The Bookshelf: May 25, 2017

Trib+Edu is joining with respected books authority Kirkus Reviews to bring you select reviews of books of note in the field of education. For more book reviews and recommendations, visit Kirkus.com.

ADDICTED TO REFORM: A Twelve-Step Program to Rescue Public Education

By John Merrow

From an award-winning career as an education correspondent, Merrow sees a nation desperately in need of recovery from addiction to testing and pouring good money after bad. There is no quick fix for our failed schools, writes the author. Instead, we need radical reform of a system that has become obsessed with data and metrics, with graduation and dropout rates that can be easily manipulated, and with schools that would rather their students be obedient and easily controlled, regurgitating the facts they have been fed, than to have their creativity and intellectual curiosity unleashed. [...] The comparison and the book’s format only work to a point, as Merrow’s analysis, not surprisingly, does a better job detailing the problem than the solution. 

For the full review, visit kirkus.com.