Reading is fundamental — and not just for our children. School reformers, in particular, must always read more than just the wide array of op-eds and policy texts churned out of think tanks in order to continue fostering the intellectual dynamism that has helped the movement battle strongly for building brighter futures for all children. This means reading lots of books, especially ones on history, economics, and other subjects outside of education, in order to develop even more-cohesive arguments for the myriad solutions needed to transform American public education.
This is why Dropout Nation offers its help with the 2013 edition of The Top Eight Books That School Reformers Should Read. Culled from more than 100 books, the selections include a wide range of texts. This includes two history books — including a biography of how urban politics and social reform shaped the career of Theodore Roosevelt, and a look at political maneuvering by Jim Crow segregationist senators to preserve failed and bigoted thinking — from which reformers can glean lessons on how to use politics and activism to transform American public education. It also includes a primer on the develop of Western art and culture that can also serve as a rallying call for expanding experiences for all of our children.
As Dropout Nation does every year, the selections were judged on five criteria: Does it have a strong narrative or polemical power (also known as “is it well-written”)? Are the lessons relevant to the reform of American public education? Is the book thought-provoking (or does it offer new arguments or new thinking on familiar issues)? When research is involved in the narrative, does it stand up to scrutiny? And would you pay at least $14 to put it on your tablet (or, for those of you still reading traditional books, pay at least $20 for the paperback or hardcover)?
Below are this year’s selections. Offer your own suggestions in the comments. And just read, read, read.
Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined: There are plenty of reasons why psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s books on the misuses of IQ tests — and mistaken views overall about the potential of children — was the subject of last September’s Conversation at Dropout Nation podcast. For one, Kaufman smartly explains how IQ tests such as the Stanford-Binet — which were originally developed to help children identify and address their learning issues — have been warped by IQ determinists such as Charles Murray, who use the tests to argue that cognitive ability is genetically-driven and that only some kids (usually white) are deserving of college-preparatory education. Kaufman also explains in clear terms why concepts such as learning disabled (which are used to condemn far too many kids to the nation’s special ed ghettos) and giftedness fail to keep in mind all the factors that play into how children learn (including the role of deliberate practice). For reformers, Ungifted is one that should be read. And read. And read again. So go do it.
I Got Schooled: One of the new voices emerging for advancing reform this year is filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, who has written one of the more-thoughtful polemics on the steps needed to address the nation’s education crisis. Written as a travelogue of sorts about his six-year exploration of education policy issues, the director of The Sixth Sense manages to do in a mere 249 pages what most think tankers fail to do after thousands of pages: Quickly explain flaws in traditionalist thinking — including class-size reduction efforts — and outline five key steps (including giving power to principals to make hiring and firing decisions, and embracing the use of data) to transform education. Just as importantly, in discussing how high-quality teachers “want to want” to stem achievement gaps while laggards don’t desire this goal, Shyamalan also hits upon the importance of talent in building cultures of genius that help all kids succeed. Shyamalan’s book isn’t without flaws; his citing of the rather flawed 2009 report on charter schools by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Options, arguing that it proves that charters are no better than traditional district schools, is rather problematic. But overall, Shyamalan’s arguments are worth considering.
Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School: Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann have offered up one of the most-exhaustive polemics on how the nation’s education crisis is making it harder for the nation and its children to succeed in an increasingly global and knowledge-based economic landscape. Through their analysis of international student achievement data, Hanushek, Peterson, Woessmann detail why arguments from traditionalists that all is well with education don’t stand up to scrutiny. At the same time, Hanushek, Peterson, and Woessmann take the time to chastise political leaders for not meeting their promises to advance reform, look at already-ongoing fiscal battles between retiring Baby Boomers and families of young children, and explain how reformers must explain to the public that the battle over reforming American public education is one “between the needs of school-age children” who will be the ones charged with keeping the nation prosperous long into the future versus “the interests of those adults who agreed to educate them in our public schools”.
Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars: Why should reformers pick up cultural critic and intellectual provocateur Camille Paglia’s primer on the history and development of Western art and culture? Reason one: Paglia’s book is the kind that textbook writers should aspire to provide children and adults alike. A simple-yet-comprehensive tome, Paglia’s book details the historical forces that shaped — and were shaped by — works of art such as The Book of Kells (which helped inspire the 19th century Celtic revival that led to the Irish War of Independence from Great Britain) and The Death of Marat, Jacques-Louis David’s ode to the French Revolution. The second reason: Paglia’s strong arguments about the failures of traditional districts to provide children with knowledge about the arts and its role in shaping and being shaped by society (a problem Paglia argues is a problem that is a problem for American culture as a whole) is a clarion call to reformers to do more to expand cultural experiences for all children.
Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt: Certainly you should pick up Edward P. Kohn’s book because it is about the very fascinating life of America’s 26th president — the man who showed the power of the bully pulpit in advancing social change. But reformers can learn plenty from Kohn’s narrative about how Roosevelt’s thinking and activism was shaped by his disgust for the shameless graft of the Big Apple’s infamous Tammany Hall regime, disdain for the equally unabashed corruption of upstate New York politicians, and experience on the ground working with poor and minority families of that time forced into tenements unfit for living. And by discussing how Roosevelt and other social reformers of the time took on the woeful conditions of the time for the Big Apple’s poorest families, Kohn’s book — which will be the subject of an upcoming Dropout Nation Podcast on embracing grassroots leadership — also provides reformers lessons on how it will take plenty of strong steps to help the children of today succeed in school and in life.
Strife and Progress: Portfolio Strategies for Managing Urban Schools: It is easy to talk about overhauling (and, more to the liking of DN Editor RiShawn Biddle, abandoning) the obsolete and dysfunctional traditional district model. It is even easier to talk about how it should be done, including moving away from centralized bureaucracies to a portfolio approach under which traditional and public charter schools are managed under a mayoral control structure. But as former Center for Reinventing Public Education boss Paul Hill and his onetime colleagues, Christine Campbell and Bethany Gross, point out in their 140-page primer on portfolio district, making it work — along with dealing with the political challenges of moving away from the traditional district model — is a different matter entirely. In Strife and Progress, Hill, Campbell, and Gross provide some important lessons, both political and operational, from efforts by New York City and other reform-minded districts that institution-oriented reformers and their counterparts among activists and think tankers should heed.
The Smartest Kids in the World and How they Got That Way: An observer can easily argue that Amanda Ripley’s 307-page volume on the success of school systems around the world versus the failures of America’s super-clusters has been over-hyped by reformers. Maybe. But Dropout Nation would have to say that the kudos given to Ripley’s book are all well-deserved. Why? Because it is a strong polemic that explains, both the experiences of three young adults and through strong reporting how American public education is doing poorly for its children and for the nation as a whole. The narrative provides strong contrasts between how traditional district schools focus too many resources on expensive buildings and other matters that have little to do with learning with the more judicious use of resources by systemics in other countries. And in explaining how white middle class children are doing almost as poorly academically (especially as measured on PISA and other international exams) against their counterparts around the world as their black and Latino peers at home, Ripley offers everyone a reminder that the high cost of educational abuse to the least of our children also ends up being borne by the wealthiest of them.
Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights: There’s plenty for reformers to learn from political historian Keith M. Finley’s text on how politicians such as Georgia U.S. Senator Richard Russell, Louisiana’s Russell Long, and J. William Fulbright of Arkansas (now better-known for the international education program he helped create through law) used every political tactic — including arcane Senate rules and faux compromises that effectively kept Jim Crow segregation laws in place — to slow down the civil rights movement’s efforts to end state-sanction segregation. One of the lessons — that those defending a status quo will use any step taken by activists they oppose to rally their side — is one that reformers should always keep in mind; after all, traditionalists are essentially using the same tactics leveraged by defenders of Jim Crow this past century. Just as importantly, reformers can be heartened from another lesson: That those defending failed policies and practices ultimately don’t have time on their side, especially when activists and others continually challenge them at all levels.
As always, there are a number of books that are also deserving of praise, but didn’t make the Top Eight cut this year. This Next Six includes Tilting at Windmills, Richard Lee Colvin’s profile of former San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin’s struggle to overhaul the Southern California district; Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen’s history on the development — and battles between factions within — the modern American evangelical movement; The One World Schoolhouse, education innovator Sal Khan’s tome on the development of his flipped classroom approach to teaching; I Am Malala, the autobiography on the teenage activist’s battle against Islamicists in Pakistan opposed to providing teaching and curricula to young women; Margaret Thatcher—The Authorised Biography, Volume I by Charles Moore; and Brad Stone’s The Everything Store, which details how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revolutionized online retail and (to use a supermarket phrase) so much more.