Welcome to this subversive website, whose purpose is to make schools more effective educational institutions. But the route to be proposed here is not like the usual set of prescriptions for educational improvement.

Many people have noted that schools have a number of somewhat distinct aims. This website is dedicated to showing that the socializing aims of schools—that is, preparing students with the skills and knowledge they will need to do well in and for society—and the academic aims of schools—that is, teaching those things that are best for the minds of the students—are not always the same. It is generally assumed that these two aims complement each other, and that good schools can, successful achieve both.

This website will:

• expose in a somewhat new way the basic difference between these two aims

• show that these two aims constantly interfere with each other

• show that this interference undermines in ways little recognized the effectiveness of both aims

• begin a movement to separate these two aims and show how this separation can significantly improve the effectiveness of schooling

• show how we can gradually achieve an adequate separation over a period of two or three decades, beginning with things we can start in classrooms tomorrow.

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To read why and how the distinct aims undermine one another, click here

To read why and how the distinct aims undermine one another with regard to assessment of students, click here