Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, by Hoover Fellows Terry M. Moe and John Chubb

“Moe and Chubb have delivered a truly stunning book, rich with the prospect of how technology is already revolutionizing learning in communities from Midland, Pennsylvania to Gurgaon, India. At the same time, this is a sobering telling of the realpolitik of education, a battle in which the status quo is well defended. But most of all, this book is a call to action, a call to unleash the power of technological innovation to create an education system worthy of our aspirations and our childrens’ dreams.”

—Ted Mitchell, CEO of the New Schools Venture Fund

 

“Terry Moe and John Chubb, two longtime, astute observers of educational reform, see technology as the way to reverse decades of failed efforts. Technology will facilitate significantly more individualized student learning—and perhaps most importantly, technology will make it harder and harder for the entrenched adult interests to block the reforms that are right for our kids. This is a provocative, informative and, ultimately, optimistic read, something we badly need in public education.”

—Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City schools

Technology has transformed all aspects of our everyday lives. From online banking to social networking, we communicate, connect, and consume in ways radically different from the past. Yet the average classroom is not that different from the classroom of fifty years ago.

What’s wrong with this picture? In their new book Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education (Jossey-Bass, 2009), Hoover fellows Terry M. Moe and John Chubb, leaders in education reform, tell a dramatic story about the pitched battle to bring about real change and improvement to America’s schools—a battle that pits the innovative forces of technology against the entrenched interests that powerfully protect the educational status quo.

The timing could not be more critical, as the United States struggles to keep pace with a world economy that places a growing premium on education. Right now, technology has a tremendous capacity to promote learning—for all students, regardless of background or neighborhood—by opening up a dazzling array of new opportunities that can literally customize education to the needs, schedules, styles, and interests of each student. But it is being blocked by the political process.

Controversial and compelling, Liberating Learning maps out a dynamic vision of the nation's educational future, showing how the ideas and innovations of technology will ultimately transform the public schools to the great benefit of the nation and its children—and how learning will be liberated from the special interests and from the dead hand of the past.

Terry M. Moe is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, and a member of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. John E. Chubb is founder and chief development officer of EdisonLearning, which partners with school districts and charter schools nationwide to improve student achievement. Chubb is also a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. Moe and Chubb are also the coauthors of Politics, Markets, and America's Schools.

Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education
by Terry M. Moe and John Chubb