Which five books on educational reform should I read?

Hi Eyal,

Thanks for sharing. I remember reading SPARK years ago, and really, it's about problem-based learning where students seeks solutions to problems. It was probably the first pedagogical reading I did that really illustrated backwards lesson planning explicitly (I think the author called it PTR, purposes, target, results).

Though you recommend reading texts that focus more on leadership, your last recommend is definitely all about practical application and the classroom.

Thanks again for sharing!
Rebecca
Edutopia

Great question and great suggestions so far.

My two favorites are Tinkering Towards Utopia and Daniel Quinn's My Ishmael. Both give a unique view into our history of reform and what has worked and why others haven't.

Trust me best books you'll read about this topic in my humble opinion.

I'd suggest: A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change

I'm on the way through it, but it has some authoritative reviews.
Thanks

Intriguing suggestions- thank to you both for sharing! I'm particularly interested in your book, Roberto. Might your experiences teaching in Switzerland inspired you to read this book? What might be some effective educational strategies and structures in place in Swiss schools? Please share more.

Thank you!
Rebecca
Edutopia

The above books are interesting, but an industry as critical as schooling that has failed to advance for decades is suffering some serious underlying problems that are chronically misdiagnosed. What if the problem is that no central authority:
- knows what the future will be
- has a monopoly on the definition of "educated"
- knows my unique child -- her strengths, weaknesses, passions, abilities, learning styles, personality
- knows my unique family -- our values, our goals, our preferences
- knows the innovations that are possible if educators are freed

What if we need to encourage a wide range of new types of schools that will match differently the diverse, unique children whom we seek to school?

Here are my favorite books:

Separating School and State: How to Liberate American Families by Sheldon Richman
If you are going to read just one book.... This is the single best discussion of the underling systemic, theoretical, and moral problems of government (versus parent) purchasing of public schooling. My organization is awakening parents to their rights and responsibility to guide their child's education. Richman speaks directly to the powers that are arrayed against the parent (and ultimately against the child.) I especially appreciate his much shortened history of how the heck we got here -- saves hundreds of pages of Gatto!

Education Myths by Jay Greene
An industry this critical doesn't drift in mediocrity for decades unless almost everyone is suffering under some major myths. Solving the problems suggested by myths is guaranteed to fail, and thus our half century of failure! Green does a great job of overviewing major myths that hold back real success. As an experimental designer and statistician, I especially like his explanation to the lay person about consuming education research; education research is some of the worse I've seen in any industry, and its consumption, understanding, and utilization is even worse.

School Choice: The Findings by Herbert Walberg
Great overview of the results of various school choice experiments. Takes things out of the realm of one organization's spin of one experiment and instead provides a meta analysis across a large number of experiments.

Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education by Joe Williams
Unfortunately we know that there are some major power and economic interests that prevent education entrepreneurs from offering major innovations, and from parents being able to better match their child. This book looks primarily at the influence of greed on our politicians and on suppliers.

#5) UnFound Book
However, I think that we need something to also look at the narcissistic hubris of our major actors like Ravitch, like the Chiefs of the Depts of Ed, like our Presidential candidates, or like our local school board, who actually believe that *they* can extrapolate from their little, finite lives to define the one right educational outcome for 60M children, the one right school for 4.5M teachers to provide their services, the one right values for 25M families, especially in the face of an unknowable future. That book, about the human failing of arrogance in schooling, a characteristic that cause so much poverty and stunted futures, would be my fifth choice. Maybe we'll find it in psychology or epistemology, but it's not yet in the Education section of the bookstore.

Dennis Pratt
ParentsDecide.Com
TeachersProvide.Com

I am happy to share my current experience. The situation in Switzerland in quite different across the country.
Each Canton has a certain freedom to structure its own plan for the schools.
But anyway, the central government decides how to establish the final examinations.

So you have to fulfill standard examinations.
One effective educational istitution i know is placed near Geneva: it's the OakHill Foundation, http://www.oakhill.ch/

To sum up, schools in CH are facing very similar problems as all over the so-called western countries.

The above title was put out by Education Week. Whether you agree with the current administration's goals and opinions on education reform or not, I thought this was a great insight into the issues that the Obama administration is trying to address and the hows and whys of their approach to answering the tough questions about what reform should look like.

Thanks for sharing, Kimberly. I've had a chance to read through this book and find it gives a balanced look at education reform today. Education Week should be commended. I tend to value and respect what they publish.

Anyone else in the community have a comment or insight about "The Obama Education Plan: An Education Week Guide" you would like to share with us? Thanks in advance!

Rebecca
Edutopia

I would recommend:
Brave New Schools,(Challenging Cultural Illiteracy) Jim Cummins & Dennis Sayers

1. Mike Schmoker, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning - less is more.
2. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, ed., Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World
The best book I have read on 21st C. Teaching and Learning
3. Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College - The science of the art of teaching
4. In my field, Heidi Roupp, ed. Teaching World History in the 21st Century: A Resource Book - just great lessons almost all that would be home in the 20th C.

5 + 6. 2 On my to read list - a) Paul Bambrick Santoyo, A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction - because the district has chosen it for some pd offerings and John Hattie, Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement - because it is cited everywhere in new publications.