The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Multicultural Education) |  | Author: Linda Darling-Hammond
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 1,329
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0807749621
Dewey Decimal Number: 379.260973
EAN: 9780807749623
ASIN: 0807749621
Publication Date: January 15, 2010
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Product Description
The Flat World and Education offers an eye-opening wake-up call concerning America's future and vividly illustrates what the United States needs to do to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.
''We are so fortunate that Linda Darling-Hammond has provided this road map for educational excellence for all children in today's flat world. She thoughtfully emphasizes the basic strengths that we need in these changing times and then outlines what our schools must do to respond to 21st-century learning needs. Linda is one of the education researchers whom I most respect. 'All children' must mean all children and this book shows us how to do it.''
-Richard W. Riley, Former U. S. Secretary of Education
''When Linda Darling-Hammond speaks, America's teachers listen! I listened and learned from her as we together led the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and created the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Excellent schools are the key to America's economic future, and superb teaching is the key to great schools. This book makes clear as a bell how to organize schools for successful teaching and what state and national policies are required to support it.''
-James B. Hunt, Former Governor of North Carolina and President of the Hunt Institute
''Her arguments are sound, rooted in evidence, and unencumbered by the kinds of ideological partisanship that characterizes too much of current educational debates. After reading this book, one will understand why it was that Barack Obama, when seeking advice from the sharpest minds in education, turned to Dr. Linda Darling Hammond.''
-Pedro A. Noguera, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University
''Once again Darling-Hammond brings clarity to complexity, thoughtful analysis to politically charged issues, and sound policy recommendations to the hysteria of what to do to save America s public schools. In this volume the macro meets the micro on terms that lets all democratically-minded citizens breathe a sigh of relief.''
-Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin Madison
''Anyone who desires a quantum leap in the educational achievements of American students-as opposed to the 'quick fix'-must address the issues raised in this carefully argued and well documented work.''
-Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education
''Linda Darling-Hammond has written the definitive description of the problems that drag down the quality and equity of our educational system. Writing with passion, solid scholarship, and compassion, she presents a vision of the changes that are necessary to build a better education system and a brighter future for all our children and our nation.''
-Diane Ravitch, New York University
''Linda Darling-Hammond's latest is a profoundly important book. She provides both a powerful rationale and a clear, detailed roadmap for how public education must be transformed to meet the challenges of teaching, learning, and assessment in the 21st century. It is a must-read read for educators, policymakers, and others concerned about the future of our country in a 'flat' world.''
-Tony Wagner, co-director, Harvard Change Leadership Group
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 What we Americans can do for our education system(s) February 15, 2010
Stephen Armstrong (Hadley, Ma USA)
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
This is Linda Darling-Hammond's magnum opus, and it is a magnum opus--complex, thorough, well-written, complete, and thoughtful. Her thesis is that until we in the U.S. do the following, our country will produce hollowed-out children who cannot compete in the global economy: (1) Make a serious, long-term commitment to educational equity by funding all districts equally; (2) Use "thinking curricula" that require students to work together on projects of intellectual import, rather than on meaningless "seatwork"; (3) Professionalize the teaching profession by increasing its status, pay, training, professional development, and requirements for entry, especially in the sciences, mathematics, foreign languages, and so forth; (4) Use a 15- to 20-year timeline for improvement; (5) Stop the yo-yo curriculum innovations that swing U.S. curricula all over the block in unproductive "innovational" oscillations; (6) Stop punitive de-funding or punitive control of "failing schools" through Annual Yearly Progress reports, which have the unintended consequence of over-valuing the results of standardized testing.
Darling-Hammond gives both positive and negative examples of educational innovation. On the positive side in the globe: Singapore, South Korea, and Finland. In the U.S. Connecticut, North Carolina. These are extremely well-written case studies of how to improve education well. On the negative side: The U.S. as a whole, and California in particular, which gutted the #1 public school system in the world over the last 30 years.
In regard to educational equity, Darling-Hammond is particularly passionate, especially since the poor districts are also the immigrant districts are also the most-needy districts and the least well-funded districts. Such disparities in Massachsetts, for example (not mentioned in her book): Newton, MA, just built a $170 million high school; Chelsea, MA, twenty miles away, is bankrupt. Guess where the poor immigrant groups live.
I finished the book by wanting to ask Darling-Hammond questions. For instance, if we created a national action plan to improve education in the U.S., how long would she want it to run, and how much would it cost? What would she do about the multi-tiered political offices that control local education (federal, state, and local)? What would be her #1 curriculum priorities? Would she dispose of useless courses? How would she handle the problems of parent rage and disrespect of teachers? What would be the impact of her reforms on special education and bilingual education, which have poor track records for re-integration or fast integration of students into the overall curriculum?
On my part, I have suspicions about both special education and bilingual education that lasts for six or seven years. Also, Darling-Hammond does not mention that U.S. students study about 50% as much as students in well-functioning countries such as India and China. This lets our students off the hook of improving themselves (see the movie, 2 Million Minutes, which is the amount of time students in the U.S., China, and India spend in high school).
Nevertheless, her overarching conclusion is valid: until and unless we build an equitable, well-funded, comprehensive, across-the-board reformed educational system, U.S. children will never be able to compete in the world economy. That's the nice way of saying our children will come out dumb.
The measure of a good book: one wants to continue the dialogue. Nicely done, Dr. Darling- Hammond!
Any education or social issues library needs this May 17, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Flat World and Education: How's America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future provides a fine wake-up call to America's educational system, surveying the need to create high-achieving, equitable schools for all. From connections between resources and outcomes to common practices of improving countries, The Flat World and Education assumes a rare global stance in examining how educational systems are affected by economics. Any education or social issues library needs this.
America's Schools and the World's May 10, 2010
A. Prentice (Hudson Valley, NY)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I found this book compelling for its subject matter and readable because of its clear well-written prose. Darling-Hammond has a broad subject here, especially when she looks at the current sate of education in countries around the world and in our own, but she always has great control of her material and most importantly of her research. Her evidence is clear and comprehensible, and the conclusions are not all very flattering to the U.S. system. She does help us see, though, how we got here and how we might move to a better, fairer place. The best book I have read on education in some time; highly recommended.
The Flat World made Whole April 17, 2010
Daniel R. Moirao (Danville, CA)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Once again, Linda Darling Hammond has written a book that insights thought and evokes true commitment to movement. The Flat World and Education is a must for each and every educator. Anyone committed to the development of our profession must read this book.
 just for school July 4, 2010
Bethann A Henry (Brooklyn, NY)
This was one of the books we had to purchase for a grad class in education. It is very informative and good to reference back to as future educators.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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