On Top of the News
Parents Outsource the Basics
11/1/11 | Wall Street Journal

Behind The Headline
An Appeal to Authority
Education Next | Fall 2008

Affluent parents are signing their kids up for pricey afterschool classes aimed at teaching basic social skills and values.  In the Fall 2008 issue of Ed Next, David Whitman wrote about “paternalistic” schools for inner-city kids “that teach students not just how to think, but also how to act according to what are commonly termed traditional, middle-class values.”  Whitman noted that “the notion of reintroducing paternalism in inner-city schools is deeply at odds with the conventional wisdom of the K–12 education establishment,” but he concluded that “the new breed of paternalistic schools appears to be the single most effective way of closing the achievement gap.”