This book is comprised of many short chapters, each tackling an issue related to American education. It covers some great topics, all quite relevant to the current educational landscape but the chapters are so short that the author isn't able to go into very much detail. Many of the chapters feel like introductions to much longer essays, but before you can get to the meat of the issue, the chapter ends, and you're confronted with the next topic. This isn't so much a book as it is a collection of short introductions to education-related concerns. I think it's adequate as a starting point to think about how we conceive of and approach school and learning, but I would have liked to read about some of the topics in more detail.

I did enjoy the chapter concerning intelligence-- Rose brings up a very good point about how we tend to categorize people, their work and their intelligence in terms of dichotomies-- industrial work (hand) vs. creative work (brain), manual labour vs. intellectual work, university education(theoretical/academic) vs. vocational education (practical), etc. Just because someone does industrial work doesn't mean they are any less intelligent than a white-collar employee. A factory worker, to use his example, needs a rich knowledge of the materials and tools used in his work, needs problem solving skills, be efficient, etc. ( )

Excellent essay on school in the US. ( )

In Why School? Mike Rose examines the core principals that should be guiding the educational system. Rose provided a new perspective on American education.

This is a good text for college students and teachers alike because it deals with issues that are being faced now. It also provides ways that the system should be run and goes into detail about how and why they should be enforced.

A slim read that offers a great deal to think about with regards to American education: what we teach, how we teach, and why we teach. Strangely, these are all questions which seem lost in our greater discourse of school reform which seems so often filled with finger pointing. Rose offers thoughtful insight into the classroom and the politics which govern it. ( )