Books

Displaying 1-10 of 10 results
Book
5.10.2022
Accountability & Testing

Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

How do we see whether achievement gaps between groups of students are widening or narrowing? How can we tell whether eighth graders in Missouri do better or worse in math than their peers in Michigan and Maine? We wouldn’t know these things or much else about K–12 achievement in America without a little-known but vital test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. “NAEP” or the “Nation’s Report Card.” Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP, authored by veteran education participant/analyst Chester E. Finn, Jr., examines the history of NAEP, the issues and challenges that it faces today, and ways to strengthen and modernize it for the future.

Book
8.7.2020
School Finance, Governance

Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck

Brandon L. Wright

We spend too much time talking about how much to spend on schools but not enough on how those dollars are spent. Covid-19 has made this situation worse, as schools confront massive, looming budget shortfalls and the challenges of remote learning and public health. That’s on top of familiar issues like pensions, special education, technology, and all the rest. This book offers a workable path through this maze.

Book
2.24.2020
Governance

How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools

Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Featuring essays by twenty leading conservative thinkers, and anchored in tradition yet looking towards tomorrow, this book should be read by anyone concerned with teaching future generations to preserve the country’s heritage, embody its universal ethic, and pursue its founding ideals.

Book
9.17.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education

Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew Scanlan

Termed by the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews “the most comprehensive book on Advanced Placement, the most powerful educational tool in the country,” this book traces AP’s history from its mid-twentieth-century origins as a niche benefit for privileged students to its contemporary role as a vital springboard to college for high school students nationwide, including hundreds of thousands of poor and minority youngsters. It's a must-read for anyone with a stake in American K–12 education.

Book
10.25.2016
Charter Schools

Charter Schools at the Crossroads: Predicaments, Paradoxes, Possibilities

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Bruno V. Manno, Brandon L. Wright

Over the past quarter-century, charter schools have gone from an upstart education experiment to a prominent, promising, and disruptive innovation in K–12 education. Indeed, few observers present at the creation of the first charter schools could have predicted how rapidly this movement would spread or how thoroughly it would come to dominate the education-reform agenda.

Book
3.15.2016
Governance

Education for Upward Mobility

Michael J. Petrilli

In Education for Upward Mobility, editor Michael J. Petrilli and more than a dozen leading scholars and policy analysts seek answers to a fundamental question: How can we help children born into poverty transcend their disadvantages and enter the middle class as adults? And in particular, what role can our schools play? 

Book
9.28.2012
Curriculum & Instruction

The Diverse Schools Dilemma

Michael J. Petrilli

Lots of parents favor sending their sons and daughters to diverse schools with children from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. But can such schools successfully meet the educational needs of all those different kids? How do middle class children fare in these environments? Is there enough challenge and stimulation in schools that also struggle to help poor and immigrant children reach basic standards? Is there too much focus on test scores? And why is it so hard to find diverse public schools with a progressive, child-centered approach to education? These quandaries and more are addressed in this groundbreaking book by Michael J. Petrilli.