The Right to Learn

In this important book, one of the nation's most respected educators, Linda Darling-Hammond, describes learner-centered schools that work for students in all kinds of communities and outlines the policies and practices that are needed to create these schools on a systemwide basis. Using in-depth interviews with dozens of teachers and studies of many successful schools, Darling-Hammond shows that good schools best serve learners by allowing good teaching to flourish. Reducing bureaucratic demands, favoring competence over procedures, nurturing and rewarding professional development, supporting curriculum and assessment that are relevant and challenging, and stimulating inside-out change.