What is the state of education in America today? And where is it headed? What is the real state of education in America today? And where is it headed? The Brookings Institution, long noted for its pathbreaking work on education policy, introduces a series of annual volumes that provide the inside story on education's most important issues. In each annual edition, leading experts offer jargon-free, in-depth analyses of a wide range of topics in education, along with fresh ideas, thought-provoking opinions, and invaluable insight. They offer unprecedented access to the policies, decisions, and viewpoints that are shaping our current education system and our plans for the 21st century. Edited by Diane Ravitch, one of the nation's foremost education authorities, Brookings Papers on Education Policy is an indispensable guide to understanding education trends and emerging issues. Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 1998 includes: "An Examination of American Student Achievement from an International Perspective" by Harold Stevenson, University of Michigan "An Assessment of the Scholarly Debate about Achievement" by Lawrence Stedman, State University of New York "Upgrading High School Mathematics and Science" by Andrew Porter, University of Wisconsin, Madison "Uncompetitive American Schools: Causes and Cures" by Herbert Walberg, University of Illinois "Radical Constructivism, Mathematics Education, and Cognitive Psychology" by John Anderson, Lynne Reder, and Herb Simon, Carnegie Mellon University "The Uses and Misuses of Education Research by Policymakers at State and Local Levels" by Tom Loveless, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University "Standards Outside the Classroom" by Lawrence Steinberg, Temple University "The Extent and Cost of Remediation in Higher Education" by David W. Breneman, University of Virginia School of Education
Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University, a historian of education, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education. She was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991-93. She was married to Richard Ravitch from 1960 until they divorced in 1986. She married Mary Butz in 2012. Aside from her many books on education history and policy, Ravitch writes for The New York Review of Books and maintains an influential blog on education.