What Is Wrong with Our Schools? the Ideology Impoverishing Education in America and How We Can Do Better for Our Students - by Daniel Buck

Book Synopsis

"What is wrong with our schools?" is the question everyone seems to be asking, or more like screaming nowadays. Standard answers point to everything from school funding to unions to bureaucracies and more. In this book, Daniel Buck provides a different answer: flawed ideas - ideas about instruction, curriculum, even human nature itself - are the root cause of American schooling's dysfunction. Touching on philosophy, contemporary educational studies, cognitive science, and his own experience in the classroom, Buck argues that so long as we build our system on incorrect first principles, all other reforms are for naught. In place of the progressive education that pervades our schools, Buck argues for a traditionalist approach - classic literature, direct instruction, sequenced curricula, clear rules and consequences - as the education we need for the future.

Review Quotes

I have followed Daniel Buck's work for years. He is emerging as an

indispensable and engaging voice on education. If he writes with more

authority than most, it's because his views were formed not in an ivory

tower, but as a classroom teacher who takes seriously his responsibility to

other people's children. What is Wrong With Our Schools? will bring his

insights to the broader audience he richly deserves.

Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute

There's plenty in this smart, hard-hitting book to make anyone feel

pessimistic about the state of American education. But optimism is still

in order, because Buck has picked up the mantle of traditionalism for a

new generation.

Michael Petrilli, president, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Daniel Buck's book opens with a disquieting anecdote. He had read aloud

with students from a shared novel, enriched the book with background

knowledge, and led a whole-class discussion but Buck's students had never

experienced anything like it. That such traditional methods were utterly

foreign to his students, whose only experience was in schools informed by

romantic and "progressive" theories of education, is the starting point to

a book full of observations and reflections that are carefully researched,

insightful, and grounded in student welfare. Unbeknownst to his

students, Buck's "new" way of teaching drew on traditional concepts of

instruction informed by research into cognitive and social science. This

is a profoundly thoughtful and important book.

Doug Lemov, author, Teach Like a Champion

About the Author

Daniel Buck is a senior visiting fellow at the Fordham Institute, editor-in-chief of Chalkboard Review, and author. He earned his master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Daniel's work has appeared in various publications including National Review, The Wall Street Journal, RealClearEducation, and the New York Post. He has taught English literature and English as a second language in public and private schools at the middle and high-school levels.