Many people have asked for a good reading list.
When I will have time, I will compile a short list of important books.
Meanwhile, here is one reader’s suggestions:
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstader
Left Back, by Diane Ravitch
Education for Freedom, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The University of Utopia, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
No Friendly Voice, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The Higher Learning in America,by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
Great Books, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The Learning Society, by Robert Maynard Hutchins
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, by Diane Ravitch
How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler (Try to get an edition between 1940 and 1966; the later editions have less discussion on education.)
The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom
The Opening of the American Mind, by Mortimer J. Adler
The Paideia Proposal, by Mortimer J. Adler
The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus, by Mortimer J. Adler
Paideia Problems and Possibilities, by Mortimer J. Adler
The Paideia Classroom: Teaching for Understanding, by Terry Roberts and Laura Billings
The Aims of Education, by Alfred North Whitehead
The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby
The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore
Come Home, Amercia, by William Greider
The Enlightenment (2 Vols.), by Peter Gay
The Making of Americans, by E.D. Hirsch
The Revolt of the Elites, by Christopher Lasch
Death of the Liberal Class, by Chris Hedges
The Age of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch
The House of Intellect, by Jacques Barzun
Begin Here, by Jacques Barzun
Dark Ages America, by Morris Berman
Why America Failed, by Morris Berman
The Tyranny of Testing, by Banesh Hoffmann
The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen J. Gould
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great list, but I’d like to add:
The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools
by David C. Berliner (if enough people had read this in the early 90s we might have prevented some of today’s deforming efforts.)
Pencils Down: Rethinking High Stakes Testing and Accountability in Public Schools, edited by Wayne Au and Melissa Bollow Tempel (published by RETHINKING SCHOOLS)
And let’s not forget the iconic expert on poverty:
A Framework for Understanding Poverty, by Ruby K. Payne, PhD.
To read about poverty and equity, consider
The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future
by LInda Darling Hammond
Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools
by Jonathan Kozol
Readers, do you have other recommendations on understanding the effects of poverty?
The credibility of Ruby Payne has been widely questioned.
Also add:
Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the Public Schools, by Raymond E. Callahan
This caught my eye from that volume at Google Books: “quality of graduate work in educational administration must be improved”
Also, Deming as a cure for Taylorism is never mentioned; how are policymakers to fulfill their constitutional obligations to oversee a “thorough and efficient system of common schools?”
Google snippets from the volume might imply educators are unprepared to provide guidance to policymakers consistent with the oath of office those policymakers are sworn to uphold. How does a thorough read address this concern?
We could tie this tread to the quest for “first class” citizenship (in contrast to the “third class” citizenship that irks Youngstown parents). This would tie the reading list to the oath of office taken by school board members and (presumably) supported and modeled by all school employees. The following syllabus would also more quickly prepare citizens to defend the original mandate of American public education.
A good starting point would be:
Hirsch, Making of Americans, more readable than Molly O’Brien & Amanda Woodrum, The Constitutional Common School.
Regarding Hutchins, Whitehead, and Adler, a Cliff’s Notes would be helpful:
– Hutchins suggests our soldiers ought to be grounded in American values before being asked to export those values through military action overseas. Hutchins also offers an insightful, pre-war critigue of Hitler contrasted with American values.
– Whitehead warns of “inert ideas.”
– Adler promotes “Six Great Ideas: Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Liberty, Equality, Justice : Ideas We Judge By, Ideas We Act on.”
At this point, one might explore if teacher preparation programs fail to prepare their students to teach in schools charged with “making Americans,” so either
of Bestor’s Restoration of Learning or Educational Wastelands would be appropriate.
Returning to Diane’s original list, I’d prefer Chall’s posthumous volume, The Academic Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom (2000) for its readability and gentle tone to Left Back, the (clearly superior) ed history.
Wrapping up with “first class citizenship” then and now:
Ravitch, American Reader
Mathews, Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy
A capstone might be a NIF-inspired forum such as:
“First Class Citizenship: How will we fulfill the promise of public education in America?”
Any similar to this actually going on in the nation? Why not?
“Diane’s original list” should read “one reader’s suggestions.”
Add Andre Comte-Sponville’s “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues”.
