This book offers insights into the schools of the United States that are broader and deeper than those in many of the recent reports on education. It brings together a historical sense of how our schools reached their present status, a perspective on the values that undergird educational quality, and a practical concern for how the schools work and what can be done to make them work better.

In dealing with the difficult problem of making useful generalizations about the variety of American schools, this volume is more successful than any we know. It recognizes the diversity, the quality, and the very great achievements of the schools, yet it is uncompromising in calling attention to shallowness within them or in the attitudes of those who plan for their needs. It recognizes significant controversies and deals with them evenhandedly.

An Education of Value is primarily about what goes on inside schools rather than about the activities of state and national governments. When it addresses such national issues as equality of opportunity, it considers their impact on teachers and students. It is full of ideas that can move people who work in schools to action. But these ideas are not presented as a series of steps for improving schools to be used in cookbook fashion. Instead, they are discussed with attention to their origins and values, so that readers are given concepts to inspire action and understanding to ensure that action is based on wisdom.