Failing Grades: The Federal Politics Of Education Standards

by Kevin R. Kosar

Kosar, an analyst in the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, argues for vigorous federal action to raise education standards but also explores the ways in which politics have thwarted valid policy, leaving reforms that sound good but deliver nothing. He concludes his analysis with several suggestions for incremental reforms to the current law that can be accepted by both the liberals and conservatives. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

259 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2005

About the author

Hi!

I am the co-editor of Congress Overwhelmed: Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform (2020), the coauthor of Unleashing Opportunity: Policy Reforms for an Accountable Administrative State (2017), and the author of: Ronald Reagan and Education Policy (2011); Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education (2005), Whiskey: A Global History (2010), and Moonshine: A Global History (2017).

I have written for the New York Times, Washington Monthly magazine, Washington Post, Public Administration Review, and various journals, magazines, and newspapers.

I blog and edit at UnderstandingCongress.org, EdwardCBanfield.org, Beverages, Books, and More, Federal Education Policy History website, and Kosar's Fishing Notes.

I work at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. I earned my Ph.D. in politics from New York University and have lived in Washington, DC since 2003.

Reviews

[Kevin Kosar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Political Science Quarterly reports, "Failing Grades will serve as an authoritative source on the ironies that characterize contemporary education policy."

Teachers College Record states, "[A]fter one reads Kevin Kosar’s Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards, the truly corrosive effects of oppositional politics on education becomes shockingly clear."

Education Review declares, "I found Chapters 3 through 6 to be enlightening. Being neither an historian nor a political scientist, I had heard bits and pieces of this story, but Kosar has integrated it into a whole, and the book is a worthwhile read on the strength of this material. The story wends from desegregation, through the accomplishments of James Conant Bryant (though not by name), to the previously mentioned Nation at Risk report, and on to the deepening federal involvement in public schools, culminating with the No Child Left Behind."