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How Schools Change
The first edition of How Schools Change chronicled the efforts of three very different high schools to improve teaching and learning in the early 1990's. Now, in a new second edition, Wagner concisely summarizes the decade-long history of education reform efforts and revisits the three communities at the beginning of a new century.
- GenresEducationNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 1994
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72 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 3, 2026
2.5 stars
This was published in 1994, so is, in some ways, outdated. Honestly, the problems mentioned in the book (students experiencing hopelessness, being addicted to media, and lacking respect for authority, for example) have just gotten worse.
What I wanted to see was what the author's ideas were for changing things and if his ideas were right or wrong (with the benefit of hindsight). The author's take mostly focused on schools redefining what their own values are and what high schoolers need to learn in order to graduate. His views were pretty vague. He was very anti-schools-of-choice, but his argument against them was quite weak. (Schools of choice have since proven to be very beneficial for students and districts in general.) He was against more standardized testing and standard expectations across the nation for what students learn. (We've since seen how Common Core has been a tremendous failure.) I agreed with his statement that, “...the first skill that all high school graduates need is the ability to learn on their own.” (254)
I actually quite liked the profile of the last school, Brimmer and May, as their philosophy and methods were similar to what I've wanted to do. I had never heard of Theodore Sizer before this book, so I'm thankful for the introduction and will be reading his work shortly.
The format of this book was frustrating; it's broken into three main sections/chapters which are very long. Long sections always make for an awkward reading experience.
There was some profanity, including God's name misused.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book, as it didn't contain anything super useful that isn't in newer books.
This was published in 1994, so is, in some ways, outdated. Honestly, the problems mentioned in the book (students experiencing hopelessness, being addicted to media, and lacking respect for authority, for example) have just gotten worse.
What I wanted to see was what the author's ideas were for changing things and if his ideas were right or wrong (with the benefit of hindsight). The author's take mostly focused on schools redefining what their own values are and what high schoolers need to learn in order to graduate. His views were pretty vague. He was very anti-schools-of-choice, but his argument against them was quite weak. (Schools of choice have since proven to be very beneficial for students and districts in general.) He was against more standardized testing and standard expectations across the nation for what students learn. (We've since seen how Common Core has been a tremendous failure.) I agreed with his statement that, “...the first skill that all high school graduates need is the ability to learn on their own.” (254)
I actually quite liked the profile of the last school, Brimmer and May, as their philosophy and methods were similar to what I've wanted to do. I had never heard of Theodore Sizer before this book, so I'm thankful for the introduction and will be reading his work shortly.
The format of this book was frustrating; it's broken into three main sections/chapters which are very long. Long sections always make for an awkward reading experience.
There was some profanity, including God's name misused.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book, as it didn't contain anything super useful that isn't in newer books.
February 26, 2022
khá hay khi tiếp cận từ phía giáo viên đến các chủ thể xung quanh. nhìn chung thì theo tác giả, có 3 yếu tố chính để thay đổi trường học là thiết lập mục tiêu học thuật, xây dựng giá trị cốt lõi & khuyến khích quá trình đồng kiến tạo giữa giáo viên và học sinh.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews