BOOK SMARTS offers brief but informed discussion of books on critical issues in education.  Many writers from a variety of fields—notably business and politics—are writing books that promote ideas for educational reform. Given that the future and well-being of hundreds of thousands of children are affected by reform initiatives, BOOK SMARTS intends to help readers cut through the clutter and sort out sound proposals from a contemporary proliferation of unsubstantiated claims about educational policy and reform.  We offer not only commentary by education professionals well-versed in theory, research and practice, but also a guide to other reliable readings on relevant topics that incorporate the best of existing research.  The editors’ hope is to provide all citizens or civic minded members of the public—parents as well as policymakers—a trustworthy path through the forest of texts trying to shape public opinion.

Although each reviewer is affiliated with a university, this site is affiliated with none of them.  It is an independent effort intended as a public service.

Reviews Summer 2008

• Special Feature: An Interview with Megan Boler
  Boler, M. (Ed.) (2008). Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Aronowitz, S. (2008). Against Schooling: For An Education That Matters. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers

• Carnegie, A. (1962). (Title essay originally 1889) The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays by Andrew Carnegie. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

• Compton, Mary & Weiner, Lois (Eds.) (2008). The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Their Unions: Stories for Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

• Hursh, D. (2008). High-Stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

• Sunstein, Cass R. (2007). Republic.com 2.0. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Reviews Spring 2008

• Harrison, L. E. (2006). The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself. New York: Oxford University Press
        Review by Edward M. Olivos

• Meiners, E. R. (2007). Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons, and the Making of Public Enemies. London & NY, NY: Routledge

• Ohanian, Susan. (2008). When Childhood Collides with NCLB. Brandon, VT: Vermont Society for the Study of Education, Inc.

• Glass, Gene V. (2008) Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

• Norton, Bonny & Toohey, Kelleen (Eds.) (2004) Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

---

Reviews Winter 2007

• Linda Perlstein. (2007). Tested: One American School’s Struggle to Make the Grade.
        Review by Gerald W. Bracey

• Ball, Stephen J. (2007). Education Plc: Understanding Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education.

• Crawford, James & Krashen, Stephen. (2007). English Language Learners in American Classrooms: 101 Questions 101 Answers.

• DeBray, Elizabeth H. (2007) Politics, Ideology & Education: Federal Policy During the Clinton and Bush Administrations .

---

Email us at Book-Smarts