Philip Brand and his brother visited schools in every state in America. What Johnny Learned. A quote:
The contrast between New Heights (a charter school funded publicly but operated independently from the local school district) and New York City public school C.S. 211, two schools which Brand visited back-to-back, is stunning. At New Heights kids rhapsodize about the safety of their hallways; at C.S. 211 Brand witnesses a student screaming to her teacher that she had just been groped. At New Heights an enthusiastic young teacher is instructing her students in the basics of respectful adult interaction, how to shake hands while looking someone in the eye, how to listen with “eyes and ears”; at C.S. 211 a disengaged teacher assigns busy work to a bored class for an entire period.