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Making the Grade: Reinventing America's Schools
This book provides a guide for a long-overdue public dialogue about why and how we need to reinvent our nation's schools. How has the world changed for our children; what do all students need to know in light of these changes; how do we hold students and schools accountable for results; what do good schools look like; and what must leaders do to create more of these schools? These are some of the questions that drive this book. The answers emerging to these questions may surprise many. The most successful public schools of the 21st century look a lot more like our 19th century village schools than our current factory model of schooling. This book describes these "new village schools" that have been created in the last decade and suggests that they are a prototype for the schools of the future.
186 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2001
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71 people want to read
About the author
Tony Wagner
11 books89 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Tony Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade.
Tony consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.
Tony is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and a widely published author. His work includes numerous articles and five books. Tony’s latest, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World, will be published in April by Simon & Schuster. His recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can do About It has been a best seller and is being translated into Chinese. Tony’s other titles include: Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, Making the Grade: Reinventing America’s Schools, and How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited. He has also recently collaborated with noted filmmaker Robert Compton to create a 60 minute documentary, “The Finnish Phenomenon: Inside The World’s Most Surprising School System.”
Tony earned an M.A.T. and an Ed.D. at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Tony Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade.
Tony consults widely to schools, districts, and foundations around the country and internationally. His previous work experience includes twelve years as a high school teacher, K-8 principal, university professor in teacher education, and founding executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility.
Tony is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and a widely published author. His work includes numerous articles and five books. Tony’s latest, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World, will be published in April by Simon & Schuster. His recent book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can do About It has been a best seller and is being translated into Chinese. Tony’s other titles include: Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, Making the Grade: Reinventing America’s Schools, and How Schools Change: Lessons from Three Communities Revisited. He has also recently collaborated with noted filmmaker Robert Compton to create a 60 minute documentary, “The Finnish Phenomenon: Inside The World’s Most Surprising School System.”
Tony earned an M.A.T. and an Ed.D. at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 5, 2014
Whether you agree with Wagner's ideas or not, it is undeniably a thought-provoking book with plenty of relevancy despite being published 11 years ago.
I like the holistic approach he espouses (cross curriculum teaching, community service, "apprenticeships") and divorce of sports from school. I also partially agree with his focus on relating school to the "real world", however I think he places an over-emphasis on work place knowledge that can lead to some of the very rigidity he correctly identifies as impediments to learning. It also presumes that a job is the sole use of our mental capabilities, career as the pinnacle of achievement, if you will.
I disagree with local institutions completely developing their own curriculum. I think a happy medium between specific national curriculum points and a portion devoted to local curricula would achieve a greater balance of creating common cross-cultural understanding along with relevancy to a specific region.
Evaluations versus grades is a sticky wicket for sure. It presumes smaller class-sizes and a deeper knowledge based curriculum versus one focused on breadth. It also presumes that those institutions that are interested in a student's capabilities as they move on (colleges, employers) will take the time to read all of those evaluations. That said, I do like the idea, if disagreeing with the consequent thought that this can take the place of testing. Evaluations in life are a necessary evil. They allow us to develop organizations such that people can help that organization in the best way possible. Testing is a part of that concept and a world where everyone is okay and no one has to prove their abilities is not very realistic. Perhaps Wagner could have devoted a chapter to alternate methods/construction of tests instead eschewing them for the most part. Besides, the intellectual flexibility that Wagner espouses in education, by its very nature, will enable students to do well on tests, even when they don't know every specific detail they are being tested on.
Fairly well written without any overwhelming redundancies to get bogged down in, an unfortunately common characteristic of many books on education. Certainly makes you think and for that alone it should get 4 stars. If you have any interest in education in the US then you should definitely take this one of the shelf. Solid 4 stars.
I like the holistic approach he espouses (cross curriculum teaching, community service, "apprenticeships") and divorce of sports from school. I also partially agree with his focus on relating school to the "real world", however I think he places an over-emphasis on work place knowledge that can lead to some of the very rigidity he correctly identifies as impediments to learning. It also presumes that a job is the sole use of our mental capabilities, career as the pinnacle of achievement, if you will.
I disagree with local institutions completely developing their own curriculum. I think a happy medium between specific national curriculum points and a portion devoted to local curricula would achieve a greater balance of creating common cross-cultural understanding along with relevancy to a specific region.
Evaluations versus grades is a sticky wicket for sure. It presumes smaller class-sizes and a deeper knowledge based curriculum versus one focused on breadth. It also presumes that those institutions that are interested in a student's capabilities as they move on (colleges, employers) will take the time to read all of those evaluations. That said, I do like the idea, if disagreeing with the consequent thought that this can take the place of testing. Evaluations in life are a necessary evil. They allow us to develop organizations such that people can help that organization in the best way possible. Testing is a part of that concept and a world where everyone is okay and no one has to prove their abilities is not very realistic. Perhaps Wagner could have devoted a chapter to alternate methods/construction of tests instead eschewing them for the most part. Besides, the intellectual flexibility that Wagner espouses in education, by its very nature, will enable students to do well on tests, even when they don't know every specific detail they are being tested on.
Fairly well written without any overwhelming redundancies to get bogged down in, an unfortunately common characteristic of many books on education. Certainly makes you think and for that alone it should get 4 stars. If you have any interest in education in the US then you should definitely take this one of the shelf. Solid 4 stars.
March 19, 2026
Glad I waded through the pedagogic pap.
