Standards for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them, and Reach Them

The National Center on Education and the Economy, where Tucker and Codding are, respectively, president and v-p of programs, is a well-funded, well-connected nonprofit organization working for standards-based reform. Here, the authors combine their expertise to offer a cogent, comprehensive argument for internationally recognized standards of achievement. Tucker gives an economical component to their argument, while Codding, formerly a high school principal in California, presents interludes throughout the book highlighting her hands-on successes and failures with standards-based education. Tucker and Codding declare in their introduction that educators must ""abandon. . .the idea that we are doing our job by sorting youngsters into winners and losers""; in fact, one of the main suggestions in the book is for ""an internationally benchmarked certificate standard"" that students could pass at any age they were capable. This isn't a theoretical statement of purpose, but something much more concrete: the authors offer details on new textbooks and new assignments, rebuilding accountability in the schools from the bottom up. It is up to their readers to act upon the authors' words. Although probably a bit dry for the average reader, educators and concerned Americans could well find this a blueprint for forging great change in our nation's school system. (Feb.)