UNSUSTAINABLE: A Strategy for Making Public Schooling More Productive, Effective, and Affordable

by Tim R. McDonald

Overview

UNSUSTAINABLE frames the problem of cost and effectiveness in America’s public schooling system, and provides a strategy to address it.

It argues something that many education professionals and policy makers have come to believe but rarely mention: That this country’s system of K-12 schooling is not sustainable and is becoming a poorer value each year that goes by.

It argues for improving the cost and effectiveness of public schooling through a strategy of innovation that targets productivity. Addressing the question how to do this, the book provides policy recommendations to the state, district, and federal levels. In a final chapter it outlines uncommon strategies for overcoming some of the most difficult political, practical, and structural roadblocks to improvement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607093640
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/16/2011
Series:	Innovations in Education
Pages:	130
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Tim R. McDonald is a fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, in the United States. He is an associate with Education|Evolving.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Part One: Public Schooling Today is Not Financially Viable
Chapter 2 Chapter 1-There is a Productivity Paradox in Public Education
Chapter 3 Chapter 2-Schools are not Designed for Performance
Part 4 Part Two: Design Matters
Chapter 5 Chapter 3-Redesigning Schools and the Public Schooling System
Chapter 6 Chapter 4-Understanding New Technologies in Education
Chapter 7 Chapter 5-Properly Applying Information Technologies in Education
Part 8 Part Three: A Strategy for Improvement
Chapter 9 Chapter 6-Make K-12 a Self-Improving System
Chapter 10 Chapter 7-Change Requires A Viable Strategy
Part 11 Part Four: Moving the Strategy Forward
Chapter 12 Chapter 8-Policy Opportunities
Chapter 13 Chapter 9-Solutions to Barriers
Chapter 14 Chapter 10-Outlook

Editorial Reviews

…Let's build models of school governance, management, and practice on a new foundation of teacher leadership. Ultimately this gives us the blueprint to restructure our system and dismantle the existing bureaucratic hierarchy.

John Wright

McDonald recognizes the central importance of innovation in the design of schools…The right policies are critical to the design of our education systems for the 21st century.

Ron Johnson

This book's…major contribution is the set of new and non-traditional policy ideas. They should get broad and serious attention.

Ted Kolderie

In these pages McDonald points to how we can get better results at costs we can afford.

Curtis Johnson

In New York we are running the kind of split screen McDonald describes in this book. It is working for innovation, and we are strengthening it.

Eric Nadelstern