Books on Education

The Core Knowledge Sequence is available only directly from the Core Knowledge Foundation, (804)977-7550 or at the Core Knowledge website. But at about $20, it's a bargain. Much of the literature about school quality talks about what's wrong with progressivist schools -- the Sequence gives some flavor about how to do it right.

To read more about Core Knowledge, go to this page of our website. Read what students, teachers and parents say about Core Knowledge. Is your child's school this good? Why not? It could be!

The Core Knowledge Foundation also offers a fascinating 40 minute videotape with two television programs about the goals of CK, and life in a CK classroom.

For more on Core Knowledge, go to that page of this website, or directly to the website of the Core Knowledge Foundation.

Amazon's review says, in part:

"It's a bad time to be a boy in America," writes Christina Hoff Sommers. Boys are less likely than girls to go to college or do their homework. They're more likely to cheat on tests, wind up in detention, or drop out of school. Yet it's "the myth of the fragile girl," according to Sommers, that has received the lion's share of attention recently... When boys are discussed at all, it's in the context of how to modify their antisocial behavior -- i.e., how to make them more like girls. This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys' aggressive tendencies must be checked and channeled in constructive ways. Boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be pathologized.

"Government Nannies" by Cathy Duffy

(to be reviewed)

"Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture" edited by Katharine Washburn and John Thorton

Only a part of this book is about education, but perhaps much of what else the editors include under the rubric "dumbing down" is ultimately the result of dumbed-down schools. Besides schools themselves, essays in this collection discuss museums, art, media, religion, ethnicity, and even a surprisingly informative article about the history of recipes. The book makes for compelling reading, but it does tend to suffer from two faults: First, there is an overwhelming New York parochialism pervading much of the book. Many of the authors seem to think that the New York Times and the New Yorker define the world. Second, many of the essays tend to be on the suffocating side, with turns of phrase, exotic vocabulary, and strained metaphors, less designed to illuminate and more intended to whack us over the head that these aren't examples of the dumbed-down culture. The Washinton Post has provided Chapter One of this book on its website. As it happens, that chapter is one of six in the book on problems in education.

"Valuing Useless Knowledge: An Anthropological Inquiry into the Meaning of Liberal Education" by Robert Bates Graber

You know how some books go beyond interesting to become real charmers? Well, here's one! Buy several: Add one to the gift certificate you give to a great teacher at the end of the year, give one to the college student you know who is dithering over courses and majors, or just take one with on an afternoon at the beach. In his little volume (6 x 4.5 inches, and 80 pages), Graber tackles a big question: Why do we treasure knowledge for its own sake? He starts, tongue in cheek, by defining liberal arts as "essentially those areas of knowledge in which practical-minded parents hope their children will not major." From this light beginning, Graber takes us on a historical journey to understand why we place such a high value on learning. We visit John Henry Cardinal Newman, who tells us that knowledge is "not only an instrument, but an end." In stark contrast, we encounter the eclectic and disagreeable Thorstein Veblen, who argued that "useless knowledge" was a form of "conspicuous consumption" (a phrase he coined) whose only value was to display the wealth required to waste such amounts of time. Taking us even further back, all the way to ancient Greece, Graber tells us of the very, very serious conceptual split of "mind" and "matter", and why this understanding is of profound importance in understanding such issues as the persistence of slavery, the nature of the charges against Galileo, and the importance of the human hand in the reactions to Darwin. Graber concludes with a view of how modern science re-integrates mind and matter, and establishes learning for its own sake as firmly in the realm of the most human of undertakings. Enjoy this little treasure!

"The Conspiracy of Ignorance : The Failure of American Public Schools" by Martin L. Gross



(Paperback edition to be released soon!)

Gross does another fine recap of the crisis in American schools. It's not as compelling as McEwan's book, not as substantive as Hirsch's, and not as scary as the Sykes book. But Gross does make a very considerable contribution: In "Conspiracy of Ignorance" he plucks apart the image of the "masters" and "doctors" who run modern urban school districts. Here are some very juicy excerpts from Gross!

"The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn" by Diane Ravitch

Publishers's description: "Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee. An anthology used in Tennessee schools changed 'By God!' to 'By gum!' and 'My God!' to 'You don't mean it.' The New York State Education Department omitted mentioning Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, or blacks in Annie Dillard's memoir of growing up in a racially mixed town. California rejected a reading book because The Little Engine That Could was male. Diane Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read insipid texts that have been censored and bowdlerized, issued by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books -- a case of the bland leading the bland."

"Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism" by Paul A. Boghossian

Some Indian traditions hold that native peoples have lived in the Americas ever since their ancestors first emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subterranean world of spirits. Is this view every bit as valid as the prevailing theory of migrations from Asia over the frozen Bering Sea? Are both these views equivalent, merely different "belief systems"? The academic world has been plagued in recent years by such debates on truth and knowledge. In this book, Paul Boghossian dismisses relativist claims that there is no such thing as objective truth or knowledge, but only truth or knowledge from a particular perspective. He demonstrates clearly that such claims don't even make sense. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it will prove provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond.

"Core Virtues : A Literature-Based Program in Character Education" by Mary Beth Klee

Description from Amazon: The Core Virtues Program is a practical, nonsectarian approach to character education on a kindergarten through sixth-grade level that involves approximately twenty minutes per day of reading and discussion. Its goals are the cultivation of character through such virtues as respect, courage, diligence, patience, responsibility, compassion, perseverance, faithfulness, and more. Core Virtues includes: a strategy for implementation; a month-by-month sequence for the teaching of virtues school-wide on a three year cycle; grade specific goals for kindergarten to sixth grade; reproducible definitions of the virtues keyed to various grade levels; connections with the Core Knowledge sequence; and a critical resource guide to literature organized by virtue (over 600 entries by grade level). The author of this book, Mary Beth Klee, is the founder of Crossroads Academy, a K-8 independent day school in Lyme, New Hampshire. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Klee holds an Ed.M. from Boston University and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Brandeis University. She is a consultant for the Core Knowledge Foundation, Pearson Education Group, and Link Institute.

"Public Education as a Business: Real Costs and Accountability" by Myron Lieberman and Charlene Haar

Description from Amazon: "This work covers details about the real cost of public education -- one of America's biggest industries. It shows that government statistics on the costs of public education sustainability understate the actual costs to taxpayers." For more info, read the review of this book by Brian Nelson, in the Summer 2004 issue of Education Next.

"The Thinking Crisis: The Disconnections of Teaching and Learning in Today's Schools" by T. Ellen Hill and Joel Shatzky

The book is described as "a challenge to the educational establishment to recognize the importance of learning-centered teaching instead of student-centered teaching which is the present trend." The authors' description is this: The objectives of "The Thinking Crisis" are: to examine the reasons for the decline in the quality of student writing by what is taught -- and learned -- in high school; to demonstrate the consequences of this decline by examining current student writing in college; to compare this writing with student writing of twenty years ago; to suggest ways in which this "disconnection" between what a teacher teaches and what a student needs to learn can be ameliorated. We believe that this book is unique in its approach to problems that we see in student writing today in that it neither advocates nor rejects the present pedagogy in the schools; but it argues that this pedagogy be properly implemented. While many of the ideas advanced today for improving writing are sound, they are often misinterpreted and poorly taught. We also argue that the lowering of the level of student reading by the general abandonment of classic texts in the curriculum has contributed to the decline in thinking, reading and writing.

Classical Education

"The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home" by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer

This book provides valuable resources, tips, schedules, and ideas for any family attempting to provide a traditional classical background to their children, a learning adventure which is provided in few schools today. The focus of this excellent and extremely popular book is "classical" education, the historic approach to education, in which a student first masters the "basics" (the "grammar") and then proceeds to thoughtful integration and understanding ("logic" and "rhetoric"). It worked for centuries, and it works for many homeschooling families and the fortunate students of a handful of schools today. This book tells how to do it.

"The Trivium: The Liberal Arts Of Logic, Grammar, And Rhetoric" by Miriam Joseph, C.S.C

Description from Amazon: Opening the door for beginners who seek a thorough grounding in the first arts of human understanding, this book explains the nature of logic, grammar, and rhetoric-the three of the seven liberal arts-and how they relate to one another. In Renaissance universities, the trivium (literally, the crossing of three part way) formed the essence of the liberal arts curriculum. Examined are topics such as the nature and function of language, distinguishing general grammar from special grammar, the study of logic and its relationship to grammar and rhetoric, and applying the concepts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric to literary works. Read more at the publisher's website. Read the first chapter (PDF).

