Why School?

Mike Rose, a professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is the author of numerous books, including The Mind at Work, Possible Lives, and Back to School (The New Press). Among his many awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Award in Education, and the Commonwealth Club of California Award for Literary Excellence in Nonfiction. He lives in Santa Monica.

CONTENTS




Preface ix
Introduction: Why School? 1


1. In Search of a Fresh Language
of Schooling 25


2. Finding Our Way: The Experience
of Education 31


3. No Child Left Behind and the Spirit
of Democratic Education 43


4. Business Goes to School 53


5. Politics and Knowledge 65


6. Reflections on Intelligence in the
Workplace and the Schoolhouse 73


7. On Values, Work, and Opportunity 89


8. Standards, Teaching, Learning 97


9. Remediation at the University 117


10. Re-mediating Remediation 127


11. Soldiers in the Classroom 139


12. A Language of Hope 145


13. Finding the Public Good Through the
Details of Classroom Life 153




Conclusion: The Journey Back and Forward 161


Acknowledgments 171


Notes 173