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The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work
Winner of AERA Outstanding Book Award in 1998 "While she recognizes the necessity for school reform and the complexity of implementing it, Darling-Hammond remains optimistic that systemic changes to ensure access to a meaningful education for all children are possible. Her book is positive and hopeful and serves as a fascinating account of American education and its promise of 'the right to learn' for all children."
— Washington Post "Darling-Hammond's central claim is well worth listening to. She argues that American students do so poorly by comparison with students in other industrialized countries not because we don't give them enough work, but because our teaching is less thoughtful, and because we are obsessed with bureaucratic processes rather than educational outcomes."
— New York Times Book Review One of the nation's most respected educators provides a vision of exceptional, learner-centered schools and describes the policies and practices that are needed to create these schools on a system-wide basis.
— Washington Post "Darling-Hammond's central claim is well worth listening to. She argues that American students do so poorly by comparison with students in other industrialized countries not because we don't give them enough work, but because our teaching is less thoughtful, and because we are obsessed with bureaucratic processes rather than educational outcomes."
— New York Times Book Review One of the nation's most respected educators provides a vision of exceptional, learner-centered schools and describes the policies and practices that are needed to create these schools on a system-wide basis.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
8 people are currently reading
176 people want to read
About the author
Linda Darling-Hammond
87 books28 followersLinda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute, is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University. She is the award-winning author of numerous books including Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning, and Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 5, 2011
This book is almost too big for me to wrap my mind around, so I'm only going to respond to a couple of threads: the effect of good intentioned but misguided legislation, and what a school SHOULD look like; and even then, I won't do either justice.
A former superintendent always said lawmakers feel qualified to propose laws about school on the basis of their experience as students. LDH explains it differently: "policies that legislate practice are necessarily backward thinking: they must rely on the technologies and knowledge available when they are enacted." In fact, they look back farther than that, to when legislators were in school...they are seeing education through their own lens, and it is by definition a narrow one. She goes on to make the analogy that if lawmakers were regulating the medical profession, doctors would still be using leeches. "Professional teachers should be allowed to focus on doing the right things rather than doing things right....genuine accountability is undermined in bureaucracies, where authority for decisions and responsibility for practice are widely separated, usually by many layers of hierarchy...top-down decision making retards change." She explains that all these laws add to the layers of bureaucracies actually by their nature add more layers of administration, while the laws then require less money for administration...bipolar at best. "POlicies do not support teaching for understanding when they require passive learning of reams of facts and bits of skills, require standardized teaching for student who differ in how they learn and how much they have already learned..." She point out that in this time of greater 'accountability' we are actually loosening the certification standards for teachers..."Teaching is the only licensed occupation -- from medicine and law to cosmetology and plumbing -- that routinely waives standards for entry. WE teachers don't, but policymakers do it all the time. " More: "Although government agencies have gained great power over decisions affecting children and local schools, these decisions are often uninformed by professional knowledge. ...frontline educators often have little input into decisions made above them..." She gives us no clear suggestions about how to approach our legislators and share our world with them...but I understand the dilemma so much better.
So, what kind of schools does she see as the answer? Schools with policies for: "Active, in-depth learning, emphasis on authentic performance, attention to development, appreciation for diversity, opportunities for collaborative learning, collective perspective across the school, structures for caring, support for democratic learning, connections to family and community." WOW!! Sign me up! It's so sad to read this, nearly 15 years after she wrote it. I remember schools like this. I taught at several. As legislation and policies and testing and regulations have slowly strangled our schools, we cannot do what's right for students...especially when we KNOW it's right...I nearly cried reading her hopeful descriptions of schools who were trying this approach to educating the whole child, and I wonder what's happening now, in this world of NCLB and RttT...
She challenges policymakers: " [They] need to understand that their intentions will land in an environment already cluttered by geological layers of prior policies and local conditions that may be hostile to the desired changes...Policymakers must build capacity for and commitment to the work required rather than assuming that edicts alone will produce the new practice they envision. The more policies impose inflexible constraints, the less possible and likely it is for innovation and learning to occur."
So...ultimately, what sense did I make of this? I'll probably have to read it again and again. I wish like crazy she was Secretary of Education...I might have hope for my profession if she was.
