Will Standards Save Public Education? Paperback by Deborah Meier

Product Details

• Publisher: Beacon Press (2000-04-24)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 106 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780807004418
• Item Weight: 122.47 grams
• Dimensions: 20.32 x 13.97 x 0.76 cm

Somewhere. . . there is a place of sanity where education is intense and substantive. . . . It's in that place that Deborah Meier has been working all these years. Her voice conveys a life of struggle in the front lines-victories and losses, hopes and disappointments. . . . It's a voice our nation needs to hear. --Jonathan Kozol, from the Foreword

Acclaimed educator Deborah Meier offers a fresh take on standardized tests. While others have criticized standards and what they measure, Meier rejects the very idea of a centralized authority that dictates how and what teachers teach. Standardization, she argues, prevents citizens-including teachers-from emerging as thoughtful, responsible adults, seriously engaged with shaping their own schools, classrooms, and communities. As a result, young people can't learn from them how to be thoughtful, responsible adults and good citizens, the primary goal of public education in a democracy.

The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns.

"A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky

About the Author

Deborah Meier is the author of The Power of Their Ideas. She is principal of the Mission Hill School in Boston, Massachusetts.