Product Description

"We shape our tools and then they shape us." With these words, Kenneth Boulding captured one of the great truths of the modern world. In Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips, Gene V Glass analyzes how a few key technological inventions changed culture in America and how public education has changed as a result. Driving these changes are material self-interest and the desire for comfort and security, both of which have transformed American culture into a hyper-consuming, xenophobic society that is systematically degrading public education. Glass shows how the central education policy debates at the start of the 21st century (vouchers, charter schools, tax credits, high-stakes testing, bilingual education) are actually about two underlying issues: how can the costs of public education be cut, and how can the education of the White middle-class be "quasi-privatized" at public expense? Working from the demographic realities of the past thirty years, he projects a challenging and disturbing future for public education in America. Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips is attracting the attention of the nation's foremost education scholars. Reviews: "This is the first credible book of the 21st century to anticipate the future of public education." David C. Berliner ".a wake up call to America about the disastrous consequences of current policies that shortchange the education of the coming majorityLatinos and other 'minority' studentson whom the very future of the nation rests. " Patricia Gándara "The book makes such impressive sense that one has to believe that its clarity, command of the facts, eye for absurdity, and concern for justice will garner greater support for public education as a common and noble cause." John Willinsky "This is the most original book about education in years." Ernest R. House

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195907 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Review
...a wake up call to America about the disastrous consequences of current policies that shortchange the education of the coming majorityLatinos and other minority studentson whom the very future of the nation rests. --Patricia Gándara

The book makes such impressive sense that one has to believe that its clarity, command of the facts, eye for absurdity, and concern for justice will garner greater support for public education as a common and noble cause. --John Willinsky

This is the first credible book of the 21st century to anticipate the future of public education. --David C. Berliner

Customer Reviews

You can't handle the truth!
I read this book in a few days which is fast for me. What is intriguing about the book is the "in your face" assertions about controversial topics in education. I found Glass' style refreshing in comparison to overly politically correct styles found in so many books on education.

My intent would be to use this book in a graduate seminar course and have students produce evidence that either challenges or supports many of the book's claims. The reader who is familiar with these topics may question the accuracy of some claims but in the end, the book does what it is supposed to do - it leaves the reader thinking about and wanting to discuss the book with others.

Unprecedented synopsis
Fertilizers, Pills and Magnetic Strips, The Fate of Public Education in America.
Gene Glass
Information Age Publishing, 311 pages
ISBN: 13 978-1-59311-892-1 (paperback)

Personal acquisitiveness, corporate greed and a lack of government regulatory supervision combined in the 21st century to create a toxic mix of personal debt, unprecedented lack of personal savings, historically high public debt, creeping poverty rates and a disturbing public reluctance to invest in indispensable public needs like schooling.
Gene Glass in Fertilizers, Pills and Magnetic Strips, The Fate of Public Education in America has finally exposed in a brilliant analysis the ugly truths that Americans have been living beyond their means, that credit card companies, hiding behind layers of anonymity, have been gouging citizens, and that Congress is in bed with the banking industry. He has not only thought outside the education box in this book, he has created new geometries to demonstrate the relationships with domestic social and economic issues and the deleterious influence of misguided government policies.
Glass has raised the intellectual bar for the discourse on schools and educational policy. This is a thoughtful book, reflective of decades of his study of policy research patterns, and now ingeniously aligned with the shifts in government policies and the dynamics of economics. I stand in admiration and ask rhetorically, as Huxley did after reading Darwin, "How stupid not to have thought of that myself."

Worth a Look
Glass's "Fertilizers, Pills and Magnetic Strips" is an extremely well conceived publication. The situation of education in the United States has been carefully analyzed and documented, as well as carefully argued with both data and personal opinion. It is a book that every parent, teacher, and education professor should be reading, studying, and acting on. I will be recommending it to all of my former graduate students, education colleagues, and personal friends.

~ Dale Lange
Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities