Scalia's Constitution: Essays on Law and Education
Paul E. Peterson and Michael W. McConnell, eds.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017
This book explores the application of Scalia’s textualism and originalism to education law and reflects upon Scalia’s teachings and his pedagogy. Education law may seem to be an odd vehicle for considering Scalia’s constitutional approach, but thinking about schools requires attention to political fundamentals—freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, equality of opportunity, federalism, and the proper role of the expert. Legal scholars, philosophers, and political scientists provide both critiques and apologies for Scalia’s approach.
Teachers Versus the Public: What Americans Think about Schools and How to Fix Them
Paul E. Peterson, Michael Henderson and Martin R. West
Brookings Institution Press, 2014
A comprehensive exploration of 21st Century school politics, Teachers Versus the Public offers the first comparison of the education policy views of both teachers and the public as a whole, and reveals a deep, broad divide between the opinions held by citizens and those who teach in the public schools.
The Global Debt Crisis: Haunting U.S. and European Federalism
Paul E. Peterson and Daniel Nadler, eds.
Brookings Institution Press, 2013
Stockton, California, recently became the largest American city in history to declare bankruptcy, having incurred a debt as high as $1 billion. Since 2010, seven U.S. cities, towns, or counties have filed for bankruptcy, while many more teeter on the brink of insolvency. Not since the Great Depression has America witnessed such grand-scale municipal bankruptcies. The Global Debt Crisis looks at this growing crisis and its implications for governance and federalism, both domestically and internationally.
Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School
Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann
Brookings Institution Press, 2013
The relative deficiencies of U.S. public schools are a serious concern to parents and policymakers. But they should be of concern to all Americans, as a globalizing world introduces new competition for talent, markets, capital, and opportunity. In Endangering Prosperity, a trio of experts on international education policy compares the performance of American schools against that of other nations. The net result is a mixed but largely disappointing picture that clearly shows where improvement is most needed. The authors’ objective is not to explain the deep causes of past failures but to document how dramatically the U.S. school system has failed its students and its citizens. Endangering Prosperity is a wake-up call for structural reform. To move forward to a different and better future requires that we understand just how serious a situation America faces today.
Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning
Paul E. Peterson
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010
Saving Schools traces the story of the rise, decline, and potential resurrection of American public schools through the lives and ideas of six mission-driven reformers: Horace Mann, John Dewey, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Shanker, William Bennett, and James Coleman. Yet schools did not become the efficient, egalitarian, and high-quality educational institutions these reformers envisioned. Indeed, the unintended consequences of their legacies shaped today’s flawed educational system, in which political control of stagnant American schools has shifted away from families and communities to larger, more centralized entities—initially to bigger districts and eventually to control by states, courts, and the federal government.
School Choice International
Rajashri Chakrabarti and Paul E. Peterson, eds.
MIT Press, 2008
Public-private partnerships in education exist in various forms around the world, in both developed and developing countries. Despite this, and despite the importance of human capital for economic growth, systematic analysis has been limited and scattered, with most scholarly attention going to initiatives in the United States. This volume helps to fill the gap, bringing together recent studies on public-private partnerships in different parts of the world, including Asia, North and South America, and Europe.