Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense— The Case against Education points the way.

Introduction : class, race, and gender in educational politics--Textual authority, culture, and the politics of literacy--Postmodernism and the discorse of educational criticism--Cultural politics, reading formations, and the role of teachers as public intellectuals--Border pedagogy in the age of postmodernism--The punishment of disciplines : cultural studies and the transformation of legitimate knowledge--Working-class displacements and postmodern representations--Conclusion : postmodernism as politics--Beyond difference as technological utopianism and cultural separatism.

"The cost of a college degree has increased by 1,125% since 1978 - four times the rate of inflation. Total student debt is $1.3 trillion. Many private universities charge tuitions ranging from $60-70,000 per year. Nearly 2/3 of all college students must borrow to study, and the average student graduates with more than $30,000 in debt. 53% of college graduates under 25 years old are unemployed or underemployed (working part-time or in low-paying jobs that do not require college degrees). Professors - remember them? - rarely teach undergraduates at many major universities. 76% of all university classes are taught by part-time, untenured faculty. In Fail U., Charles J. Sykes asks, "Is it worth it?" With chapters exploring the staggering costs of a college education, the sharp decline in tenured faculty and teaching loads, the explosion of administrator jobs, the grandiose building plans (gyms, food courts, student recreation centers), and the hysteria surrounding the "epidemic" of campus rapes, "triggers," "micro-aggressions," and other forms of alleged trauma, Fail U. concludes by offering a different vision of higher education; one that is affordable, more productive, and better-suited to meet the needs of a diverse range of students. Provocative, persuasive, clear-eyed, and even amusing, Fail U. strips the academic emperor of its clothes to reveal the American university system as it really is - and how it must change"--

"Standing on the foundations of America's promise of equal opportunity, our universities purport to "serve as engines of social mobility" and "practitioners of democracy." But as acclaimed scholar and pioneering civil rights advocate Lani Guinier argues, the merit systems that dictate the admissions practices of these institutions are functioning to select and privilege elite individuals rather than create learning communities geared to advance democratic societies. Having studied and taught at schools such as Harvard University, Yale Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Guinier has spent years examining the experiences of ethnic minorities at the nation's top institutions of higher education, and here she lays bare the practices that impede the stated missions of these schools. Guinier argues for reformation, not only of the very premises of admissions practices but of the shape of higher education itself, and she offers many examples of new collaborative initiatives that prepare students for engaged citizenship in our increasingly multicultural society"--

Cultural differences are not asserted through the specificity of dominant notions of race, gender, and class, but through a commitment to expanding dialogue and exchange across cultural lines as part of a wider attempt to deepen and develop democratic public life. This revised edition of the 1985 best-seller speaks eloquently to the need to attend to ever-present inequalities of education in the light of new political correctness, technology, and curricula.

From the president of Wesleyan University, an eloquent defense of liberal education, seen against the backdrop of its contested history in America Winner of the 2016 Frederic W. Ness Book Award sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities Contentious debates over the benefits--or drawbacks--of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism, often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student's capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America's long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. Du Bois's humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington's educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams's emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey's calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

The author of Cultural Literacy offers a powerful, compelling, and unassailable argument for reforming America's schooling methods and ideas. From kindergarten through high school, the American education is the worst in the developed world, and the causes of its failure and any possible solutions to it are hotly disputed. For over fifty years, American schools have operated on the assumption that challenging children is bad for them, teachers do not need to know the subjects they teach, that the learning "process" should be emphasised over the facts taught within it. Yet, as renowned educator and author E. D. Hirsch shows in The Schools We Need, this establishment ideology is a tragedy of good intentions gone awry. Hirsch argues that in eschewing content-based curricula for abstract--and disproved--theories of congnitive development, the educational establishment has done irreparable harm to America's students, and instead of preparing them for the country's highly competitive, information-based economy, the process-oriented curricula the establishment practices has severely curtailed their ability, and desire, to learn. Suggesting a curriculum based on hard work, knowledge aquisition, and rigorous testing that has been proven successful time after time, The Schools We Need offers a proficient and workable solution. By providing evidence of numerous studies proving that fact-based education works, and a glossary of brief, authoritative explanations of educational phrases often used to dazzle teachers and the general public, Hirsch proves that if children are taught substantial knowledge and skills, and learn to work hard to acquire them, their test scores will rise, their love of learning will grow, and they will become enthusiastic participants in the information-age civilization. The Schools We Need is a passionate and thoughtful book that will appeal to the millions of people who can't understand why American schools just don't work.

