The Same Thing Over and Over
How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday's Ideas

  • Title:

    The Same Thing Over and Over
  • Hardcover Price:

    27.95
  • Hardcover ISBN:

    9780674055827
  • Hardcover Dimensions:

    5.5" x 8.25"
  • 304 Hardcover pages

Click here to purchase this book on Amazon

In this genial and challenging overview of the endless debates over school reform, Frederick M. Hess shows that even bitter opponents who argue about how to improve schools agree on much more than they realize when it comes to the need for radically overhauling our schools. Failing to recognize that measures like merit pay and mayoral control are far too modest in their aims, today’s reformers get caught up in overwrought rhetoric and distracted by ineffectual tinkering.

Arguing that a fundamentally nineteenth-century system isn't capable of fulfilling our twenty first-century ambitions, Hess suggests that uniformity gets in the way of quality and a taste for ready-made "fixes" stifles necessary problem solving. He calls for a much wider variety of schooling options to better meet student needs and cultivate the different kinds of talents required in a vastly more complex and demanding society. Slashing through the tangled thickets of dogma on the left and right, he explains how we can clear the ground for transformation of the American school system.

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at AEI.

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About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess
  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies K-12 and higher education issues. His books include "Cage-Busting Leadership," "The Same Thing Over and Over," "Education Unbound," "Common Sense School Reform," "Revolution at the Margins," and "Spinning Wheels." He is also the author of the popular Education Week blog, "Rick Hess Straight Up." Hess's work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, school costs and productivity, the impact of education research, and No Child Left Behind.  Hess serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, and on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government, as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum, from Harvard University.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
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    Name: Max Eden
    Phone: 202-862-5933
    Email: max.eden@aei.org

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Monday, July 29, 2013 | 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Squaring the circle: General Raymond T. Odierno on American military strategy in a time of declining resources

AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies will host General Raymond Odierno, chief of staff of the US Army, for the second installment of a series of four events with each member of the Joint Chiefs.

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International conference on collateral risk: Moderating housing cycles and their systemic impact

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