State of the Nations Public Schools: A Conference Report - Softcover

Libraries that serve significant numbers of public school teachers and administrators--or parents and involved community leaders--may need this volume, which reflects a February 1993 conference in Washington, D.C. cosponsored by the publisher (a professional fraternity for educators), the Institute for Educational Leadership, and the Educational Excellence Network, supported by the EXXON Education Foundation. Advance assessments of the state of American public education by academics such as Nathan Glazer and David C. Berliner and practitioners including NEA's Keith Geiger, AFT's Albert Shanker, and the heads of school systems in North Carolina, Ohio, Delaware, and Massachusetts are followed by summaries by editor Elam of major addresses, discussion sessions, and general areas of agreement and disagreement as the conference closed. All the usual suspects appear to have attended this conference, and the standard panaceas are pulled together in an epilogue titled "Principal Conference Themes." This is the conventional wisdom about the public schools today; people who care about kids would be well-advised to understand these generalizations and their impact on public policy. Mary Carroll