The Education Factor
Schooling once drove the nation’s rise to the top, but things have changed, unfortunately
Schooling once drove the nation’s rise to the top, but things have changed, unfortunately
Book Alert
So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools Charles M. Payne (Harvard Education Press) Payne, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, here sets out to explain “the sociology of failure” of urban reform. Drawing primarily on his experiences in Chicago, Payne considers the effects of social context, poverty, race, [...]
Where Did NCLB Come From?
The true story of the federal role in education
The true story of the federal role in education
Something’s Better Than Nothing
Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good
Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good
Book Alert
Lessons Learned: What International Assessments Tell Us about Math Achievement Tom Loveless, editor (Brookings Institution Press) While math scores are bandied about in the modern era, how much do we really know about what they mean or what they can teach about practice and policy? In this dense but thought-provoking volume, Brookings scholar Tom Loveless [...]
Peerless, Indeed
Educator’s diagnosis on the mark, 65 years later
Educator’s diagnosis on the mark, 65 years later
Book Alert
The Educational Morass: Overcoming the Stalemate in American Education. Myron Lieberman (Rowman and Littlefield). The equal-opportunity, granddaddy longlegs of all curmudgeons, Myron Lieberman, manages in one volume to savage teachers unions, education schools, the Education Writers Association, the New York Times, the Washington Post, education research, egalitarian school-choice proponents, and conservatives Diane Ravitch, Terry Moe, [...]
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker
An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker
Book Alert
Pay-for-Performance Teacher Compensation: An Inside View of Denver’s ProComp Plan. Phil Gonring, Paul Teske, and Brad Jupp (Harvard Education Press). The authors have delivered a straight-shooting, inside account of the design, politics, and implementation of the much-discussed Denver ProComp teacher pay plan—a plan the Denver Post termed “the nation’s most ambitious.” Widely regarded as the [...]
What Begat the Achievement Gap?
History of Chicago schools provides few answers
History of Chicago schools provides few answers
Three Rs and a V
Schools should teach the importance of voting
Schools should teach the importance of voting
Book Alert
Educating School Teachers. Arthur Levine (The Education Schools Project). In this 140-page report, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, seeks to do for teachers what his 2005 report did for administrators: appraise the current state of their professional preparation and suggest needed reforms. The news is mostly glum: “Teacher education in the U.S. [...]
Blink. Think. Blank. Bunk.
Solid snap judgments are deeply grounded
Solid snap judgments are deeply grounded
Book Alert
Education Next
Cutting Through the Hype: A Taxpayer’s Guide to School Reforms. Jane L. David and Larry Cuban (Education Week Press). Silver bullets come not here. In this slender, readable volume, veteran educators Jane David (now head of the Bay Area Research Group) and Larry Cuban (emeritus education professor at Stanford) conduct a breakneck tour of almost—but [...]
Beyond the Melting Pot
Two well-regarded liberals take on multiculturalism
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny
By Amartya Sen
Battling the Progressives
The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children By E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children
By E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
