A well-researched, disheartening, yet relentlessly hopeful examination of American public schools.
A former teacher assesses the problems that plague public schools in the United States in this debut education book.
During her tenure teaching elementary math in Baltimore County public schools, DeMallie was time and again “a teacher without a voice.” Her own professional opinions, based on the interests of the students she knew best, were constantly vetoed by the schools’ administrations. Tired of seeing how the public school system itself “enabled the problem and failed to provide a solution,” the author resigned after seven years in the classroom to become a national voice for education reform. This book’s first half identifies some of the major issues confronting America’s public schools, ranging from corrupt superintendents to the misapplication of technology. DeMallie’s nuanced analysis tackles the controversial Common Core, noting areas where it “benefits” students but also highlighting spots where it falls short of its intended goals. Even America’s century-old grading system is put under the microscope, as the author encourages readers to ask if “grades motivate students” to learn or even are accurate reflections of their knowledge. The second half of the volume centers on “Ten Steps To Improve Public Education,” which range from mental fortitude (“be resilient” and “focus on the positive”) to pragmatic tips, such as the efficacy of teacher microphones in reducing academic and behavioral issues. DeMallie’s rigorous analysis is often accompanied by anecdotes from her time in the classroom as well as her own experiences as a parent whose son initially struggled in school due to a hearing issue. These vignettes, combined with the author’s conversational yet informed writing style, make for an approachable read. Designed to spawn future parent/teacher activists, the book also includes questions for small group discussions as well as practical advice on how individuals can speak up and make changes on a local and even national level (as DeMallie did as the founding director of the Institute of Classroom Hearing). While some may disagree with the author’s suggestion to not “rely on politicians” for reform, this is a remarkably well-written, balanced, and impassioned case for change.
A well-researched, disheartening, yet relentlessly hopeful examination of American public schools.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-54-451796-4
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Houndstooth Press
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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