Testing and Assessment

"Defending Standardized Testing" by Richard P. Phelps (Editor)

Editorial reviews cited by Amazon: Howard Wainer, Journal of Educational Measurement: "Very much worth buying and reading." PsycCRITIQUES: "Easy to read ...provides a balanced approach ...help[s] the reader understand current debates within the community of testing experts"

"Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing" by Richard P. Phelps with a forward by Herbert J. Walberg

This book, released in May 2003, has generated a tremendous positive response. The author, Dr. Richard Phelps, provides details of the book on his website, Kill the Messenger.

"Testing Student Learning, Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness" by Williamson M. Evers, Herbert J. Walberg

More than ever, parents want to know how their children are achieving and how their children's school ranks compared to others. This book shows how defective tests and standards and a lack of accountability cause American students to fall behind those of other countries -- despite our schools' receiving nearly the world's highest levels of per-student spending. The book takes on common objections to testing and reveals why they are false. The book also presents several specific constructive uses for tests, including diagnosing children's learning difficulties and procedures for solving them, measuring the impact of curriculum on specific aspects of achievement, and assessing teachers' strengths and weaknesses.

Ed Schools

"Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers" by Rita Kramer (click for info and sample text from iUniverse)

This all-time classic is now back in print!! Other books tell about the bizarre premises, concepts and methods in schools today. But where on earth do these ideas come from? And why do administrators and teachers believe this stuff? The short answer is: ed schools. Rather than being a model of scholarship, today's ed schools waste away time with endless prattle about theories and philosophies. Rita Kramer toured the country, spending a good deal of time at each of a number of ed schools. She visited prestigious eastern schools, mainstream schools, and everything in between. Kramer reports on everything she saw: vapid looks of the students, meaningless classroom activities, faculty members who loathe the goals that most people have about schools, and grades, assessments and final degrees devoid of any substantive value. This book tells a vital part of the story in understanding what's wrong with our schools, and it does so in an engaging personal way. It's just what's needed to give a new teacher a healthy skepticism about "progressive" trends!

"Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers" edited by by Diane Ravitch and J. Wesley Null

In an interview with Education News, co-editor Wesley Null said of this book, "We have highlighted eight forgotten heroes, including William C. Bagley, Isaac Kandel, and Edward Austin Sheldon. They deserve to be remembered because they challenged mainstream thinking about educational practice and theory. They did not win the battles they engaged in, which is why they have been forgotten today. They deserve to be remembered because they argued on behalf of a well-educated teaching profession, a coherent academic curriculum, and clearly defined standards. ... I am concerned that we have lost a solid philosophical foundation for education in general and for curriculum in particular. I believe this happened because the profession of teaching bought into harmful theories -- typically referred to as Progressive -- that diminished the value of teachers, curriculum, and standards. ... The issue here is curriculum for teaching teachers, and the heroes we have highlighted in this book offer us a coherent, morally defensible, and intellectually substantive vision for teacher education curriculum. Restoring a sound philosophical foundation for democratic education only can take place through solid programs for teaching teachers."

"The Feel-Good Curriculum : The Dumbing-Down of America's Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem" by Maureen Stout PhD

This book is quite different than its title might suggest: this is anything but a retread of the same litany of the ills of our schools. There's no doubt of Stout's vigorous condemnation of the affective, touchie-feelie approach to education and its devastating impact on curriculum and kids. But the surprise is how she arrives at this conclusion seemingly in complete isolation from the many other books on this topic, such as most of the other books on this web page. Stout is a pedigreed education insider (with a real Ph.D.), and part of her writings indicate she has no wish to completely abandon this background: at one point she favorably mentions Alfie Kohn (whose writings have been used to justify much of what Stout condemns), she talks about fellow ed school faculty members with some degree of sympathy, and she can't understand why some of her teacher-wannabees are bored by her class on the philosophy of education. She laments the gross lack of critical thinking skills of the students in one of the teacher ed class she teaches, blaming it squarely on their own progressivist educations, but at another point she positions critical thinking as a putative opponent of content knowledge. She only mentions E. D. Hirsch once in passing, and then in a context that suggests she hasn't really read the book of his that she references or anything else of his. But perhaps it is because of this naivete about the outcry over education, that her thorough research and writing carry such a very powerful and convincing force. When she attacks student-centered programs, self-esteem, discovery learning, values clarification, student narcissism and counter-productive gender and race initiatives, she is not merely one of the horde attacking the castle walls from the outside, rather she is on the inside complaining about her own camp's leadership. The strength of this approach is quickly evident: she uses the conferences, journals, task forces and other media within the ed establishment to make her case. This may be the most palatable approach for reaching administrators and teachers who are beginning to have doubts about their training in progressivist education. Stout demolishes many of the premises and practices of schools today. Her main focus is the affective mindset of the establishment, and its obsession with self-esteem as a goal in itself rather than as the result of genuine accomplishment. She does a masterful job ripping apart multiple intelligences, emotional quotients, values clarification, and the whole "hidden curriculum" behind public education. But Stout never quite follows the problem to its ultimate conclusions. Despite the "Dumbing-Down" phrase in the title, Stout barely mentions the curricular damage from all of the psychobabble (except for a too-brief attack on whole language). She mentions math in passing without any seeming awareness of the nationwide "math wars" controversy. She mentions standards but there is no dissection of how the standards movement has been gutted and undermined in some states by the anti-knowledge faction. She rails about the rampant assignments in self-absorption kids are given (my family, my dog, what I want), but says nothing about the substantive content knowledge in history and geography that is squeezed out in the process. In a teasing, almost-there section, she links the self-esteem fad and watery curricula to rising and more vicious violence; but she does not (or dares not) go the final step, to ponder the possible connections between the early 1990s progressivist reforms in Littleton grade schools and the "death-ed" classes at Columbine High School and the events that happened there years later. All in all, Stout provides a very fresh and powerful spin on what, to most of us, is a familiar story. Using fresh evidence and a fresh perspective, she destroys the premises of progressivism, and does so in an insider's way, a way that might be more compelling to the administrators and teachers who could be forces for change.

"Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- And More Miserable than Ever Before" by Dr. Jean Twenge

Excerpts from a review by Ashley Herzog: "In her new book, 'Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- And More Miserable than Ever Before,' Dr. Jean Twenge ... makes clear the difference between self-esteem and self-respect. Self-respect -- a value taught to older generations -- is achieved gradually, by behaving morally and accomplishing things. Self-esteem is an entitlement. As Twenge explains, 'most [self-esteem] programs encourage children to feel good about themselves for no particular reason.' ...      "The self-esteem movement has wreaked havoc on schools. ... One popular method tells teachers not to correct students' spelling or grammar, arguing that kids should be 'independent spellers' so they can be treated as 'individuals.' Elementary school students spend hours creating 'All About Me' projects ... but less time learning basic skills. Of course, children have no motivation to work harder when their schools outlaw competition and celebrate mediocrity.      "While the self-esteem movement hasn't made children any smarter, it has made them more self-centered, manipulative, and indulgent. There is one personality trait that is definitely linked to achievement, and that is self-control. Although 'discipline' and 'obedience' have become dirty words in the education establishment, people with high levels of self-control are the most likely to succeed. They earn higher grades and finish more years of education, and they're less likely to abuse drugs or have children out of wedlock. As Twenge says, 'Self-control predicts all of those things researchers had hoped self-esteem would, but hasn't.'"

"Education's Smoking Gun:
How Teachers' Colleges Have Destroyed Education in America" by Reginald Damerell

This book from the mid-80s is out of print now, but you may find it at your local library. The "smoking gun" in the title refers to the search for the ultimate cause of the anti-intellectual, fun and games approach to education. Damerell (like many others) pins the rap firmly on ed schools. He was a top creative person in a large New York ad agency, who was lured to join the faculty of an ed school. What he found was a shocking lack of scholarship. Damerell is at his most entertaining when telling the first person story of Bill Cosby's acquiring of an Ed.D. degree. It becomes clear that Cosby's work for the degree was pathetically shallow, but not much more so than many other Ed.D. efforts. Much of this book is devoted to specifics (events, methods, personalities) that Damerell encountered in his own ed school. As such, it's an interesting slice-of-life as yet another person discovers the truth behind American education. But overall, Rita Kramer's "Ed School Follies" is a much more complete dissection of the problem, and Maureen Stout's "The Feel-Good Curriculum" more directly attacks the shallowness and affective teaching mantras of ed schools today.

