Failing Grades: The Federal Politics Of Education Standards
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)
“An authoritative source on the ironies that characterize contemporary education policy.”
–David E. Campbell, Political Science Quarterly
“Kosar’s book gets much more than a passing grade itself; it is the standard by which subsequent books about the federal role will be judged.”
–Denis P. Doyle, The Doyle Report
“After one reads Kevin Kosar’s Failing Grades, the truly corrosive effects of oppositional politics on education becomes shockingly clear. The volume is an erudite and apolitical (in the best sense of that term) analysis of one promising and yet fully untried educational reform: higher federal education standards.”
–Aaron Cooley, Teachers College Record
