Making the Grade

Introduction: What's really wrong with our schools? 1. How has the world changed for children? 2. What do today's students need to know? 3. How do we hold students and schools accountable? 4. What do 'Good' schools look like? 5. What must leaders do?

Tony Wagner is Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and leads the Harvard Seminar on Public Engagement. Senior Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation education programs, he consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations in the U.S. and internationally. He is the author of How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities.

"[M]any of Wagner's ideas could be listed among the 'best practices' of the latest progressive thinking in education reform. Yet what makes this book a little different from the rest-and appealing to those familiar with and interested in education's ongoing teeth-gnashing - is that he tries to lay out a comprehensive plan to replicate these schools nationwide."
-Newark Star-Ledger
"[An] engaging, readable study.Wagner's description of the problems facing our students, teachers, and administrators is cogent, his criticism of the current environment of high-stakes testing is provocative, and his description of 'the new village school' draws effectively on the already popular work of reformers such as Deborah Meier. . . and Ted Sizer. . .."
-Library Journal
"Tony Wagner's "Making the Grade is a comprehensive, persuasive analysis of today's crusade for better schools and informed students, an analysis which compels us to reimagine education."
-Ted Sizer, Coalition of Essential Schools
"This is a first-rate work from a first-rate mind. Tony Wagner addresses issues faced by every school administrator in America. Based on careful analysis of the most difficult questions, "Making the Grade offers challenging answers, many of which will provide the foundation for strategies that will guide us for years to come."
-Harold Levy, Former Chancellor, New York City Board of Education
"The way Tony Wagner lays it out, public school change seems utterly reasonable and doable. He covers it all and says it so well. Not only does Wagner tell us why we must reinvent our schools; he shows us how it can be done."
-Deborah Meier, Principal, Mission Hill School