*Global Sustainability and the Responsibilities of Universities.  Edited by Luc E. Weber (rector emeritus, U of Geneva) and James J. Duderstadt (President Emeritus, U of Michigan).  Economica (dist. by Brookings), Feb 2012, 300p, $59.95.  Research universities worldwide are well-placed to address the challenges of global sustainability, including climate, environmental, economic, health, poverty, and geopolitical concerns.  Discusses how research universities are adapting to the imperatives of global sustainability (e.g., social diversity, resource management, academic programs, research and scholarship) and how they can develop new curricula, student experiences, research paradigms, social engagement, and international alliances to better address the challenges of global sustainability while producing globally identified citizens.  (SUSTAINABILITY AND  UNIVERSITIES * HIGHER EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY)

*Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances. Edited by Greg J. Duncan (Distinguished Prof of Education, U of California, Irvine) and Richard J. Murnane (Prof of Education and Society, Harvard U).  NY: Russell Sage Foundation and Spencer Foundation, Sept 2011, 528p, $49/95pb.  Examines the corrosive effects of unequal family resources, disadvantaged neighborhoods, insecure labor markets, and worsening conditions on K-12 education.  Rising inequality is undermining the ability of schools to provide children with an equal chance at academic and economic success.  From earliest childhood, parental investments in children’s learning affect reading, math, and other attainments later in life.  The gap between rich and poor children’s achievement is now larger than it was 50 years ago. Income-based gaps persist across the school years.  Rising inequality may now be compromising the functioning of schools and the promise of equal opportunity in America. (EDUCATION * INEQUALITY AND SCHOOLS * CHILDREN AND INEQUALITY * POVERTY IN U.S.)

*Improving Adult Literacy Instruction: Options for Practice and Research.  National Research Council (edited by Alan M. Lesgold and Melissa Welch-Ross).  Washington: National Academies Press: March 2012, 640p, $64.95pb.  A high level of literacy in both print and digital media is required for negotiating most aspects of 21st-century life, including education, health, supporting a family, civic partici­pation, and competitiveness in the global economy. Yet, “more than 90 million US adults lack adequate literacy. Furthermore, only 38 % of US 12th graders are at or above proficient levels in reading.”  Synthesizes the research on literacy and learning to improve literacy instruction in the US and to recommend a more systemic approach to research, practice, and policy, with a focus on individuals 16 and older who are not in K-12 education.   Recommends a program of research and innovation to validate, identify the boundaries of, and extend current knowledge to improve instruction for adults and adolescents outside school. (EDUCATION * ADULT LITERACY * LITERACY LACKING IN U.S.)

*Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (Second Edition).  Harm de Blij (Prof of Geography, Michigan State U).  NY: Oxford UP, Aug 2012, 320p, $16.95pb.  America has become “the world’s most geographically illiterate society of consequence.”  Despite increasing global interconnectivity and rapid change, Americans seem to be less informed and less knowledgeable about the rest of the world than ever.  By improving our understanding of the world’s geography, we can better respond to the events around us, and better prepare ourselves to face the global challenges ahead.  Topics include climate change along with significant weather extremes, the economic crisis, the burgeoning presence of China, the troubling disarray of the EU, the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, the terrible conflict in Equitorial Africa, and the Arab Spring. (Also see The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape by Harm de Blij, Oxford UP, 2002.)    (GEOGRAPHIC ILLITERACY: U.S. * GEOGRAPHY * EDUCATION * WORLD FUTURES)

* Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It.  Russell W. Rumberger (Prof of Education, U of California-Santa Barbara).  Cambridge MA: Harvard U Press, Oct 2011, 358p, $35 (also as e-book).  The vast majority of kids in the developed world finish high school – but not in the US.   More than a million adolescents drop out every year, and the numbers are rising.  Students start disengaging long before they get to high school, and the consequences are severe: they are less likely to find work at all, and more likely to live in poverty, commit crimes, and suffer health problems.  Advocates targeting the most vulnerable students as far back as the early elementary grades and a more flexible and practical definition of achievement.  Success should not be limited to readiness for college.  High schools must offer all students all they need to succeed in the workplace and independent adult life, not merely qualify them for more school.                                                        (EDUCATION * HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS * YOUTH)

* American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges (Third Edition).  Edited by Philip G. Altbach (Prof of Higher Education, Boston College), Patricia J. Gumport (Prof of Education, Stanford Institute for Higher Education), and Robert O. Berdahl (Prof Emeritus of Higher Education, U of Maryland).  Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins U Press, June 2011, 416p, $29.95pb.  Overviews the central issues facing American colleges and universities today, including finance, federal and state governance, faculty, students, curriculum, and academic leadership.  Also addresses the major challenges in higher education, especially the influence and incorporation of new technologies and growing concern about the future of the academy in a post-Iraq War setting.

* Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty-first Century.  Howard Gardner (Prof of Cognition and Education, Harvard U).  NY: Basic Books, April 2011, 256p, $25.95 (also e-book).  A primer on the foundations of ethics in the modern age.  Although the concepts of truth, beauty and goodness are and remain the cornerstones of our society, they are changing faster than ever before.  Explores the meaning of these virtues in an age when vast technological advancement and relativistic attitudes toward human nature have deeply shaken our moral worldview.  [Note: Also by Gardner, see Five Minds for the Future (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), on the kinds of minds needed to thrive in the world ahead (the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind), Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons (Basic Books, 2006), and 20 or so other books.]                                                                                        (EDUCATION * ETHICS)

* Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights in an Interdependent World.  Edited by Hakan Altinay (Senior Fellow in Global Economy, Brookings Institution; former Exec Director, Open Society Foundation-Turkey).  Foreword by Kemal Devi? (Vice-President, Brookings; former Director, UN Development Programme).  Washington: Brookings Institution Press, Feb 2011, 145p, $18.95pb.  “A conversation about global civics is needed, and university campuses are ideal venues for these conversations to start” (Martii Ahtisaari, 2008 Nobel Peace Laureate).  We cannot achieve the cooperation needed for a globalizing century without developing some sort of “global civics”.  Self-interest will remain an integral component of national policies.  It neither should nor can be the only mechanism at work.  Our perception of worldwide connection and solidarity has to deepen, and our sense of being part of a global community must strengthen.  Explores how to build an effective curriculum for global civics, so that institutions of higher learning worldwide can teach it and take a leading role in advancing that agenda.       (WORLD FUTURES * GLOBAL CIVICS * HIGHER EDUCATION AND GLOBAL CIVICS)

* PISA 2009 at a Glance.  Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.  Paris: OECD, Dec 2010, 92p, free pdf at www.oecd-ilibrary.org.  This is a companion publication to PISA 2009 Results, the six-volume report on the 2009 survey conducted by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment.  PISA assesses the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies.  Its triennial assessments of 15-year-olds focus on reading, mathematics and science. PISA shows that school success is a function of school governance, favorable learning conditions, and disciplined climate.  Also analyses ways to overcome social background handicaps and learning strategies to help students perform better.

                       (EDUCATION * PISA/OECD SUMMARY* OECD STUDENT SKILLS ASSESSMENT)

 

* A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t In Providing an Excellent Education for All.  Wendy Kopp (NYC; founder and president, Teach for America).  NY: Public Affairs, Jan 2011, 304p, $25.95.  Since 1990, Teach for America has been building up a movement to end educational inequity.  Its founder shares the lessons learned from the experiences of 25,000 teachers and alumni who have taught in low-income communities.  Introduces leaders who set out and accomplished challenging performances at the classroom, school, and system levels.  Shows that strong leadership makes possible an excellent education for children in poverty.  Such leadership requires vision, people skills, a drive for continuous improvement, and willingness to achieve.                                

* Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.  Richard Arum (Prof of Sociology and Education, NYU; director,  Education Research Program, Social Science Research Council) and Josipa Roksa (Asst Prof of Sociology, U of Virginia).  Chicago IL: U of Chicago Press, Jan 2011/256p/$25pb.  In spite of soaring tuition costs, more students than ever in the US go to college, in that a bachelor’s degree is required for entry into a growing number of professions. The Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and again at the end of their second year, shows that 45 % of a sample of 2,300 students at 24 institutions show no significant improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing during the first two years of college.  Instead, students are distracted by socializing or working, and an institutional culture that puts a low priority on learning. (EDUCATION * HIGHER EDUCATION * COLLEGIATE LEARNING ASSESSMENT)

* Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge.  Edited by Toru Iiyoshi (director of Knowledge Media Lab, Carnegie Foundation) and M.S. Vijay Kumar (senior assoc dean and director, Office for Educational Innovation, MIT).  Cambridge MA: MIT Press, Oct 2010/504p/$12.95pb (cloth edition, 2008).  Open source entrepreneurs and faculty need incentives to use and contribute to open education goods.  Explores the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education. Maintains that one must develop both the technical capability and the intellectual capacity for transforming tacit pedagogical knowledge into commonly usable and visible knowledge.

