In a handful of nations, virtually all children are now learning to solve problems and think for themselves. . Inspired to find answers for our own children, author and journalist Amanda Ripley follows three American teenagers embedded in these countries for one year. Their stories, along with groundbreaking research into how schools improve, reveal a pattern of startling transformation.
“[Ripley] gets well beneath the glossy surfaces of these foreign cultures and manages to make our own culture look newly strange…The question is whether the startling perspective provided by this masterly book can also generate the will to make changes.”
“Compelling...What is Poland doing right? And what is America doing wrong? Amanda Ripley, an American journalist, seeks to answer such questions in The Smartest Kids in the World, her fine new book about the schools that are working around the globe …Ms. Ripley packs a startling amount of insight in this slim book.”
“In riveting prose, Ripley's cross-cultural research shows how the education superpowers value rigor above all else...This timely and inspiring book offers many insights into how to improve America’s mediocre school system.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW
“If you care about education, you must read this book. By recounting what three intrepid kids learned from the rest of the world, it shows what we can learn about how to fix our schools. Ripley’s delightful storytelling has produced insights that are both useful and inspiring.”
— WALTER ISAACSON, AUTHOR OF STEVE JOBS AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
“This book gives me hope that we can create education systems of equity and rigor--if we heed the lessons from top performing countries and focus more on preparing teachers than on punishing them."
— RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
“The most illuminating reporting I have ever seen on the differences between schools in America and abroad."
— JAY MATHEWS, THE WASHINGTON POST
