http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey

In Smart Kids, Bad Schools, award-winning author and educator Brian Crosby draws on his twenty years as a high school English teacher to offer a candid appraisal of why our schools are failing and what we must do to save them. Crosby’s no-holds-barred critique of the broken education system leaves no stone unturned: he is unapologetic and uncompromising in his exposé of how teachers, administrators, unions, and parents all play a part in this national tragedy.

Crosby offers 38 ideas to save America’s future and his proposed remedies are revolutionary. He recommends bold measures, such as lengthening the school day and school year, forcing parents to volunteer at schools, abolishing homework, outlawing teachers unions, and cutting special education funding. The result is a book that is likely to inflame passions on all sides of the political spectrum, and, in the process, introduce new ideas to a debate that is in dire need of them.

Book overview

You sleep (hopefully) for 8 hours. You work (at least) 8 hours. What are you doing in those remaining 8 hours of your day, and more importantly, what are the other 8 hours doing for you? To the bleary-eyed worker who doesn’t have time to stop and catch his breath, the idea of having 8 hours may sound absurd. If that’s you, this is your wake-up call. THE OTHER 8 HOURS provides a blueprint that will help you carve out more time in your day and find the inspiration to spend that free time in a more productive way. Whether you want to pay off debt, make more money, start a business, develop a hobby, write a blog, or write the next great American novel, Robert Pagliarini will get you closer to living a richer, more fulfilled life. In THE OTHER 8 HOURS, you’ll learn how to: – GET MORE TIME: Chances are you are overworked, overscheduled, and overstressed. There’s too much to do and not enough time. You can create hours of additional free time you never knew you had. – GET MORE MONEY: Traditional financial advice has likely left you frustrated and stuck. Pagliarini introduces new, highly-effective yet unconventional strategies. – GET A LIFE: In order to “get rich” you have to “get a life.” The other 8 hours ultimately determine your happiness and net worth. With anecdotes and inspiration from many who have taken control of their other 8 hours, plus hands-on tools for getting started, minimizing risk, and maximizing success, you’ll discover new ways to radically improve your life both personally and financially. Isn’t it time to recapture your time and your life?

Book overview
At the beginning of the new millennium, educators, parents, and others should reevaluate what it means for adults and young people to grow up in a world that has been radically altered by a hyper capitalism that monopolizes the educational force of culture as it ruthlessly eliminates those public spheres not governed by the logic of the market. Giroux provides new theoretical and political tools for addressing how pedagogy, knowledge, resistance, and power can be analyzed within and across a variety of cultural spheres, including but not limited to the schools. A new introduction adds much to the well received first edition. The time for radical social change has never been so urgent, since the fate of an entire generation of young people, if not democracy itself, is at stake. Giroux argues that challenge gives new meaning to the importance of resistance, the relevance of pedagogy, and the significance of political agency.