** Patterns of Potential Human Progress.  Vol 2: Advancing Global Education.  Janet R. Dickson (Research Associate, Pardee Center for International Futures, U of Denver), Barry B. Hughes (Prof of International Studies and Director, Pardee Center), and Mohammod T. Irfan (post-doctoral fellow, Pardee Center).  Boulder CO: Paradigm Publishers, July 2010/354p/$32.95pb. (free pdf at www.ifs.du.edu).  The second in a series on prospects for human development: how it appears to be unfolding and how to move it in desired directions.  A 100-year horizon is used for most of the analysis, beginning in 1960 (when the education transition became truly global) and extended to 2060, when the transition to universal primary education should be largely complete, and transition to universal lower secondary education should be far along.  Topics include the history of education’s advance, global education goals, exploring possible futures of the transition using the IFs (International Futures) modeling system, the IFs Base Case Forecast, placing education in a human development framework, a normative scenario for educational futures (identifying targets for intake and public spending), accelerating education’s advance, costs and possible funding sources, and the broader impact of advancing education.  [Note: The broadest view ever of education in time and space, albeit with no mention of new infotech.  Vol 3 in this ambitious and valuable series focuses on Global Health (Dec 2010), to be followed by Vol 4 on infrastructure.]                          (EDUCATION WORLDWIDE TO 2060 * GLOBAL EUCATION TO 2060

* Educating Globally Competent Citizens: A Tool Kit for Teaching Seven Revolutions.  Edited by Dennis R. Falk (U of Minnesota-Duluth), Susan Moss (Ft. Lewis College, CO), and Martin Shapiro (Cal State U-Fresno).  Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2010/133p/$20 (www.csis.org).    It is increasingly difficult for leaders to act in ways that will yield positive, long-term results.  The Tool Kit, part of the Seven Revolutions (7 Revs) initiative to educate globally competent citizens, stems from a collaboration of CSIS, the American Assn. of State Colleges and Universities, and The New York Times.  It shows how seven AASCU campuses have used 7 Revs in their teaching materials.  The 7 Revs project identified seven areas of change expected to be most “revolutionary” in the world of 2025: population, environmental stewardship and resource management, technological innovation and diffusion, development and dissemination of knowledge, economic integration, the nature and mode of conflict, and the challenge of governance. 

* Creating the School You Want: Living at Tomorrow’s Edge.  Edited by Arthur B. Shostak (Emeritus Prof of Sociology, Drexel U).  Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010/230p/$39.95.  Futurists such as Tim Mack, David Pearce Snyder, Tsvi Bisk, Joseph F. Coates, William Crossman, and William Halal urge schools at all grade levels to incorporate futures-oriented curricula into their courses.  By doing so, students will learn how to analyze situations and actively shape their own futures, and teachers and schools will also benefit.  Companion follow-up volume to Anticipate the School You Want: Futurizing K-12 Education by Shostak (Rowman & Littlefield, Sept 2008/157p/$24.95pb), on Generation Next youngsters, “futuristics” as a framework to understand possibilities and preferred futures, promoting futuristic schooling, high schools of the future and their courses, and learning aids.  [NOTE: Brimming with ideas and enthusiasm.]        (EDUCATION * FUTURISTICS IN SCHOOLS * SCHOOL CURRICULA)

* DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. Anya Kamenetz (writer, Fast Company magazine; www.anyakamenetz.blogspot.com).  White River Junction VT: Chelsea Green, April 2010/208p/$14.95pb (e-book available).  Makes the case against college, and for education.  In the US the price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last 20 years.  Almost half of college students don’t graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of student loan debt, which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis. The current system particularly fails first-generation and low-income college students, and students of color. The university needs to reform: the future lies in personal learning networks and paths, learning that blends experiential and digital approaches, and free and open-source educational models.                                                                                       (HIGHER EDUCATION: REFORM)

* Hope Is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr.  David W. Orr (Distinguished Prof of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College). Foreword by Fritjof Capra.  Washington DC: Island Press, Dec 2010/375p/$30pb.  Collects the works of a leading champion of the environmental movement and author of six previous books, who advocates ecological literacy in higher education, ecological design, and awareness of threats to future genererations.  The 33 essays include “What is Education For?”, “The Campus and The Biosphere”, and “Loving Children: A Design Problem.”  An introduction describes the evolution of environmentalism.           (ENVIRONMENTALISM EVOLVING * ECOLOGICAL LITERACY

