A Message from the Authors

The volume of response to A Disgrace to the Profession since it was first published has been tremendous! With over 16,000 copies sold by the beginning of 2005, our book has given its readers validation of their own feelings about school--the joys, the disappointments, the frustrations, whatever it is they've felt. More important, however, is that the book has given them permission to express their own thoughts, often for the first time outside their own groups.

This applies to teacher-readers and non-teacher-readers alike. The realization of readers that their thoughts are truly universal, not the unique product of their particular environment, is also important, but not as important as the revelation that it's okay to feel as they do.

We want A Disgrace to the Profession to be provocative. And if discussion of the positives and negatives of public education leads to change, then we're all winners.

--The Authors