"Should be read by all who are not satisfied with the status quo in education."
--Teachers College Record

This book patiently and persuasively asks us to rethink before we `redesign' schools, to question many of our deeply ingrained beliefs about learning and schooling, and to move beyond those which no longer meet the test of common sense. It mercifully gives us no ready-to-implement school reform blueprint but rather the necessary design of how to think well about learning and teaching and schooling.
?Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools, university professor emeritus, Brown University

LARRY MCDONALD is a former teacher and principal. He is currently director of research at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.