* University Research for Innovation.  Edited by Luc E. Weber (Rector Emeritus, U of Geneva) and James J. Duderstadt (President Emeritus and University Prof of Science and Engineering, U of Michigan).  London: Economica (dist. Brookings), Feb 2010, 390p, $59.95.  On the role of research universities in an innovation-driven global society, based on the 7^th Glion Colloquium held in 2009.  Discusses alternative innovation strategies, approaches to innovation at national and institutional levels, the intellectual character of innovation, challenges of creating world-class universities, and the shift of high-tech industry toward open innovation.

*Pitch Perfect: Communicating with Traditional and Social Media for Scholars, Researchers, and Academic Leaders. William Tyson (Morrison & Tyson Communications). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, May 2010, 176p, $19.95pb. A practical guide for scholars keen to communicate their knowledge and research to a wider public. On using traditional and digital media, and engaging with social media such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and wikis. Tyson has advised scholars and academic leaders on media relations for >30 years. An appendix lists key media in North America, Australia, and the UK.                             (COMMUNICATIONS * EDUCATION * METHODS)

* Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future.  Chris Mooney (Cambridge MA) and Sheril Kirshenbaum (Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke U); www.unscientificamerica.com .  NY: Basic Books, June 2010/208p/$15pb (hardcover, 2009).  The most urgent problems of the 21C require scientific solutions, yet Americans pay less and less attention to scientists.  For every five hours of cable news, <1 minute is devoted to science, and the number of newspapers with science sections has shrunk from 95 to 33 in the past 20 years.  Mooney is author of The Republican War on Science (2005) and Storm World (2007).

  

* Higher Education to 2030 (3 Volumes). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. OECD, Aug 2009 (dist. by Brookings). Analyzes the impact of various trends on tertiary education systems. Volume 1 Demography (300p/$62pb) looks at aging OECD populations with more immigrants and minorities; Volume 2 Technology (150p/$40pb) examines the possible impact of technology, as well as the opportunities it may bring; Volume 3 Globalization (500p/$80pb) addresses the effects of globalization.                                                                           (EDUCATION * HIGHER EDUCATION)

 

* Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America’s Public Universities. James C. Garland. U of Chicago Press, Oct 2009/320p/$27.50. Former president of Miami U of Ohio and dean at Ohio State U notes that America’s public universities educate 80% of US college students, but many of these institutions have fallen into decline due to rising demands on state treasuries, changing demographics, and growing income inequality. Tuition costs and class sizes are up, while the number of courses offered and overall quality has declined. A new compact between state government and public universities is needed.                                 (EDUCATION * HIGHER EDUCATION * PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN U.S.)

 

* The Trials of Academe: The New Era of Campus Litigation. Amy Gadja (Asst Prof of Journalism and Law, U of Illinois). Cambridge: Harvard UP, Oct 2009/298p/$35. Contrary to the past, when no one ever thought to sue about anything, litigation is now common regarding tenure decisions, grading curves, course content, admissions, exam policies, and graduation requirements; Gadia explores causes of the litigation trend, implications for academic freedom, and what can be done to limit potential damage.

 

* The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Diane Ravitch (Research Prof of Education, NYU; Brookings Institution). NY: Basic Books, March 2010/288p/$26.95. Former Asst Secretary of Education critiques school reform ideas (charter schools, privatization, accountability, business models), explains why they have had no positive impact on the quality of American education, and offers ideas for improving schools—ideas that repudiate positions she once fiercely defended.                              (SCHOOL REFORM * EDUCATION)

* Creating an Opportunity Society. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill (co-directors, Brookings Center on Children and Families). Brookings Institution Press, Sept 2009/300p/$28.95pb. On economic opportunity in the US and how to create more of it, especially for the poor; a cost-effective agenda consistent with American values takes a three-pronged approach: increase education at all levels, encourage and support work among adults, and reduce out-of-wedlock births (while increasing the share of children reared by their married parents).       (CHILDREN * “OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY” * EDUCATION * WORK)

 

* Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Chris Hedges (Princeton NJ; fellow, The Nation Institute). NY: Nation Books, July 2009/256p/$24.95. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author describes two Americas: a minority that functions in a print-based and literate world that can cope with complexity, and a majority retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic, where political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level, and newspapers and books are being pushed to the margins of society.                                            (LITERACY DECLINE IN U.S.)