Includes bibliographical references and index.

What policies should guide school reform? The Common Core state standards are good for education / Council of Chief State School Officers -- Why Common Core isn't the answer / Marion Brady -- Federal spending on education should be limited / Lindsey M. Burke -- Government spending on education needs to be more equitable / Marin Gjaja, J. Puckett, and Matt Ryder -- Teachers' unions should be eliminated / Richard A. Epstein -- Teachers' unions are a positive force for education / Amy B. Dean -- How should students, teachers, and schools be evaluated? Standardized testing is harming student learning / Mary Elizabeth Williams -- Standardized testing is a good way to measure student learning / Herbert J. Walberg -- Disappearing act : end the testing fixation before it erases more meaningful education / Virginia Myers -- Evaluating teachers by student test scores can be arbitrary / Molly Rusk -- Students should evaluate their teachers / Amanda Ripley -- What role should school choice play in school reform? School vouchers are a good way to promote school choice / Casey Given -- Winning the war on charter schools / Reihan Salam -- Charter schools are a bad idea / Diane Ravitch -- Why school choice fails / Natalie Hopkinson -- The entire public school system should be abolished / C. Bradley Thompson -- Should curriculum content in schools be reformed? Math has to be at least a little boring / Konstantin Kakaes -- How much math do we really need? / G.V. Ramanathan -- Teachers should have the freedom to teach critiques of evolution / John W. Whitehead -- Schools should teach about religion / Mark Fowler and Marisa Fasciano -- Allowing schools to teach about religion is dangerous / Kevin Ryan.

This collection of articles pro and con on school reform debates the policies that should guide reform; how students, teachers, and schools should be evaluated; the role of school choice in reform; and whether curriculum content should be reformed.