In the wake of the tragedy and destruction that came with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, public schools in New Orleans became part of an almost unthinkable experiment--eliminating the traditional public education system and completely replacing it with charter schools and school choice. Fifteen years later, the results have been remarkable, and the…

In "Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice," James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters examine homeschooling's history, its methods, and the fundamental questions at the root of the heated debate over whether and how the state should oversee and regulate it. The authors trace the evolution of homeschooling and the…

The modern research university is a global institution with a rich history that stretches into an ivy-laden past, but for as much as we think we know about that past, most of the writings that have recorded it are scattered across many archives and, in many cases, have yet to be translated into English. With this book, Paul Reitter, Chad Wellmon,…

America's education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school--something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim offer here…

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife," wrote John Dewey in his classic work "The School and Society." In "School, Society, and State", Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the connections between public school reform in the early twentieth century and American political…

In recent years, federal mandates in education have become the subject of increasing debate. Adam R. Nelson's "The Elusive Ideal"--a postwar history of federal involvement in the Boston public schools--provides lessons from the past that shed light on the continuing struggles of urban public schools today. This far-reaching analysis…