In this essay, John S. O'Connor and Avi D. Lessing discuss the increasingly reductive and routinized nature of contemporary schools and the costs such an approach holds for students and teachers alike. The current approach is especially troublesome in light of the rich history of progressive voices, such as Paul Diederich, who have cautioned…

The focus of this paper--and the series of which it is a part--is on improving student learning during the crucial period spanning grade 12 and the first year of college in order to build momentum for college success. In the introductory paper to this series, "Why 12th Grade Must Be Redesigned Now--and How," Jobs for the Future names…

Mike Rose points out that this is a crucial moment in the history of education in the United States. On one hand, Americans see a rhetoric of College for All, and pressure to get more racial minorities and low-income students into higher education, while the high school dropout rate stays stubbornly high near 30%. There is another rhetoric, about…

In this paper we will demonstrate how powerful "Bildung" is as a tool in modern university teaching. The concept of "Bildung" was originally introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (Kant 1787, 1798, 1804) and the Prussian lawyer and politician Wilhelm von Humboldt (Humboldt 1792, Bohlin 2008). From 1810…

The purpose of this critical analysis is to gain quantitatively greater statistical accuracy synthesizing past empirical studies conducted on the topic of social justice curriculum (hereafter SJC) with similar research foci, but dissimilar research questions. Currently there is a clarion call for further quantitative research to be conducted on…