The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future
The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future
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Overview
In this bestseller and Grawemeyer Award winner, Linda Darling-Hammond offers an eye-opening wake-up call concerning America’s future and vividly illustrates what the United States needs to do in order to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.
Today in the United States only 1 in 10 low-income kindergarteners goes on to graduate from college. At a time when education matters more than ever, the U.S. high school graduation rate has dropped from first in the world to the bottom half of rankings for comparable nations. While such sobering facts inform her new book, it is the successes of effective school systems in the U.S. and abroad that the author focuses on to develop a clear and coherent set of policies that can be used to create high-quality and equitable schools.
Drawing on her broad experience, Darling-Hammond examines the roots of our modern education system and how the skills required for our 21st century global economy cannot be learned in traditional education systems, which have been in place since the early 1900s. She identifies an “opportunity gap” that has evolved as new kinds of learning have become necessary — a gap where low-income students, students of color, and English language learners often do not have the same access as others to qualified teachers, high-quality curriculum, and well-resourced classrooms.
After setting the stage on current conditions in the U.S., Darling-Hammond offers a coherent approach for effective reform, focusing on creating successful systems, inducting and supporting quality teachers, designing effective schools, establishing strong professional practice, and providing equitable and sufficient resources. The Flat World and Education lays out what the United States needs to do in order to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807770627 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Teachers College Press |
| Publication date: | 04/12/2013 |
| Series: | Multicultural Education Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 868,743 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Darling-Hammond is past president of the American Educational Research Association, a two-term member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and a member of the National Academy of Education. She served on the White House Advisory Panel’s Resource Group for the National Education Goals, the National Academy’s Panel on the Future of Educational Research, the Academy’s Committee on Teacher Education, and on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Spencer Foundation, the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education, the Center for Teaching Quality, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the National Council for Educating Black Children.
She received the 2022 Yidan Prize for Education Research. She received the 2023 AERA Distinguished Public Service Award. She received the 2023 National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) Policy Leader of the Year.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword James A. Banks ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1 The Flat World, Educational Inequality, and America's Future 1
Education in Our Flat and Changing World 3
How America Is Losing Ground 8
How Policy Can Matter 18
The Legacy of Educational Inequality 23
What Must be Done? 26
2 The Anatomy of Inequality: How the Opportunity Gap Is Constructed 27
Poverty and Lack of Social Supports 31
Limited Early Learning Opportunities 33
Resegregation and Unequal Schooling 35
Unequal Access to Qualified Teachers 40
Lack of Access to High-Quality Curriculum 51
Dysfunctional Learning Environments 62
3 New Standards and Old Inequalities: How Testing Narrows and Expands the Opportunity Gap 66
The Prospects and Pitfalls of Standards-Based Reform 67
Testing Without Investing 73
When New Standards Meet Ongoing Inequalities 81
4 Inequality on Trial: Does Money Make a Difference? 99
The Legality of Unequal School Funding 103
How Money Makes a Difference 105
Litigating for Adequacy 111
Under What Conditions Can Money Matter? 120
5 A Tale of Three States: What Happens When States Invest Strategically (or Don't) 131
The Cases of Connecticut and North Carolina: Strategic Resources Used Well 132
The Case of California: When Mismanagement Meets Aggressive Neglect 146
The Moral of the Stories 161
6 Steady Work: How Countries Build Successful Systems 163
The Finnish Success Story 164
Korea's Climb to Extraordinary Attainment 173
How Singapore Became a "Learning Nation" 181
Educational Leap Frog: The Common Practices of Steeply Improving Countries 192
7 Doing What Matters Most: Developing Competent Teaching 194
A Global Contrast 197
Building an Infrastructure for Quality Teaching 206
8 Organizing for Success: From Inequality to Quality 234
The Need for Major Redesign 237
Designing Schools for Teaching and Learning 240
Creating Systems of Successful Schools 264
9 Policy for Quality and Equality: Toward Genuine School Reform 278
Meaningful Student Learning 281
Intelligent, Reciprocal Accountability 300
Equitable and Adequate Resources 309
Strong Professional Practice 313
Schools Organized for Student and Teacher Learning 324
Conclusion 327
Notes 329
References 343
Index 375
About the Author 393
What People are Saying About This
"Linda has done it again. She combines vision with hands-on policy and school understanding as virtually no one else does. This is a must." —Deborah Meier, 45 years of experience working in public schools
“We are so fortunate that Linda Darling-Hammond has provided this roadmap for educational excellence for allchildren in today's flat world.” —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 Boardfor 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 abell how to organize schools for successful teaching and what state andnational policies are required to support it.” —James B. Hunt, Former Governor of North Carolina
“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
“Once again Linda 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 let all democratically minded citizens breathe a sigh of relief.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Her arguments are sound, rooted in evidence, and unencumbered by the kinds of ideological partisanship that characterizes too much of current debates on education. After reading this book, one will understand why it was that candidate 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
"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, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System
“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’ for educators, policymakers, and others concerned about the future of our country in a ‘flat’ world.” —Tony Wagner, co-director, Harvard Change Leadership Group, author of The Global Achievement Gap