Customer Reviews

Common Sense School Reform

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This book makes a number of good points about the basic problems of public education in America today. It is easy for school reformers to get distracted from what they have influence over. Many school reformers point to factors outside their control, "education will get better with better nutrition, or better families, etc..." Frederick Hess says this approach lets teachers and administrators off the hook.

Frederick Hess talks about some specifics of the problems with education in public schools, for example: teachers are hired with very little attention to merit, or principals can't deny pay raises to ineffective teachers.

In talking about reform Frederick Hess makes the distinction between two types of school reformers. First are those who want cosmetic reform, without changing anything fundamental. He calls this "status quo" reformers, for they want to preserve the status quo. The second type of reformer he calls the "common sense" reformers, those who recognize that to truly fix public education we need to make major changes.

According to Frederick, who I agree with, two major components of the needed change have to deal with: 1) accountability, 2) flexibility. He spend a lot of time talking about why we need to have both.

The book is good; there is a lot of insight into the problems with education in America. For anyone interested in learning about the problems of public educations, and way to help make things better, this is a good book to read.

As a teacher, I have often been frustrated by structural impediments that force some students to contend with subpar instruction. Although I don't know if all of Dr. Hess's suggestions will improve this situation in a timely fashion, I am heartened to know that there are people out there thinking outside the box and offering different answers. The problems we encounter cannot be chalked up to lack of funding or parental support. It is time to move beyond those excuses and consider options like those offered in this book to improve our school systems today even without the ideal conditions we would like.

It's amazing that the dichotomy Frederick Hess offers in his book between those who can truly help our public schools serve children better and those who are too self-interested to take such steps has never been clearly elucidated before. He underscores the simple first steps that can be taken to school improvement and I would love see some of his suggestions implemented. Hess's insights would be a cost-effective means of providing the quality schooling our nation needs to ensure our children can be competitive in a global marketplace.

Early in the book, Hess sets forth his two main "common sense" ideas for reforming schools: Flexibility and Accountability. Addressing the latter, he states, "Centuries of experience in fields from architecture to zoology tell us that people work harder, smarter, and more efficiently when they are rewarded for doing so; that people do their best work when goals are clear and they know how they'll be evaluated [...]" The only problem with this statement is that it's completely and utterly untrue. He fails to provide any specific examples to support this baseless claim, probably because no such studies exist. That rewards and threats are effective is a widely-held incorrect view on human behavior, but that doesn't make it true. Research and logic has proven overwise, overwhelmingly and beyond any reasonable doubt (see Kohn's "Punished by Rewards"). The rest of this book is based on this untrue assertion.

Let us not forget that Hess works for conservative think tank AEI and he is an advocate for dissolving unions and infusing public schooling with business principals. It's not wonder that he takes blatant falsehoods and presents them as "common sense" to support his agenda.

This rubbish is exactly what is killing public education. That several state and city chancellor's offered praise for this book is something to be feared (well, only if you care about children).