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How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education

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This is a collection of numerous articles in recent years by Labaree, on topics ranging from schools of education to the history of public schools. Since most come from scholarly journals, the language is dry to those of us who are non-academics. Many of his points though are good and his discussion on the purpose of education is an interesting thread that runs throughout the book. Best of all, the book is an objective look, from someone more concerned with educational programs that work than with any particular agenda.

This is a book written by an academic for academics. In another of his books Labaree, himself, confesses that he isn't trying to write in a popular style: "One problem," he wrote, " is that I tend to write history without actors." You won't find John Holt-style polemics or engaging stories about struggling teenagers. This is Labaree working out his own ideas on how American education got the way that it is.
Hidden in here are some brilliantly insightful notions about American education, ideas that I've not seen anywhere else. Dr. Labaree believes that our education system evolved into what we have now because the people shaping it were/are the people who pay the freight: the consumers of that education. Unlike European and Asian systems, where the State funds the system, in the U.S. we allowed students to use their dollars to demand diplomas and degrees that exist as currency to buy the owner a better life--or at least a life with increased status. The result is that we have schools where students care little about the specifics of what they learn. He does a brilliant job of tracing the history of this evolution, then he shows how high schools, normal schools, junior colleges and land grant universities all fit themselves into this scheme.
This book paved the way for Labaree's later work (Someone Has to Fail) and truthfully that book--also very academic--goes further and talks more about the problems with contemporary reform movements. So this work is probably only for those who want to trace the evolution of Labaree's ideas.