A former superintendent always said lawmakers feel qualified to propose laws about school on the basis of their experience as students. LDH explains it differently: "policies that legislate practice are necessarily backward thinking: they must rely on the technologies and knowledge available when they are enacted." In fact, they look back farther than that, to when legislators were in school...they are seeing education through their own lens, and it is by definition a narrow one. She goes on to make the analogy that if lawmakers were regulating the medical profession, doctors would still be using leeches. "Professional teachers should be allowed to focus on doing the right things rather than doing things right....genuine accountability is undermined in bureaucracies, where authority for decisions and responsibility for practice are widely separated, usually by many layers of hierarchy...top-down decision making retards change." She explains that all these laws add to the layers of bureaucracies actually by their nature add more layers of administration, while the laws then require less money for administration...bipolar at best. "POlicies do not support teaching for understanding when they require passive learning of reams of facts and bits of skills, require standardized teaching for student who differ in how they learn and how much they have already learned..." She point out that in this time of greater 'accountability' we are actually loosening the certification standards for teachers..."Teaching is the only licensed occupation -- from medicine and law to cosmetology and plumbing -- that routinely waives standards for entry. WE teachers don't, but policymakers do it all the time. " More: "Although government agencies have gained great power over decisions affecting children and local schools, these decisions are often uninformed by professional knowledge. ...frontline educators often have little input into decisions made above them..." She gives us no clear suggestions about how to approach our legislators and share our world with them...but I understand the dilemma so much better.
So, what kind of schools does she see as the answer? Schools with policies for: "Active, in-depth learning, emphasis on authentic performance, attention to development, appreciation for diversity, opportunities for collaborative learning, collective perspective across the school, structures for caring, support for democratic learning, connections to family and community." WOW!! Sign me up! It's so sad to read this, nearly 15 years after she wrote it. I remember schools like this. I taught at several. As legislation and policies and testing and regulations have slowly strangled our schools, we cannot do what's right for students...especially when we KNOW it's right...I nearly cried reading her hopeful descriptions of schools who were trying this approach to educating the whole child, and I wonder what's happening now, in this world of NCLB and RttT...
She challenges policymakers: " [They] need to understand that their intentions will land in an environment already cluttered by geological layers of prior policies and local conditions that may be hostile to the desired changes...Policymakers must build capacity for and commitment to the work required rather than assuming that edicts alone will produce the new practice they envision. The more policies impose inflexible constraints, the less possible and likely it is for innovation and learning to occur."
So...ultimately, what sense did I make of this? I'll probably have to read it again and again. I wish like crazy she was Secretary of Education...I might have hope for my profession if she was.
May 22, 2010
Written sensibly and for the most part without a bunch of jargon. Backed up with statistics and examples. Published in 1997, with data that was VERY recent at the time; I'd like to see what the current statistics are for the schools she cites.
February 19, 2020
She makes strong theoretical and practical arguments for the kinds of reforms that I believe in. Strong on data, well written and well argued. Somewhat academic writing style.
February 16, 2013
I'm really enjoying this at the same time that it makes me angry. I had thought that perhaps there was debate about how kids learn, how we could best organize schools for learning, etc. But apparently the pedagogical research is very clear: you get the best outcomes when you have experienced, well-trained teachers. Learning structured around whole language, hands-on, indepth, investigative projects. Collaboration among students. Performance-based assessments of actual work produced, with clear criteria that the students can apply themselves over multiple revisions. Students learn best when they read, write, and produce real work (student newspapers, PA announcements, science investigations, drawing their own maps, etc.) So, to the extent that these things aren't happening in my kids' classrooms, I feel very frustrated.
October 5, 2008
Linda Darling Hammond represents the best of the progressive humanists tradition in terms of criticizing the factory model of schooling. She also upholds an alternative purpose for schooling: to train critical thinkers and active citizens in a just society.
She also does great comparisons between U.S. model of schooling and other countries, and shows that our culture uniquely sets our children up to fail.
I wish she would be more explicit about race, and talk more about the color of schooling and who is denied the right to learn.
She also does great comparisons between U.S. model of schooling and other countries, and shows that our culture uniquely sets our children up to fail.
I wish she would be more explicit about race, and talk more about the color of schooling and who is denied the right to learn.
October 16, 2008
A must read for anyone interested in education. Darling-Hammond is the education advisor to Barack Obama. Debate between her and McCain's advisor Keenen on Oct. 21 should be interesting.
January 23, 2016
Nothing new hear, compared with other, better-written books on the subject of what's wrong with USA education. Dry.
June 3, 2012
Kind of cheating, since this is for school.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews