258 pages Palgrave Macmillan Publication Date: April 2004 Hardcover ISBN: 1403963533

View the summary and press release.

Education reform is among the most important and contentious issues facing the nation and local communities today. In Common Sense School Reform, leading education analyst Frederick M. Hess takes on conventional wisdom and presents a comprehensive and coherent approach to the challenge of improving our schools. He argues five integrated principles are needed:

Increased accountability of students, teachers, and administrators More choice and flexibility  Greater openness in teacher recruitment Better training of administrators in management and leadership Enhanced use of technology to enable students, teachers, and management

Hess applies lessons from successful organizations to the educational sector and argues that educators, like everyone else, are more effective when performance is evaluated, success is rewarded, and ineffective workers are sanctioned. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.

"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

Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar at AEI.