UNSUSTAINABLE: A Strategy for Making Public Schooling More Productive, Effective, and Affordable

(Paperback)

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UNSUSTAINABLE frames the problem of cost and effectiveness in Americas public schooling system, and provides a strategy to address it.

It argues something that many education professionals and policy makers have come to believe but rarely mention: That this countrys system of K-12 schooling is not sustainable and is becoming a poorer value each year that goes by.

It argues for improving the cost and effectiveness of public schooling through a strategy of innovation that targets productivity. Addressing the question how to do this, the book provides policy recommendations to the state, district, and federal levels. In a final chapter it outlines uncommon strategies for overcoming some of the most difficult political, practical, and structural roadblocks to improvement.

Reviews

Let's build models of school governance, management, and practice on a new foundation of teacher leadership. Ultimately this gives us the blueprint to restructure our system and dismantle the existing bureaucratic hierarchy. -- John Wright, president, Arizona Education Association
McDonald recognizes the central importance of innovation in the design of schoolsThe right policies are critical to the design of our education systems for the 21st century. -- Ron Johnson, senior vice president of retail operations, Apple Inc.
In New York we are running the kind of split screen McDonald describes in this book. It is working for innovation, and we are strengthening it. -- Eric Nadelstern, chief schools officer, New York City Department of Education
In these pages McDonald points to how we can get better results at costs we can afford. -- Curtis Johnson, managing partner, Education|Evolving and co-author of Disrupting Class, 2008 McGraw Hill
This book'smajor contribution is the set of new and non-traditional policy ideas. They should get broad and serious attention. -- Ted Kolderie, from the foreword

Author Bio

Tim R. McDonald is a fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, in the United States. He is an associate with Education|Evolving.