In K-12 education, it’s difficult to find stakeholders who will declare that poor schools should be closed and ineffective teachers should be fired; that teaching experience is not essential to being a school principal; that schools should be more cost-efficient; or that profit-driven competition might be good for public education....

This book insists that we must ask how schools can do more, rather than how they can get more, and that we be blunt and cleareyed in our assessments of both schooling and proposed reforms.

Press release for Tough Love for Schools by Frederick Hess

If Baton Rouge intends to keep its "rock star" moniker, it needs schools that are producing talent and are attractive to corporate honchos. The Baton Rouge business community can play a key role in helping to ensure that EBR is doing just that. Here are a few lessons drawn from a hard look at locales where business is helping to lead the way on K-12 schooling.

Steven Brill’s Class Warfare is an immensely readable take on a slice of the “school reform” movement and an intriguing look at some key individuals in that effort. But, as is shown by its treatment of philanthropy, the book is perhaps more revealing for what its author omits—and how its blinkered view can mislead readers on big questions.

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have been co-opting much of the GOP playbook on education. But on spending, they have acted like traditional borrow-and-spend Democrats.

Michelle Rhee's experience in Washington, D.C. proves it's not just about mayors, manners or academic momentum, but that turning troubled urban school systems around requires community cover and local political muscle.