Common Sense School Reform
Book Forum

In Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), AEI resident scholar Frederick Hess cuts through the sentiment and obfuscation that suffuse the school reform debates. He exposes the insufficiency of reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. Hess believes that fundamental educational reform necessitates increased flexibility in faculty hiring and removal, the use of technology to overhaul educational practices and increase efficiency, and the embracing of competition to promote diverse forms of school operation and focus. He further argues that teachers should be paid and promoted based on performance. Hess believes that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms to create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work.

About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess



  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including “The Same Thing Over and Over,” “Education Unbound,” “ Common Sense School Reform,” “ Revolution at the Margins” and “Spinning Wheels,” and he pens the Education Week blog, Rick Hess Straight Up. His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public School Charters as well as on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Lauren Aronson
    Phone: 202-862-5904
    Email: lauren.aronson@aei.org
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