As we mentioned a few days ago, National Journal asked people for summer reading recommendations on education. Lots of ed reformers around the country made the case for their favorite education policy book. CEO Alex Johnston weighed in, too--the only difference is that his recommendation hasn't been written yet: 

As I thought about the best book to add to this list, I realized (thanks in large measure to recent conversations with fellow ed reformers Linc Caplan and Robin Golden) that the book I want to recommend doesn’t exist yet. What I want to read this summer and share with others is the Omnivore’s Dilemma of education – a book that would clearly communicate the urgency of reforming our education system and make that urgency tangible and actionable for laypeople, even (or especially) those who might not have realized they were interested in education before.

Fixing our public education system is something that everyone should care about, and it’s probably something more people would care about if they knew what all the issues were. But that’s kind of the point. In Connecticut, we have found that part of the reason we’ve tolerated the status quo for so long is that people just don’t know – or don’t believe – that 1) we have such a huge problem on our hands and 2) practical solutions are readily within our grasp. Yet as we say at ConnCAN, “being right is not enough.” It takes more than imparting information to inspire action. What we need is the book that tells such an undeniable story that people can’t turn a blind eye anymore – and that reads so well it goes viral and tops bestseller lists overall, not merely the specialized ones for education.

This book would connect the dots between kids not being adequately educated today and a very scary picture of tomorrow. We already know that if you don’t get a good education, you are more likely not to graduate from high school, to go to jail, and to earn much less than your potential. What we haven’t worked through yet are the profound consequences of a system in which American kids are much less prepared than their parents were to enter the world they will face as adults. This is about nothing less than securing the very future of our society, and we need widespread systemic action if we’re going to change our trajectory.

Granted, Michael Pollan’s Ominvore’s Dilemma resonates most strongly among a fairly select cultural segment, and it is not about to put factory farming and fast food out of business. But there is a genuine mass movement beginning to take shape around Pollan’s ideas, in no small measure because of the very compelling way he expressed them.

There have been some encouraging recent efforts in this direction, but I’m still looking for the book that will paint a picture so compelling that readers who have never thought about it before will take it upon themselves to act in the name of education reform.

Let’s hope we all get to read it sooner rather than later.