"Managing Unmanageable Students: Practical Solutions for Administrators" by Elaine McEwan and Mary Damer

(details to come)

Ed Unions

"The Teacher Unions" by Myron Lieberman

Publisher's description: "A powerful expose on how the NEA and AFT use their power to smother desperately needed educational innovations." (to be reviewed)

"NEA: The Trojan Horse in American Education" by Samuel Blumenthal

Dissection of the most powerful education union and lobby, the National Education Association, along with considerations of political bias in classes, and the history of public education in the U.S. (to be reviewed)

"The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education" by Peter Brimelow

(to be reviewed)

"Power Grab: How the National Education Association Is Betraying Our Children" by G. Gregory Moo

(to be reviewed)

Parents, Committees and Choices

"The Politics of the PTA" by Charlene K. Haar

See a review of this book in Taking the Parent out of the National PTA by George A. Clowes, School Reform News, February 2003. Here is a review of this book, written by Richard P. Phelps, author of "Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing": The organization you thought you knew August 14, 2003 Former school teacher and senatorial candidate, and current President of the Education Policy Institute, Charlene Haar, relates a thorough and fascinating story of an organization we all thought we knew, but probably did not. Haar traces the origins of The National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) to the first assemblage of the National Congress of Mothers at the end of the 19th century, a time when schooling, and the status of women, were strikingly different than they are now. She then follows the evolution of the organization as parents, and later teachers, and still later the teachers' unions, are added to the mix. Haar demonstrates how the better organized and more powerful elements of the coalition - the teachers' unions - were able to steer the organization's mission over time along a path they preferred, as was, perhaps, inevitable. Haar reminds us, however, that teacher and parent interests do not always coincide and, indeed, seem to have grown more divergent over time. Ironically, however, the PTA's continuing steadfast support of the public education status quo has generated only meager success, for example, in terms of favorable legislation passed in the U.S. Congress, where the PTA has spent a substantial proportion of its resources in lobbying efforts. Meanwhile, parent membership in the PTA continues steadily to decline. The Politics of the PTA is meticulously well-written and very well-organized.

"Cloning of the American Mind" by B.K. Eakman

Part IV of this book should be read by anyone who has ever sat of a school committee or is thinking about it. Even more urgently, it should be read by all members of all school boards which are being told that some recommendation or another was developed by a teacher or parent-teacher committee. I participated in two committees like this in our local public schoolsw, and found that the whole process was deliberately manipulated to cultivate an intended results, while suppressing dissent or discussion. Eakman warns that such "rigged consensus building" thwarts opposition or original thinking, while enshrining and preserving the status quo. It is a powerful tool for manipulating public opinion in such a way to gain apparent approval for dubious management directions. These manipulative techniques are both employed with, and taught to, students in ed schools. By the time that someone leaves ed school with administration credentials, they are well-trained to set up the same dangerous practices in the districts where they are employed. Beverly Eakman describes how rigged consensus-building is covered in her book: "[This section] focuses on this issue, details the various methods used, who uses them and where they originated. In fact, various government agenncies actually offer a course in "change agentry." ... The rigged consesus is the means by which programs and policies that originators at the state, federal or foundation (through grants) level know won't be well received are moved past the naysayers and are instituted anyway. It's kind of interesting to watch, as long as you're not on the receiving end. Since my research on the book, I've watched it work among church hierarchies, in community meetings, focus groups and PTAs. Because of the interest in Part IV, I started being asked to go all over the country giving not just seminars, but teach-ins, if you will, where I bring groups up on state to practice countering the "consensus" techniques. One of the problems is that the less well educated our population becomes, thanks in large part to the fact that many disciplines like rhetoric, philosophy, and debate have been removed from the curriculum, people do not know how to defend themselves against professional manipulators. Yet, as I show in my book, the basic concept of psychological manipulation/deception was known as far back as 400 b.c. A book by a Chinese general that surfaced in the 1970s and was translated proves the point.

"Common Sense School Reform" by Frederick M. Hess

Here are excerpts from a review of this book by Justin Torres, Weekly Standard, September 13, 2004: Common Sense School Reform is uncompromising. Hess, an education-policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, takes direct aim at gauzy notions and sentiments that divert us from enacting needed reforms. Many will find shocking his direct attack on the idea that teachers are doing all they can to improve student achievement. Bunk, he says. In fact, while many teachers are working as hard as they can, many aren't. Many are themselves so poorly educated they aren't up to the task of raising student achievement. And those who are up to the task still need external incentives--performance measures, bonuses for improved performance, and penalties for falling short--that Americans take for granted in other professions. "Educators, for better or worse, are a lot like everybody else," Hess writes. "Some educators are passionately committed to their craft, highly skilled, and will be so regardless of rewards or guidance, but most--like most engineers and attorneys and journalists and doctors--will be more effective when held accountable for performance." Common Sense School Reform is shot through with hard-nosed realism. Unlike some proponents of high standards and increased accountability, Hess admits that such measures can have the unfortunate effect of narrowing the curriculum and limiting the additional touches--a focus on science or the arts, say--that can help distinguish schools and provide the personalizing touches that parents crave. (There is already some evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act, with its relentless focus on reading and math and, eventually, science, is crowding out art, history, and foreign-language classes.) For Hess, the answer to this curricular narrowing is school choice, designed to allow parents to choose a tailored curriculum that operates in a larger framework of high standards and accountability. Choice will also help to spur school improvement by rewarding innovators who can deliver educational success--if choice rewards popular schools with additional resources and punishes persistently low-achieving schools with closure or reconstitution. (The second half of Hess's formulation, closing down schools that lose students in a competitive marketplace, has not yet been tried in any of the voucher programs presently in operation.) It's a beguiling vision, and certainly one that would be a vast improvement over the present system, which actually punishes success by placing strains on popular, over-enrolled schools. As Hess points out, an innovative and dynamic principal who attracts a hundred extra students may be assigned two or three additional teaching slots and may get a little discretionary money to spend on new programs or additional teacher training. But most of the important decisions--who to hire; whether to put resources into physical plant, new personnel, or new books and teaching aids; the length of the school day; the hours teachers work--are dictated by collective bargaining agreements or are handed down from the district office. That offers little incentive to innovators, and a growing student body becomes a headache, not an indicator of success.

"Voucher Wars: Waging the Legal Battle over School Choice" by Clint Bolick

"Clint Bolick has written an exciting and fascinating account of his experience as a lawyer defending school choice. In the process, he provides a comprehensive history of the school choice movement from the 1990 enactment of the nation's first urban school program in Wisconsin to the 2002 Supreme Court decision that established the constitutionality of voucher programs including religious schools. Clint makes clear how high the stakes are for the youngsters in low-income families condemned to failing government schools and how much their parents are willing to sacrifice to rescue them. A true human interest tale." --Milton Friedman "Clint Bolick is the nation's leading attorney for parental choice and education reform. No one knows this legal battle better than Clint, and his successes are victories for both our education system and our children." --William J. Bennett, Co-Director, Empower America; Former Secretary of Education "Clint Bolick is the new Thurgood Marshall. Marshall litigated the end of legal apartheid; Bolick the demolition of educational townships." --John Gardner, Milwaukee School Board

"Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America's Schools" by Herbert J. Walberg and Joseph L. Bast

Read this review published in the Washington Times.

"School Choices: True and False" by John Merrifield

Here's a slim yet compelling look at market choice for education. John Merrifield argues that today's very limited school choice programs are nothing like the "free market in education" envisioned four decades ago by early proponents of school choice. Rather, they are mired in false alternatives, petty distinctions, and diminished vision. Merrifield argues for the reformation of the school choice alternative and the eventual establishment of a freely competitive market for education,

"Market Education, The Unknown History" by Andrew J. Coulson

(to be reviewed)

"Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice" by Sol Stern

A Booklist review says: "When his son Jonathan was accepted at New York's premier elementary school, P.S. 87, city-schools-educated Stern presumed the boy was off to a good start. He was, though not as good a start as Stern's own in 1941. In the intervening decades, the teachers' union (a 1950s innovation) and a mushrooming, politicized education bureaucracy had rendered most city schools ungovernable and scholastically ineffective."

"Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe" by Charles L. Glenn

(to be reviewed) Amazon says this gives "the story of the Communist takeover of education and the recent revival of educational freedom in post-Communist societies."

"Public Education: An Autopsy" by Myron Lieberman

Lieberman has produced a unusually clear and thorough guide to the critical failings of "public education", or at least as that phrase is used in the United States today. He presents a case for marketplace solutions to these problems, and parent choice. A remarkable feature of Lieberman's writing is his highly orderly and logical style, which gives his arguments strength and substance.

