More federal money. The largest federal education program for the poor, Title I, has pumped a great deal of aid to low-income schools since its creation in the 1960s. But even Secretary of Education Rod Paige admits that "after spending $125 billion of Title I money, we have virtually nothing to show for it." The evidence that the second-largest federal education program, Head Start, helps children learn is weak and inconclusive at best.