Why Our Education System Is Failing and What We Can Do About It

Ronald Wolk, founder and longtime editor of Education Week, and creator of Quality Counts, presents a sobering message in this new book. As the title suggests, Wolk outlines why twenty years of American education reform have yielded no positive changes, hitting hard against standards-based learning, the fetish with highly-effective teachers, our obsession with testing, and more. Wolk proposes a second, parallel strategy—one he believes will upend the status quo and challenge traditional notions of the role and capacity of the education system. Specifically, he wants more individualized and experiential instruction, school choice, and alternative teacher preparation. “I find it hard to imagine that a new strategy would be any riskier or less effective than the system we have now,” Wolk writes. “Why should new ideas bear the burden of proof when the existing system is allowed to continue essentially unchanged even though it is largely failing?”  Wolk’s turnabout may not be as dramatic as Diane Ravitch’s, but it’s a significant shift all the same: from a top-down standards-based reformer to a libertarian grass-roots choice advocate. Read the book and enjoy the ride.