John I. Goodlad, PhD is President of the Institute for Educational Inquiry in Seattle and author of A Place Called School, the groundbreaking study of the effectiveness of the American system of schooling. A leading force in improving public schooling in North America, he developed and directed the Englewood Project, an experiment in nongraded schooling on the elementary level, and served as Dean of UCLA's Graduate School of Education for sixteen years.

Educator, philosopher, and author of more than 20 books, John I. Goodlad has been the source of many of the seminal ideas in public education in North America. In this absorbing account of a life devoted to educating children, Goodlad paints a portrait of the North American educational system and its evolution over most of the past century.

Interlacing fascinating details from Goodlad's life with reflections on the philosophy and practice of education, Romances with Schools takes readers on a journey beginning during the Great Depression in the one-room schoolhouse where Goodlad began his education, through his years as a teacher and educational activist in the 1940s and '50s, and up through his tenure as dean of Graduate Education at UCLA. Along the way, he explores important issues in education, such as the value of grade-assigned schooling, the role of examinations and standardized testing, the fundamental aims of education, and how education in America can and must be improved.