Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik

Chester E. Finn, Jr. talks about his new autobiography, the entertainingly serious and perfectly titled Troublemaker.

Checker (as he’s known) has been the nation’s most incisive education scholar and critic for more than a generation. The fact, moreover, that he has been more prolific than virtually anyone else in the field has made his contribution that much larger. More specifically still, no one has been more effective – working both outside and inside of government – in making the case for high standards, consequential accountability, fiscal good sense, and significantly expanded educational freedom.

Bill Bennett, by the way, is of same mind, calling his former colleague in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration (as well as Mitch Pearlstein’s old boss back then) “simply the nation’s single best education expert.”