After the de rigeur citations of every great thinker from Einstein to Jean Piaget, Wagner finally gets on with letting us know what he thinks. His own thoughts are good enough that he didn't need to lean on current heavies from Harvard or big names from bygone eras.
His point is that standardized tests aren't the answer, but before we deal with them we need to focus on the problem they address. Are kids getting what they need out of school? What can and should be expected from them? Are schools organized optimally to deliver education?
His assessment of the need: Kids need the basics -- reading, writing and arithmetic. Today's kids need a richer dose of the following: 1) exposure to adults, along with understanding and approval; 2) ability to work in teams; 3) training in citizenship. He relates the need to the labor marketplace in which workers increasingly need to work with and exchange ideas. He says that what they need is "Emotional Intelligence," one of those trendy concepts that has so swept the pedagogues that the latest evidence of my fossil status my 13-year-old has dug up is a lack of "EQ." However trendy, it remains true that kids need to be socialized, though I can't imagine it ever being unimportant.
Wagner recognizes that standard tests do not measure kids' individuality. They learn differently. They have different abilities to learn. Furthermore, teachers aren't robots. Different teachers have differing approaches. He recommends that parents have the freedom to choose schools that are appropriate to the needs of their children. He provides strong evidence that it can be done within the context of a public school system.
One of the strongest points Wagner makes is that a teacher's effectiveness is related to the amount of respect they get from their employer and the extent to which they can choose their own teaching style and materials. I know this first hand as a private school trustee, parent and substitute teacher. Teachers want to teach. They are passionate about it when the materials are their own, when they can talk with colleagues about the best ways to teach, to integrate curriculum, to reach a certain kid, and so on. The passion dies when they are told that all 10th graders in California will cover pages 38-50 of Silas Marner on October 15.
Wagner's best point goes to organization. State school superintendents and elected boards of education know more about politics than they do education. Schools need to be small (400 kids or less), largely autonomous (set their own curriculum, choose their own materials), and supported by parents (free to choose which among several public schools best suits their children's needs).
Parents who have a say in the school will become involved. Teachers who see the same kids over a period of years, and see maybe 40 instead of 150 different faces over the course of a day, will know more about those kids and be better able to help them.
Wagner cites a lot of evidence that smaller schools do not cost more than big ones. Classes may be smaller, but the need for security, counseling and other types of specialists decreases when teachers and administrators know the kids personally. As private school parents already know.
Good going, Tony. Speak with your own voice instead of borrowing those of other experts and I'd give you five stars. People should be citing you.
After the de rigeur citations of every great thinker from Einstein to Jean Piaget, Wagner finally gets on with letting us know what he thinks. His own thoughts are good enough that he didn't need to lean on current heavies from Harvard or big names from bygone eras.
His point is that standardized tests aren't the answer, but before we deal with them we need to focus on the problem they address. Are kids getting what they need out of school? What can and should be expected from them? Are schools organized optimally to deliver education?
His assessment of the need: Kids need the basics -- reading, writing and arithmetic. Today's kids need a richer dose of the following: 1) exposure to adults, along with understanding and approval; 2) ability to work in teams; 3) training in citizenship. He relates the need to the labor marketplace in which workers increasingly need to work with and exchange ideas. He says that what they need is "Emotional Intelligence," one of those trendy concepts that has so swept the pedagogues that the latest evidence of my fossil status my 13-year-old has dug up is a lack of "EQ." However trendy, it remains true that kids need to be socialized, though I can't imagine it ever being unimportant.
Wagner recognizes that standard tests do not measure kids' individuality. They learn differently. They have different abilities to learn. Furthermore, teachers aren't robots. Different teachers have differing approaches. He recommends that parents have the freedom to choose schools that are appropriate to the needs of their children. He provides strong evidence that it can be done within the context of a public school system.
One of the strongest points Wagner makes is that a teacher's effectiveness is related to the amount of respect they get from their employer and the extent to which they can choose their own teaching style and materials. I know this first hand as a private school trustee, parent and substitute teacher. Teachers want to teach. They are passionate about it when the materials are their own, when they can talk with colleagues about the best ways to teach, to integrate curriculum, to reach a certain kid, and so on. The passion dies when they are told that all 10th graders in California will cover pages 38-50 of Silas Marner on October 15.
Wagner's best point goes to organization. State school superintendents and elected boards of education know more about politics than they do education. Schools need to be small (400 kids or less), largely autonomous (set their own curriculum, choose their own materials), and supported by parents (free to choose which among several public schools best suits their children's needs).
Parents who have a say in the school will become involved. Teachers who see the same kids over a period of years, and see maybe 40 instead of 150 different faces over the course of a day, will know more about those kids and be better able to help them.
Wagner cites a lot of evidence that smaller schools do not cost more than big ones. Classes may be smaller, but the need for security, counseling and other types of specialists decreases when teachers and administrators know the kids personally. As private school parents already know.
Good going, Tony. Speak with your own voice instead of borrowing those of other experts and I'd give you five stars. People should be citing you.
August 10, 2014
This book is, unfortunately, outdated. Solutions recommended by the author have been proven not to work. The smaller schools program initiated by the Gates foundation was a flop, research has shown that--unless between 13-17 students--class size doesn't matter, and whole-language reading instruction has fallen to science-based reading instruction--except for the 5% who may need whole-language. These are just a few examples. That said, some of the author's recommendations stand, and the author does have some good ideas on how to implement school change.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews