Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 200
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-4758-0993-0 • Hardback • October 2014 • $81.00 • (£62.00)
978-1-4758-0994-7 • Paperback • October 2014 • $42.00 • (£32.00)
978-1-4758-0995-4 • eBook • October 2014 • $39.50 • (£30.00)
Eric Kalenze has fifteen-plus years of experience in education, including teaching, coaching/advising, administration, and developing content and curriculum in the private sector. He lives in Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro with his wife, two daughters, and one Puggle.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Of Mismatches and Missions
Chapter 2
How To Use a Funnel
Chapter 3
The Funnel Tips: A Brief Annotated History
Chapter 4
A Meaningless Engagement
Chapter 5
Building Skyscrapers on Sand
Chapter 6
How (Schools Should Help) Children Succeed
Chapter 7
What Gets Measured Gets Done (…but won’t necessarily change anything)
Chapter 8
Outside the Box, But Standing Still
Chapter 9
Too Scattered to Matter
Chapter 10
Righting the Funnel: Issues to Solve, Actions to Take
Chapter 11
Funnel of the Future: An Audacious Ideal Model and What to Do Locally, Starting Today
Chapter 12
An Awesome Responsibility
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
Eric Kalenze's book is a valuable contribution to the education reform conversation. He argues persuasively that America's public schools need to get back to their fundamental mission of preparing young people for success in society as it is--not for some utopian future in which self-actualization is all that matters. Here's hoping this dose of reality permeates the "thoughtworld" of our education system.
— Michael J. Petrilli, President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Our earliest thinkers about public education saw schools as indispensable institutions, endowing America’s children with common knowledge, practical skills, civic dispositions and habits. We went to school to become Americans. Today, Eric Kalenze correctly observes, schools exist to provide the whole development of each individual child. The result is a kind of mission creep. We are doing too many things and none of them well. Current reform efforts are missing the mark badly, as did progressive education reform that preceded them. Kalenze’s wise book Education Is Upside Down describes how American education lost its way and its founding purpose—and how we might get them back.
— Robert Pondiscio, Senior Fellow, AEI
In Education Is Upside Down, Eric Kalenze offers a provocative critique of today’s reform efforts. He argues that real transformation will require rethinking the larger purposes of education—that anything less will disappoint. This intriguing volume touches on educational philosophy, history, and some of the highlights of contemporary reform, while closing with a bracing call that we ask students themselves to share in the accountability we ask of educators.
— Frederick Hess, author of Letters to a Young Education Reformer; director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
In this broad survey of education in America today, Eric Kalenze offers a refreshing diagnosis of what is wrong, why and when it happened, and what to do. He is equally adept at tracing the genesis of bad ideas 100 years back as he is at analyzing the heated debate over Common Core. The arguments are brisk, the prose limpid--an excellent primer for young educators looking to understand current conditions.
— Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future