From kindergarten through high school, our public educational system is among the worst in the developed world. For over fifty years, the assumption that challenging children academically is unnatural for them, that teachers do not need to know the subjects they teach, that the learning "process" should by emphasized over the facts taught has prevailed. all this is tragically wrong. As renowned educator and author E.D. Hirsch, Jr., argues in The Schools We Need, in disdaining content-based curricula for abstract - and discredited - theories of how a child learns, the ideas uniformly taught by our schools have done terrible harm to America's students. Instead of preparing our children for the highly competitive, information-based economy in which we now live, our school practices have severely curtailed their ability, and desire, to learn. There is a solution. Mainstream research has shown that if children - all children, not just the privileged - are taught in ways that emphasize hard work, the learning of facts, and rigorous testing, their enthusiasm for school will grow, their test scores will rise, and they will become successful citizens in the information-age civilization.

A dazzling intellectual treatise on the promise of American culture, education, and democracy by dynamic Renaissance man Leon Botstein, called "an intellectual Bo Jackson" by "The New York Times". Claiming America is stronger than ever, Botstein takes on the cultural pessimists he believes are harming our youth and damaging our democracy.

"A challenge to narrow, profit-driven conceptions of school success and an argument for protecting public education to ensure that all students become competent citizens in a vibrant democracy MacArthur award-winning educator, reformer, and author Deborah Meier draws on her fifty-plus years of experience in education to argue that the purpose of universal education is to provide young people with an "apprenticeship for citizenship in a democracy." Through an intergenerational exchange with her former colleague and fellow educator Emily Gasoi, the coauthors share their experiences working in democratically governed schools and analyze the last several decades of education reform. Reflecting on the trajectory of education and social policies that are leading our country further from rule "of, for, and by the people," the authors apply their extensive knowledge and years of research to address the question of how public education must change in order to counter the erosion of democratic spirit and practice in schools and in the nation as a whole"--

In this provocative book, influential scholar E.D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform - over-testing, teacher blaming, preschool fadeout, and the persistence of achievement gaps over time. In each case, he shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Drawing on recent findings in neuroscience and new data from France, he provides new evidence for the argument that a coherent, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children's life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds.

From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy , a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our children "Ought to be read by anyone interested in the education and training of the next generation of Americans."--Glenn C. Altschuler, Boston Globe Why, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us? In this comprehensive and thought-provoking book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a masterful analysis of how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why . He argues that the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of "child-centered" and "how-to" learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn. The result is failing schools and widening inequality, as only children from content-rich (usually better-off) homes can take advantage of the schools' educational methods. Hirsch unabashedly confronts the education establishment, arguing that a content-based curriculum is essential to addressing social and economic inequality. A nationwide, specific, grade-by-grade curriculum established in the early school grades can help fulfill one of America's oldest and most compelling dreams: to give all children, regardless of language, religion, or origins, the opportunity to participate as equals and become competent citizens. Hirsch not only reminds us of these inspiring ideals, he offers an ambitious and specific plan for achieving them.

In this second edition of his original insightful collection of letters to the first president of the 21st century, Seymour B. Sarason details how to rethink school reform.

This book critically examines the socio-cultural role of achievement within education, arguing that the increasingly global demand for measurable standards of academic achievement is an expression of political ideology and the aggressive competitive reality of a neo-capitalist schooling system, resulting in many students feeling socially worthless.