Book Description

This ambitious book aims to reorient discussions about school reform by moving away from "whole-school" solutions to customized services and products. The book surveys the current landscape of customized entrepreneurial activity in education, looks closely at particular customized innovations by schools and education entrepreneurs, and addresses persistent concerns that arise in connection with customized reforms. A volume that is both far ranging and insistently pragmatic, Customized Schooling aims to spur fresh thoughts about the scope and nature of promising education reforms and to open up strikingly new possibilities for entrepreneurial activity in today's schools. Customized Schooling is a volume in the Educational Innovations series. "Customized Schooling dares the reader to look at what schooling could be like if we end our reliance on the one-stop-shop schoolhouse. Alongside a score of policy leaders, esteemed researchers, and on-the-ground practitioners, Hess and Manno lay out the case for individualizing education so that student, teacher, and district demands are heard and followed. What are the contours of such a system? How will it handle financial, data, and accountability concerns? And how will we listen more effectively to the wants of education customers? This volume provides fuel for the crucial discussion of these and other questions." -- Clayton M. Christensen, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School "Rick Hess and Bruno Manno argue that contemporary education is 'an anachronism in today's world of specialized services.' The book persuasively puts forth a strong rationale for abandoning past practices and provides a compendium of cutting-edge innovations and innovators. Do not put this book aside; read it again and again. Customized Schooling is an essential book for those of us committed to the transformation of learning in the United States." -- Gene Wilhoit, executive director, Council of Chief State School Officers Frederick M. Hess is director of educational policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and executive editor of Education Next. He has edited and authored numerous books, including What Next? Educational Innovation and Philadelphia's School of the Future and Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best, both published by Harvard Education Press. Bruno V. Manno is senior advisor for education with the Walton Family Foundation. He is coauthor of Charter Schools in Action and numerous other works on education policy and reform.