Reading

"Reading Instruction for Students Who Are at Risk or Have Disabilities" by William D. Bursuck and Mary Damer

While the first chapter captures the very essence of teaching reading, the rest of the text is an absolute gold mine of additional research based instructional strategies appropriate for the college student, the first year teacher, and the veteran reading teacher. I wish I had written it! -- Pam Matlock, Murray State University From the publisher: Organized according to the Reading First categories of reading development and instruction as presented in the report of the National Reading Panel, this exciting and timely new text presents teaching strategies for children at-risk, including children of poverty, children for whom English is not their primary language, and children with learning and behavioral disabilities. These are the children No Child Left Behind challenges teachers to serve more effectively. The book is more than a list of teaching strategies that are scientifically-validated; the scientifically-validated practices included are integrated into a systematic teaching process that stresses the use of student outcome data within authentic classroom contexts to guide practice. The teaching strategies have been field tested with at-risk children in both rural and urban teaching settings. Most of the strategies have resulted from work the authors did in their recent four-year federally-funded model-demonstration grant in which they have implemented an extensive reading problem prevention model in grades K-3 in three inner-city schools. Thus, the teaching strategies in the book are ones that the authors implemented every day with at-risk children, not just findings from research articles. This book includes: Content organized around the five components validated by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Readers learn how to use DIBELS and other curriculum-based assessment results for early identification of children at risk of reading failure and to monitor student progress. A unique feature is using DIBELS assessments to pinpoint student skill development as they acquire alphabetic principle. Accompanying DVD shows teacher explicitly teaching letter sound recognition, regular word decoding, sight words, multisyllable word reading, passage reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. Text explains how to use Differentiated Instruction to maximize learning for all students. Specific strategies are detailed for implementing Response To Intervention (RTI) multi-tier instruction during the reading block. Examines building vocabulary knowledge through direct and indirect teaching strategies. Comprehension strategies identified by the National Reading Panel that help students derive meaning from text are emphasized. Strategies for individualizing instruction for adolescents and children who are bilingual and/or ESL are included within each chapter. Effective strategies for managing classroom behavior, including instruction groups are provided so that student behavior does not interfere with reading instruction. Mary Damer is an adjunct professor at the Ohio State University and an educational consultant and co-founder of Multi-Tier LLC, a consulting company that works with school districts to increase reading achievement through an intensive multi-tiered model based on preventing reading failure. A former teacher, principal, and behavior consultant she is the co-author of Managing Unmanageable Students: Practical Solutions for Administrators. For four years she was the field director for Project PRIDE, an OSEP funded multi-tier reading project in three high poverty urban schools. William D. Bursuck has more than 35 years experience as a general and special education teacher in the public schools as well as a university teacher educator. Although he has written numerous research articles and is a successful grant writer, Dr. Bursuck takes particular pleasure in providing classroom and future teachers with practical, evidenced-based strategies to help students with special needs be more successful in school. He is currently professor in the Department of Specialized Education Services at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

"Teach Them ALL to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks" by Elaine McEwan

Review by Mary Damer, July 8, 2002 Before I coordinated an early literacy project for inner city students, I knew that improving the reading achievement of students in high-poverty, low-performing schools was going to be difficult and take every resource and skill my colleagues and I had. Even knowing that reality, it wasn't until a year after we'd rolled up our shirt sleeves and started working in three urban schools, that we TRULY understood the effort behind maintaining fine-tuned curriculum coordination, retaining the ability to duck sudden blockades from administration, and motivating teachers to keep employing the continual academic press needed to develop students' reading and language skills. Elaine McEwan's new book, "Teach Them All to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall Through the Cracks," is the first book I've come across that truly captures all the necessary ingredients needed to create a reading culture where every student learns to read. I always enjoy McEwan's vivid metaphors and chatty practical tips which won't disappoint in her latest book. Thematically, McEwan uses jigsaw puzzle imagery to help the reader understand the necessary role of phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, reading a lot, a reading culture, language, fluency, knowledge, and cognitive strategies. But wait - this is far more than a book providing information about effective teaching of reading. In addition to her years as a principal who dramatically increased reading performance in her school, McEwan draws upon her years of experience crisscrossing the country to consult with school districts attempting to turn around their reading programs surround by a mishmash of misinformation from the reading establishment that hurls at them from all directions. A strength of this book is her intimate experience with Best Practices that often have no research substantiation. I should mention that I'm not totally impartial about this book and have been eagerly waiting for it to come out in print since our literacy project was used as one example of a comprehe