From the Back Cover
Common Sense School Reform delivers exactly what it promises: a no-holds-barred, sensible approach to school reform, stripped bare of the utopian rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises that so many school reformers prefer. School leaders should read this book!--Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police and Research Professor, New York University
This is a refreshingly direct and stimulating look at competing visions of educational reform and a passionate argument for radical change. Informed by Hess' experience as a teacher, teacher educator, and scholar, this book will help crystallize key disputes while it unapologetically calls some questionable assumptions out into the open for debate.--Andrew J. Rotherham, Director, 21st Century Schools Project, Progressive Policy Institute
In this book, Rick Hess performs a valuable public service. His analysis of school reform is both thoughtful and provocative. His ideas on how to improve schools are welcome relief from the romantics and ideologues who dominate the national education debate.--Tom Loveless, Senior Fellow and Director, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution
Rick Hess has brought a rare intellectual gift to the subject of school reform: plain common sense. He knows American education, he knows how effective organizations work, and that knowledge has shaped a radical vision of the fundamental structural change that real school improvement demands.
Common Sense School Reform is a gem. It should become a handbook for all who are seriously committed to educating America's children.--Abigail Thernstrom, co-author,
No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning With an insider's knowledge, and an outsider's vantage point, Hess questions old assumptions and prods the conventional wisdom on school reform. His arguments for radical change may leave some feeling uncomfortable, but you needn't agree with all of his characterizations to find his provocative observations an important contribution to the dialogue on public school improvement.--Kim Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund
Common Sense School Reform prescribes with unblinking realism what must happen for public education to give children the education they need instead of adults the employment they want. Hess details deftly how our public schools can succeed by embracing accountability, incentives, flexibility and competition. This is a book no one concerned with American education should miss. Absent common sense reforms, public education as we know it today is bound to disappear.--Alan D. Bersin, Superintendent of Public Education, San Diego City Schools
Few will agree with everything that Frederick Hess asserts in this book. Many, like I, will think he is too hard on what he calls 'status quo reformers.' Nonetheless, the burden of proof is now shifted to those who would disagree with his main point: that widespread improvement in U.S. schools will remain a pipedream without painful adjustments. An important contribution that will challenge school reformers.--Ronald F. Ferguson, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Frederick M. Hess is Director of Educational Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Executive Editor of Education Next. He is known for his scholarship on educational issues including: the politics of school reform, urban education, district governance, accountability, professional licensure, school choice, and the nature of public education. He is the author of books including Common Sense School Reform, Revolution at the Margins, Spinning Wheels, and Bringing the Social Sciences Alive and the editor of volumes including School Choice in the Real World and A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom. His work has been published in scholarly forums including Phi Delta Kappan, Urban Affairs Review, Educational Policy, Teachers College Record, and Social Science Quarterly; general education publications including Educational Leadership, Education Week, and American School Board Journal; and more popular outlets such as Policy Review and Weekly Standard. Dr. Hess currently serves on the Review Board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, as a research associate with the Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance, and as a member of the research advisory board for the National Center on Educational Accountability. Dr. Hess is a former high school social studies teacher in Louisiana and professor of education at the University of Virginia. He earned his M.Ed. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Harvard University Department of Government.
