Schools That Do Too Much

Schools That Do Too Much argues that American schools systematically misspend their two most precious resources: time and money. From class schedules that fragment students' time to budgets that sink money into dozens of activities-especially sports-that distract from learning, Kralovec shows us how schools over and over try to do too much and end up delivering too little by way of real teaching and learning.A thoroughgoing critique of how American schools operate: they start too early, they fragment the school day . . ., they focus too much time and energy on non-educational tasks like dental health and sports . . . The fundamental question about schools today, she writes, is not so much how to raise test scores but how to clarify, exactly, 'what we value most.' --New York Times

"Kralovec asks a simple question, but one with complex and profound implications . . . [She] is no back-to-basics ideologue . . . but she does care about learning . . . Kralovec's succinct work should set the tone for conversations that administrators, school boards and politicians need to be having across the nation." --Publishers Weekly

"Without bashing administrators and teachers, Kralovec . . . demonstrates that schools end up doing too little of what matters." --Library Journal

"Kralovec assumes the gadfly role again by insisting that schools scale back or even eliminate activities that aren't central to their educational mission." --Teacher MagazineAuthor of the acclaimed and controversial The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning, Etta Kralovec was a teacher and professor of education for more than twenty years. She is currently vice president for learning with Training and Development Corporation in Maine. She lives in Orland, Maine.