Abstract
In this monthly Kappan column, authors recommend books that have influenced and inspired them in their education careers. This month, David Labaree recommends Confessions of a School Reformer by Larry Cuban, and Nina Weisling and Wendy Gardiner recommend The Price of Nice: How Good Intentions Maintain Educational Inequality, edited by Angelina E. Castagno.
Keywords
In this remarkable book, Larry Cuban provides rich insight into nearly a century of American school reform. In chapters that alternate between analysis and memoir, he draws on his long experience as a student, teacher, superintendent, and professor to explore both our persisting faith that schools can fix social problems and our continuing failure to move the needle very far in this direction.
Across his whole career, Cuban has been publishing powerful pieces about the history of pedagogical practice, the history of school reform, and the nature of school leadership. More than anyone I know, he has succeeded in bridging the yawning gap between school practitioners and education scholars — in large part because, more than anyone I know, he has such rich experience in both domains. This book brings together all the pieces of his career and of his thinking about education into a succinct and gorgeous synthesis.