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THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Houghton Mifflin) "Any number of people subscribe to the Listerine theory of education," writes author Alfie Kohn. "The old ways may be distasteful, but they're effective." Kohn, a well-known education critic, argues that the current back-to-basics movement is wrongheaded. This provocative book is for those with a taste for education at 10,000 ft., who want to catch up with the latest theoretical developments. Kohn dives into the culture-war arguments with relish, claiming that there is a misguided "aggressive nostalgia loose in the land." He mocks much of the current dialogue. "People from parents to Presidents have begun to sound like cranky, ill-informed radio-talk-show hosts," he writes, "and almost anything can be done to students and to schools, no matter how ill considered, as long as it is done in the name of 'raising standards' or 'accountability.'" You'll never again listen to a speech about education the same way after reading this book.
--By Andrea Sachs