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Rating: 
Summary: Education For Thinkers
Review: I deeply appreciate the marketplace viewpoints about education expressed in Marshall & Tucker's book and believe that it is an important analysis for anyone concerned with the state and direction of education today and tomorrow. Not only do the authors express their frustration with the outmoded Taylor model of classroom structure (tidy rows, teacher in front, stand and deliver--all prep for assembly line work), but also they express their concern for students to be prepared to perform in an international market.Best of all, they spend extra time relating the influence of the Quality movement in business (TQM) and how it can and should relate to American schools in restructuring them for the 21st Century. I remain skeptical about what they say regarding the importance of standards (simply because I believe that too many teachers and community members brow beat students with high stakes testing, false incentives--A's for rewards and F's for threats, and micromanaged, ridiculous objectified norm-referenced tests), but I appreciate their call for international standards to be the only real "norm" by which we should be measuring our students. All in all, this is an excellent study in the background motives for education, the marketplace. Imagine an education course in a major university using this book in a required reading list! (Well, it's that good, but I hope it's not that rare.)
Rating: 
Summary: Trashes America, reveals likely Gore policies
Review: One of the underlying premises of this book is that America is an ugly mess, and it is time for the federal government to step in in an enlightened way, straighten things out and make the country more like Sweden. While the book purports to deal mainly with education, the authors find it necessary to revamp the way all work is organized in the U. S., how people find jobs, health care, as well as the tax system and miscellaneous other aspects of the American experience. The obviously well intentioned authors, one a former staffer in the Carter administration, are big believers in big government. They put forth a complex and integrated plan to revamp much of the way America works. In my opinion their macroeconomic pronouncements reveal a bias toward socialist, mercantilist economics, which causes much of their agenda to be based upon false premises, at least for application in this country. Many of the national economies the authors view with adulation are now faced with double - digit unemployment. This provides some unintended and much needed humor. The book is at its best when it sticks to education and talks about what is going on in schools. For this analysis, and for a peek at what President Gore is likely to do about education, the book is worth a look
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