Respect for Teachers: The Rhetoric Gap and How Research on Schools is Laying the Ground for New Business Models in Education

For over 30 years we have been in the midst of a paradox. Following a questionable logic that sees education as a means to economic ends, efforts to reform education have focused on keeping the US from slipping in international economic competition. Relying on testing as a standard, in the end we may have decreased our human potential and become less competitive.

Our system has gotten worse at its core, in its philosophical tenets and in its ultimate effects, by placing unwonted pressure on...