Award-winning author, public intellectual, and former Assistant Secretary of Education, critiques a lifetime's worth of school reforms and reveals the simple, yet difficult, truth about how we can create actual change in public schools. A passionate plea to preserve and renew public education, this work is a radical change of heart from one of America's best known education experts. The author, a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum, examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, she critiques today's most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, she makes the case that public education today is in peril. She includes clear prescriptions for improving America's schools: leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen ; devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning ; expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools ; pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not "merit pay" based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores ; and, encourage family involvement in education from an early age. This book is an analysis of the state of play of the American education system.

What I learned about school reform -- Hijacked!: how the standards movement turned into the testing movement -- The transformation of district 2 -- Lessons from San Diego -- The business model in New York City -- NCLB: measure and punish -- Choice: the story of an idea -- The trouble with accountability -- What would Mrs. Ratliff do? -- The billionaire boys' club -- Lessons learned.