^{The Bottom Line} New Version of Every School

An all-new version of Don Nielsen’s Every School, One Citizen’s Guide for Transforming Education can now be purchased on Amazon here! In this updated version of his book, Nielsen, Senior Fellow and Program Chair of Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education (ACTE), writes about the urgent need to transform our education system. Updating every chapter with new information, the book also adds a new chapter that provides a “game plan” for a state to implement the changes he advocates.

Nielsen’s inspiration for the original version of the book, published by Discovery Institute in 2014, was that it would provide a unique and distinctive approach to education reform—dealing with  the overall “system” of public education rather than subjects like curriculum, teaching, and equity. Nielsen believes our public schools will never materially improve until we address the constraints existing in the present system. Every School articulates the problems with the current system and provides new ideas for how these issues can be addressed.

What was missing with the previous version, however, were the concrete steps needed to implement his plan. The “game plan” does just that. He lays out how a state can go about transforming its education system to provide the quality education its students need and deserve. The state level is selected because the state controls most of the money, who can teach, who can lead, the governance structure, the subjects taught, the pay for staff, and the graduation requirements. The ACTE is actively pursuing states to adopt the changes in the “game plan” in order to create a template for the nation.

The book is a must-read for parents, policymakers, and citizens interested in public education.