Books

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.

Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.

Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr.… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.

Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.

Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.

Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.

Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer,… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.

Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.

Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts… More

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.

Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.

Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields,… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.

Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in… More

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.

Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some… More

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional Life," by Stanley M. Elkins, Commentary, May, 1960.

Excerpt: There exists a major problem about American slavery, one on which even a reader of the best American historians on slavery will not be enlightened: indeed, if he limits his reading… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.

Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.

Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.

Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.

Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).

Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).

Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.

Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.

Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.

Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.

Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy.… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.

Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.

Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.

Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.

Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.

Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.

Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.

Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).

Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.

Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).

Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).

Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.

Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.

Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed,… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.

Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.

Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.

Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.

Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.

Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.

Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County.… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.

Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.

Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.

Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.

Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn,… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.

Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.

Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.

Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.

Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.

Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian… More

Essays

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.

Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.

Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr.… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.

Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.

Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.

Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.

Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer,… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.

Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.

Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts… More

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.

Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.

Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields,… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.

Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in… More

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.

Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some… More

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional Life," by Stanley M. Elkins, Commentary, May, 1960.

Excerpt: There exists a major problem about American slavery, one on which even a reader of the best American historians on slavery will not be enlightened: indeed, if he limits his reading… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.

Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.

Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.

Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.

Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).

Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).

Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.

Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.

Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.

Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.

Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy.… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.

Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.

Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.

Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.

Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.

Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.

Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.

Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).

Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.

Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).

Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).

Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.

Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.

Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed,… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.

Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.

Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.

Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.

Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.

Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.

Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County.… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.

Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.

Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.

Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.

Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn,… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.

Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.

Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.

Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.

Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.

Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian… More

Commentary

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.

Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.

Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr.… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.

Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.

Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.

Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.

Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer,… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.

Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.

Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts… More

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.

Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.

Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields,… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.

Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in… More

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.

Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some… More

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional Life," by Stanley M. Elkins, Commentary, May, 1960.

Excerpt: There exists a major problem about American slavery, one on which even a reader of the best American historians on slavery will not be enlightened: indeed, if he limits his reading… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.

Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.

Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.

Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.

Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).

Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).

Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.

Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.

Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.

Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.

Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy.… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.

Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.

Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.

Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.

Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.

Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.

Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.

Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).

Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.

Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).

Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).

Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.

Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.

Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed,… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.

Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.

Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.

Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.

Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.

Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.

Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County.… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.

Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.

Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.

Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.

Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn,… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.

Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.

Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.

Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.

Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.

Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian… More

Multimedia

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.

Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.

Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr.… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.

Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.

Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.

Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.

Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer,… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.

Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.

Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts… More

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.

Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.

Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields,… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.

Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in… More

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.

Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some… More

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional Life," by Stanley M. Elkins, Commentary, May, 1960.

Excerpt: There exists a major problem about American slavery, one on which even a reader of the best American historians on slavery will not be enlightened: indeed, if he limits his reading… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.

Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.

Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.

Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.

Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).

Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).

Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.

Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.

Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.

Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.

Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy.… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.

Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.

Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.

Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.

Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.

Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.

Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.

Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).

Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.

Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).

Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).

Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.

Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.

Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed,… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.

Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.

Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.

Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.

Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.

Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.

Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County.… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.

Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.

Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.

Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.

Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn,… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.

Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.

Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.

Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.

Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.

Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian… More

Teaching

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.

Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.

Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr.… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.

Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.

Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.

Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.

Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer,… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.

Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.

Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts… More

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.

Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.

Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields,… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.

Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in… More

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.

Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some… More

Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional Life," by Stanley M. Elkins, Commentary, May, 1960.

Excerpt: There exists a major problem about American slavery, one on which even a reader of the best American historians on slavery will not be enlightened: indeed, if he limits his reading… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.

Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.

Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.

Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.

Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).

Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).

Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.

Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.

Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.

Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.

Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy.… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.

Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.

Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.

Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.

Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.

Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.

Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.

Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).

Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.

Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).

Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).

Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.

Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.

Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.

Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.

Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed,… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.

Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.

Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.

Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.

Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.

Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.

Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County.… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.

Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.

Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.

Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.

Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn,… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.

Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.

Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.

Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.

Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.

Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.

Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian… More