"Ford Motor Company would not have survived the competition had it not been for an emphasis on results. We must view education the same way," the U.S. Secretary of Education declared in 2003. But is he right? In this provocative new book, Larry Cuban takes aim at the alluring cliché that schools should be more businesslike, and shows that in its long history in business-minded America, no one has shown that a business model can be successfully applied to education. In this straight-talking book, one of the most distinguished scholars in education charts the Gilded Age beginnings of the influential view that American schools should be organized to meet the needs of American businesses, and run according to principles of cost-efficiency, bottom-line thinking, and customer satisfaction. Not only are schools by their nature not businesslike, Cuban argues, but the attempt to run them along business lines leads to dangerous over-standardization--of tests, and of goals for our children. Why should we think that there is such a thing as one best school? Is "college for all" achievable--or even desirable? Even if it were possible, do we really want schools to operate as bootcamps for a workforce? Cuban suggests that the best business-inspired improvement for American education would be more consistent and sustained on-the-job worker training, tailored for the job to be done, and business leaders' encouragement--and adoption--of an ethic of civic engagement and public service.

"Ford Motor Company would not have survived the competition had it not been for an emphasis on results. We must view education the same way," the U.S. Secretary of Education declared in 2003. But is he right? In this provocative new book, Larry Cuban takes aim at the alluring cliché that schools should be more businesslike, and shows that in its long history in business-minded America, no one has shown that a business model can be successfully applied to education. In this straight-talking book, one of the most distinguished scholars in education charts the Gilded Age beginnings of the influential view that American schools should be organized to meet the needs of American businesses, and run according to principles of cost-efficiency, bottom-line thinking, and customer satisfaction. Not only are schools by their nature not businesslike, Cuban argues, but the attempt to run them along business lines leads to dangerous over-standardization--of tests, and of goals for our children. Why should we think that there is such a thing as one best school? Is "college for all" achievable--or even desirable? Even if it were possible, do we really want schools to operate as bootcamps for a workforce? Cuban suggests that the best business-inspired improvement for American education would be more consistent and sustained on-the-job worker training, tailored for the job to be done, and business leaders' encouragement--and adoption--of an ethic of civic engagement and public service.

Wry and insightful, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line takes us on a cross-country tour of the most powerful trend in academic life today--the rise of business values and the belief that efficiency, immediate practical usefulness, and marketplace triumph are the best measures of a university's success.

Lauren Joichin Nile introduces what she believes is humanity’s racial bottom line with a compelling account of her personal experiences growing up in 1950’s and 60’s segregated New Orleans. In so doing, she posits what she believes is humanity’s universal racial story. Lauren explains how starting out from Southern Africa, fully formed human beings, over thousands of years, walked out of Africa, populated the entire rest of Planet Earth, and over 2,000 generations, physically adapted to their new environments, gradually taking on the appearance of the many races of modern-day humanity, making all of us literally one, biologically-related human family. She then provides an abbreviated account of some of the most significant events of humanity’s racial history and an explanation of how that history has affected the American racial present. She also analyzes a number of controversial topics, including whether there are truly superior and inferior races. Finally, Lauren shares what she believes are the specific actions that humanity must take in order to heal from our wretched racial past, realize that across the planet, we all truly can love one another and as a species, walk into a wiser, more empathetic, compassionate human future. Lauren Joichin Nile is an author, keynote speaker, trainer and licensed attorney who specializes in assisting organizations in increasing their emotional intelligence, compassion, and productivity. The goal of her work with organizations is to help create environments in which understanding and kindness are valued and as a result, every person is equally welcomed and uniformly appreciated irrespective of all demographic differences. The goal of Lauren’s speaking and training in the greater society, is to help the human species grow in both wisdom and compassion.

A book that explores the problematic connection between education policy and practice while pointing in the direction of a more fruitful relationship, Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice is a provocative culminating statement from one of America’s most insightful education scholars and leaders. Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice takes as its starting point a strikingly blunt question: “With so many major structural changes in U.S. public schools over the past century, why have classroom practices been largely stable, with a modest blending of new and old teaching practices, leaving contemporary classroom lessons familiar to earlier generations of school-goers?” It is a question that ought to be of paramount interest to all who are interested in school reform in the United States. It is also a question that comes naturally to Larry Cuban, whose much-admired books have focused on various aspects of school reform—their promises, wrong turns, partial successes, and troubling failures. In this book, he returns to this territory, but trains his focus on the still baffling fact that policy reforms—no matter how ambitious or determined—have generally had little effect on classroom conduct and practice. Cuban explores this problem from a variety of angles. Several chapters look at how teachers, in responding to major policy initiatives, persistently adopt changes and alter particular routine practices while leaving dominant ways of teaching largely undisturbed. Other chapters contrast recent changes in clinical medical practice with those in classroom teaching, comparing the practical effects of varying medical and education policies. The book’s concluding chapter distills important insights from these various explorations, taking us inside the “black box” of the book’s title: those workings that have repeatedly transformed dramatic policy initiatives into familiar—and largely unchanged—classroom practices.