Building a Better Teacher: Many Ways, Many Challenges

A mix of history, journalism, education policy, and social critique, Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher, How Teaching Works (and How To Teach It To Everyone) is a fascinating hodgepodge of a book. It is about the world of teaching, from kindergarten through high school – and it has lessons for higher education. Green, a talented journalist and…

Endless Battles: Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars

The debate over education in America is high-stakes and high-stress. “Crisis” captures the mood as many argue that education in the United States as ineffective and inefficient. Some political and educational leaders demand wide-scale changes. Others, like Diane Ravitch in Reign of Error, believe that things are not that bad. Graduation and student success rates are improving.…

Ravitch’s World

Diane Ravitch is a force of nature and social media. Relentlessly energetic, this scholar of K-12 education is at the heart of a movement and counter-reformation in our school system. Ravitch’s aim is no less than to reshape the national debate on education. In Reign of Error, Ravitch employs her formidable polemical skills to discuss four…

Common Sense School Reform

Deborah Meier’s The Power of Their Ideas: lessons for America from a small school in Harlem focuses on the common sense innovations, policies and leadership decisions that made the Central Park East Elementary School and Secondary School (CPESS) a nationally-known success story. A founding co-principal and a driving force in the school’s development, Meier recounts…