New Books in Education

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Big Ideas] In their book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It (Basic Books, 2012), Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. present the following big idea: race preferences in higher education harm those preferred. Their argument is interesting in that it is not premised on the idea that racial preferences are unfair. Rather, they crunch the numbers and show that when good minority students are placed among elite students at elite schools, they often fail; when they are placed among other good students at good schools, they do much better. Students, they say, need to be "matched" with students at their level, not "mismatched" (or, rather, overmatched) with students far above their level. Both Sanders and Taylor are very much in favor of Affirmative Action, though they would like to see it reformed. Listen in and see how.

John WoodView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Big Ideas] In Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy (Viking Press, 2013), John Wood presents this big idea: you can change the world if want to. The nice thing about John's book is that he doesn't tell you the "theory" of world-changing (though he does discuss "social entrepreneurship"), he tells you how he did using his own experience. John saw that a lot of people around the world couldn't read and created an organization to teach them. This involved building a dedicated team, fund-raising, finding out what his clients–illiterate, impoverished children–wanted, and giving it to them in a flexible way. John's "Room to Read" has built thousands of libraries around the world and taught hundred of thousands of children to read. That's something.

Jesse RhodesView on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Political Science] Jesse Rhodes' book An Education in Politics: The Origin and Evolution of No Child Left Behind (Cornell University Press, 2012). The book synthesizes nearly forty years of US political history. It tells the story of the development and passage of the No Child Left Behind law by George W. Bush. The book builds on political science theories of political entrepreneurship, institutionalism, and incrementalism to narrate the debate about education reform. Rhodes captures the people, the organizations, and the institutions that have defined education policy since the 1980s. The book is accessible, thorough, and a must read for scholars of education politics and policy.

View on Amazon[Cross-posted from New Books in Sports] During this week of the 4th of July, it's appropriate to mark America's national holiday with a podcast about that most American of sports: college football.  As past guests on the podcast have explained, widely followed, revenue-generating sports teams affiliated with universities are a distinctive feature of American sports culture, and college football has long been regarded as the one sport that best demonstrates American values.  For outsiders, a useful analogy to understand American college football's popularity and cultural importance might be European football.  Like the soccer clubs of Europe, many college football teams date back to the 19th century, with long-standing rivalries and traditions.  The teams have unbreakable connections to particular localities, unlike American professional franchises that are sold, bought, and moved.  Generations of supporters attend Saturday games at storied grounds.  Dressed in team colors, they sing songs and perform other time-honored rituals.  And like European football, American college football is still fundamentally regional in organization.  Teams compete in various leagues, planted in specific parts of the country, with the top teams in the table advancing to national games.  College football fans tend to identify with the teams of their own regional league, arguing vigorously that "our" brand of football is better than "theirs."  Of course, American college football teams are also like European soccer clubs in that they bring in a lot of money, from tickets, television, and branded merchandise.  According to one estimate, the top programs in American college football–if they could ever be sold–would be worth as much as clubs like Manchester City, Inter Milan, and Olympique Lyon. But of course, these teams can't be sold.  Even though they draw hundreds of thousands of spectators in the fall season, millions of television viewers, and tens of millions of dollars in revenue, college football teams are the property of institutions of higher education, many of which are public, taxpayer-funded entities.  Other nations have sports teams affiliated with universities.  But only in the United States have college athletics become such a prominent part of the sports landscape.  The history of how this curious system emerged is surprising. In his book The Rise of Gridiron University: Higher Education's Uneasy Alliance with Big-Time Football (University Press of Kansas, 2012), Brian Ingrassia shows that the early history of American football and the early history of the American university were intertwined.  As universities developed, and faculties and administrators sought to give them a public face, they saw football as a means of gaining the allegiance of people who would likely never visit a lecture hall or laboratory.  They argued that football was beneficial to players and spectators alike.  There were critics who warned of the dangers of football, and for a brief time in the early 20th century some West Coast schools even adopted rugby as an alternative.  But by the Twenties and Thirties college football was firmly established and hugely popular across the country.  Snobby academics today will grumble about the scourge of big-time college football.  However, the blame for its rise falls not on coaches, players, and boosters, but on university presidents and professors.

Sally Ninham[Cross-posted from New Books in History] Despite its focus on education, Sally Ninham's recent book, A Cohort of Pioneers: Australian Postgraduate Students and American PostgraduateDegrees, 1949-1964 (Connor Court Publishing, 2011), covers a lot of ground: the waning of Australian-British ties, the rise of Australian identity, post-war Australian-US relations, and much more. The book is also personal: it details her own family's experiences as young professionals studying in the United States after the Second World War.  The discovery of a cache of family letters led her to consider how and why Australians went to study in the United States, and how the experience transformed Australia's own higher education system and politics in subsequent decades.  For the Australian students, American education opened the prospect of an Australia less dependent upon the United Kingdom. For the United States, then fighting the Cold War, Australian students opened the prospect of closer ties to Australia, an important ally. The book, which is built on an impressive body of oral history interviews, personal letters, and memoirs, is both an important cultural document and a very readable intellectual history.

William DamonView on Amazon[Crossposted from New Books in Public Policy] In his new book, Failing Liberty 101: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society (Hoover Institution Press, 2011), William Damon, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, argues that we are failing to prepare today's young people to be responsible American citizens. Damon, who is also the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, shows that our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding, and behavior of large portions of the youth in our country today.  In our interview, we discuss Howard Zinn, Michael Barone, political correctness, and the status of the American Dream.  Read all about it, and more, in Damon's thought-provoking new book. Please become a fan of "New Books in Public Policy" on Facebook if you haven't already.

View on Amazon[Crossposted from New Books in History] The vast majority of historians write history. Perhaps that's good, as one should stick to what one knows. But there are historians who braves the waters of social and political criticism. One thinks of Arthur Schelsinger Jr., Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch, Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Eric Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson, and more recently Tony Judt, Sean Wilentz and Victor Davis Hanson. Today I had the good fortune to speak with a historian who is virtually sure to enter the top rank of historian-public intellectuals, John H. Summers.  Indeed, he already has. He's published numerous probing essays on academic life, anarchism, the Left, sex scandals, anti-Americanism, the fate of newspapers, and, of course, many of the great American public intellectuals (he's at work on a biography of C. Wright Mills). Summers does what all critics worth their salt do: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Just read his remarkably insightful  "All the Priviledged Must Have Prizes" about his experience teaching at Harvard. (Also, read the comments attending article, where current Harvard students unwittingly prove Summers' main points). We must be grateful, then, that the folks at the Davis Group Press have elected to publish a collection of Summers' finely crafted essays in Every Fury on Earth (2008). The book is challenging, thought-provoking, and courageous. John H. Summers does not blink. You will agree with some of the things he says, and you will disagree with others. That, of course, is the fun of it. BTW: If you have a relative or friend who is an academic, this book would make a perfect holiday gift. If you are an academic, indulge yourself and buy it. Please become a fan of "New Books in Education" on Facebook if you haven't already.

Andrew DonsonView on Amazon[Crossposted from New Books in History] I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that "we" could lose. "We" were a great country run by good people; "they" were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of "Sergeant Rock" and watched re-runs of "Combat." My friends and I played "war" everyday after school. Given all this, you'll understand that I was bewildered when "we" pulled out of Vietnam. How could "we" lose the war when "we" were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany's young people were deeply disappointed. They would not "get their chance." Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of "New Books in Education" on Facebook if you haven't already.