This book explores a wide range of critical areas in education, examines the basic nature of our education problems, provides a clear understanding of underperformance, and proposes reasonable and effective strategies for success.

For more information or to place an order, please visit the Hoover Institution Press website at http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=945.

To read the book online in PDF format, click on the links below. This publication is copyright © 2001 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

• Acknowledgments (0817928723_xi.pdf ~330 KB)
• Introduction (0817928723_xiii.pdf ~345 KB)
• School Reforms Hinder Learning, Crusader Argues (0817928723_3.pdf ~369 KB)
• A Unique School or Out of Step? (0817928723_8.pdf ~370 KB)
• Opposing Approaches So Johnny Can Read: Finding the Answers in Drills and Rigor (0817928723_14.pdf ~365 KB)
• The Schools They Deserve: Howard Gardner and the Remaking of Elite Education (0817928723_17.pdf ~412 KB)
• Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism in Elementary and Secondary Schools (0817928723_48.pdf ~421 KB)
• Should Schools Be Wired to the Internet?: No—Learn First, Surf Later (0817928723_66.pdf ~351 KB)
• The Learning Revolution (0817928723_68.pdf ~394 KB)
• Effective Education Squelched (0817928723_82.pdf ~349 KB)
• The Concept of Grouping in Gifted Education: In Search of Reality—Unraveling the Myths about Tracking, Ability Grouping, and the Gifted (0817928723_85.pdf ~385 KB)
• Ready, Read! (0817928723_96.pdf ~408 KB)
• Failure Outside the Classroom (0817928723_117.pdf ~351 KB)
• Student Customers Being Sold a Bad Product (0817928723_130.pdf ~344 KB)
• Why Johnny Can’t Fail: How the “Floating Standard” Has Destroyed Public Education (0817928723_132.pdf ~373 KB)
• The Parent Trap (0817928723_143.pdf ~371 KB)
• Who Teaches the Teachers? (0817928723_151.pdf ~367 KB)
• Why Johnny’s Teacher Can’t Teach (0817928723_157.pdf ~414 KB)
• The Truth About Teacher Salaries and Student Achievement (0817928723_174.pdf ~351 KB)
• Why It’s Too Hard to Fire Bad Teachers (0817928723_176.pdf ~368 KB)
• How Teachers’ Unions Handcuff Schools (0817928723_182.pdf ~402 KB)
• Put Teachers to the Test (0817928723_202.pdf ~675 KB)
• Top-Notch Teachers Are Key to Better Schools (0817928723_205.pdf ~350 KB)
• School Unions Shortchange Students (0817928723_207.pdf ~357 KB)
• A Taboo Erodes (0817928723_213.pdf ~360 KB)
• Loco, Completamente Loco: The Many Failures of “Bilingual Education” (0817928723_217.pdf ~428 KB)
• Defining Disability Down: Why Johnny Can’t Read, Write, or Sit Still (0817928723_239.pdf ~403 KB)
• Why Ritalin Rules (0817928723_255.pdf ~413 KB)
• The Scandal of Special Ed (0817928723_272.pdf ~382 KB)
• Developing and Implementing Academic Standards: A Template for Legislative Reform (0817928723_285.pdf ~349 KB)
• The War Against Testing (0817928723_288.pdf ~366 KB)
• Making America’s Schools Work (0817928723_297.pdf ~374 KB)
• Half of Choice Schools Spend Less than State Allots (0817928723_305.pdf ~350 KB)
• Money and School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiments (0817928723_308.pdf ~445 KB)
• Public Schools: Make Them Private (0817928723_339.pdf ~361 KB)
• Fighting for School Choice: It’s a Civil Right (0817928723_350.pdf ~353 KB)
• Whittling Away the Public School Monopoly (0817928723_353.pdf ~358 KB)
• A Private Solution (0817928723_356.pdf ~360 KB)
• Class Acts: How Charter Schools Are Revamping Public Education in Arizona—and Beyond (0817928723_362.pdf ~392 KB)
• Healthy Competition (0817928723_373.pdf ~375 KB)
• The Elixir of Class Size (0817928723_381.pdf ~367 KB)
• Where Everybody Knows Your Name (0817928723_385.pdf ~365 KB)
• Title I’s $118 Billion Fails to Close Gap (0817928723_390.pdf ~367 KB)
• Special Ed: Factory-like Schooling May Soon Be a Thing of the Past (0817928723_398.pdf ~387 KB)
• “Doing Something” in a Catholic School (0817928723_409.pdf ~363 KB)
• Index (0817928723_413.pdf ~394 KB)
• Permissions (0817928723_431.pdf ~363 KB)