The Flat World and Education

How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future

Linda Darling-Hammond

The Grawemeyer Award in Education, 2012; ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award Finalist in Education, 2011; Association of American Publishers Prose Award Honorable Mention in Education, 2010

Narrated by Lynne Ennis

Available from Audible

Book published by Teachers College Press

Today in the United States only 1 in 10 low-income kindergarteners goes on to graduate from college. At a time when education matters more than ever, the U.S. high school graduation rate has dropped from first in the world to the bottom half of rankings for comparable nations. While such sobering facts inform her new book, the author focuses on the successes of effective school systems in the U.S. and abroad in order to develop a clear and coherent set of policies that can be used to create high-quality and equitable schools.

Drawing on her broad experience,Darling-Hammond examines the roots of our modern education system and shows how the skills required for our 21st-century global economy cannot be learned in traditional education systems, which have been in place since the early 1900s. She identifies an “opportunity gap” that has evolved as new kinds of learning have become necessary — a gap where low-income students, students of color, and English language learners often do not have the same access as others to qualified teachers, high-quality curriculum, and well-resourced classrooms.

After setting the stage on current conditions in the United States, Darling-Hammond offers a coherent approach for effective reform that focuses on creating successful systems, inducting and supporting quality teachers, designing effective schools, establishing strong professional practice, and providing equitable and sufficient resources. The Flat World and Education lays out what the United States needs to do in order to build a system of high-achieving and equitable schools that ensures every child the right to learn.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, a chief education advisor to President Obama, Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and Founding Director of the School Redesign Network at Stanford.

REVIEWS:

““Darling-Hammond’s book gives us an idea of where we could have been headed if she were in charge of the country’s education policy.”

—Washington Post

“We are so fortunate that Linda Darling-Hammond has provided this roadmap for educational excellence for allchildren in today's flat world. She thoughtfully emphasizes the basic strengths that we need in these changing times and then outlines what our schools must do to respond to 21st-century learning needs. Linda is one of the education researchers whom I most respect. ‘All children’ must mean all children and this book shows us how to do it.”

—Richard W. Riley, Former U. S. Secretary of Education

“Anyone who desires a quantum leap in the educational achievements of American students—as opposed to the 'quick fix'—must address the issues raised in this carefully argued and well-documented work.”

—Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education

“When Linda Darling-Hammond speaks, America’s teachers listen! I listened and learned from her as we together led the National Boardfor Professional Teaching Standards and created the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Excellent schools are the key to America’s economic future, and superb teaching is the key to great schools. This book makes clear as a bell how to organize schools for successful teaching and what state and national policies are required to support it.”

—James B. Hunt, Former Governor of North Carolina

“Linda Darling-Hammond has written the definitive description of the problems that drag down the quality and equity of our educational system. Writing with passion, solid scholarship, and compassion, she presents a vision of the changes that are necessary to build a better education system and a brighter future for all our children and our nation.”

—Diane Ravitch, New York University, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System

“Linda Darling-Hammond’s latest is a profoundly important book. She provides both a powerful rationale and a clear, detailed roadmap for how public education must be transformed to meet the challenges of teaching, learning, and assessment in the 21st century. It is a ‘must-read’ for educators, policymakers, and others concerned about the future of our country in a ‘flat’ world.”

—Tony Wagner, co-director, Harvard Change Leadership Group, author of The Global Achievement Gap

“Her arguments are sound, rooted in evidence, and unencumbered by the kinds of ideological partisanship that characterizes too much of current debates on education. After reading this book, one will understand why it was that candidate Obama, when seeking advice from the sharpest minds in education, turned to Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond.”

—Pedro A. Noguera, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University

“Once again Linda Darling-Hammond brings clarity to complexity, thoughtful analysis to politically charged issues, and sound policy recommendations to the hysteria of what to do to save America’s public schools. In this volume the macro meets the micro on terms that let all democratically minded citizens breathe a sigh of relief.”

—Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison