Restoring Honor to Public Schools

Restoring Honor to Public Schools: A Teacher's Vision for American Education, draws upon its author's thirty years of experience to offer an insider's look at teaching and learning, providing thoughtful and achievable recommendations for honoring teachers and teaching and restoring civility and intelligence to our nation's discourse about education.

In this insightful analysis of public school policy, including No Child Left Behind, William E. Smith offers a unique perspective—he has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels; served in several administrative roles, including principal of an impoverished, rural K-5 school and a K-12 laboratory school; and been a teacher educator and educational scholar, before returning to the classroom. In Restoring Honor to Public Schools: A Teacher's Vision for American Education, Smith draws upon thirty years of experience in varied roles to provide an insider's look at teaching and learning. With clear and uncompromising analysis, he assesses the real impact of politics and educational policymaking on our children's lives. Smith provides thoughtful and achievable recommendations for honoring teachers and teaching and restoring civility and intelligence to our nation's discourse about education.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Reality, the Image, and the Discrediting of America's Public Schools
Chapter 3 Learning to Honor Education: A Lesson from Akina
Chapter 4 The Good News about America's Schools
Chapter 5 How Politicians and Journalists Shape Public Perceptions of Schools
Chapter 6 The Consequences of Misrepresenting Public School Quality
Chapter 7 Illusions, Misguided Notions, and Questionable Intentions: How Educational Policymaking Has Gone Wrong
Chapter 8 High Stakes Accountability Measures and Illusions of Quality
Chapter 9 A Tale of Two Teachers: The Passionate Professional and the Dispirited Functionary
Chapter 10 The No Child Left Behind Act: Illusion and Reality
Chapter 11 The Truth about the Children Left Behind
Chapter 12 The NAEP and International Assessments: Education's Catch-22
Chapter 13 The Political Process of Educational Reform: How Parents, Educators, and Children Get Left Behind
Chapter 14 Why Nostalgia Is a Poor Basis for Educational Policy
Chapter 15 The Shortcomings of Common Sense as a Basis for Educational Policy
Chapter 16 Honoring Teachers and the Process of Educational Change: Making a Commitment to Sound Principles
Chapter 17 Honoring Teachers and Teaching
Chapter 18 Elevating Our Nation's Public Discourse about Education
Chapter 19 Afterword