I’ll give it a try–what’s missing is any literature from the classrooms or teachers–
I am eagerly looking forward to Diane’s list. I have very mixed feelings about “great books” myself. It was originally devised as a remedial program for soldiers and adult veterans from WWI to make up for what was felt to be their lack of general knowledge — plus ça change! — and even more so to bolster their patriotism and the facilitate the process of acculturation, if they were immigrants.Which is to say the least a rather old-fashioned goal! It seems to me to be better as an adult ed activity than as curriculum for lower school students.
I do think the latter should learn about paleolithic, ancient, and medieval civilizations and religions, in, however. And especially poetry and music, which are a very good foundation for language and all other skills. Poetry helps people achieve self expression, since it is rhetoric in its most concentrated form. There is a recent article pointing out all the poetic devices in Bill Clinton’s recent speech to the Democratic convention, for example. Music is intimately related to mathematics and language.
General knowledge is what is felt to be lacking, and yet, when one reads articles about it, it boils down to the fact that no one wants to teach general education because it is too labor intensive — (the same thing happens to English composition, not to mention foreign languages, and music!). See Charles McGrath’s 2008 NYT article “What Every Student Should Know.”: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/education/edlife/harvard.html?pagewanted=all|
Yet, in that article, Larry Summers is quoted as saying:
“‘Experience from our new biology course suggests that there is a great appetite for science courses when they’re well taught,'” he said. “We think that will happen. There’s very little appetite here for great books, but we think we can give students attractive choices in courses that will impart broad foundational knowledge.’ He added that many incoming students had already acquired a fair amount of general education, and said, ‘For all the bashing of American high schools, the students coming in now are better prepared than ever.'”
Regarding the history of the “Great Books” program, you should read Alex Beam’s “A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books”. Beam’s history starts, somewhat ironically, where you end–the installation of Harvard’s elective system by Charles Elliot at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the demise of the classical liberal arts education in the US. The rise of a more technocratic curriculum led John Erskine, then a young academic, to notice a growing gulf among students and academicians who, Erskine felt, had lost a common foundation of literature they could share.
During the First World War, while he was developing an idea for a great books course to address this gap, Erskine joined the US Army and served with General Pershing in France. After the armistice, while the troops were idle, Pershing instituted various activities to keep the troops occupied (lest they all return home with the clap) and asked Erskine to run a “university” to keep the soldiers’ minds occupied. According to Beam the experiment was quite a success.
After returning to the US, Erskine sold the idea of great books seminar to Columbia, where a young Mortimer Adler fell in love with both the books and the idea of using them in adult reading and discussion groups. Adler’s success in developing the idea at the Cooper Union in NYC and his seminars were quite successful also. Alder later met Hutchins when the latter was Dean of Yale Law School and sold Hutchins on the idea of a great books-oriented program for college students to counter the fragmented education caused by the elective system that had swept higher academia.
What I find interesting about your response is that while you seem very chary of the great books idea, your suggestions are very much in the vein of a traditional liberal arts education. In fact, much of what you write about Clinton’s speech making can be found in Aristotle, Quintillian, and Cicero. Indeed, a recent book points out how Lincoln adopted Euclid’s proof techniques in writing his speeches and making his arguments in court and in his famous debates with Douglas.
As for Summers, I don’t believe a word that man says or writes anymore. Just look at his history of lies, errors, and failure.
Nevertheless, incorporating the great books into a curriculum for grade schools wasn’t necessarily the goal of either Adler or Hutchins. Both men felt that young adults (juniors and seniors in high school and college freshmen) could gain a lot from great books seminars. Alder went on to device a great books program for younger students which is quite nice. But the writings of both Adler and Hutchins are far more extensive than just a plea to read the great books. They both were at the center of a huge battle of the soul and direction of American higher education, and by implication all levels of American education. Their commentaries on the aims and nature of education are still quite valuable, even if they don’t mention the great books.
The following works are critical to understanding the corrosive impact of mercantilism on all the essential components of democratic societies.
&bull: Max Weber • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
• Thom Hartmann • Unequal Protection : How Corporations Became “People” — and How You Can Fight Back
• Naomi Klein • The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism