Tools for college teaching aid in clearing copyright but abandon defense of fair use

An opinion piece today in Inside Higher Ed by Cornell professor Tarleton Gillespie has some smart things to say about academic online courseware vendors (a market becoming more and more concentrated), tools to enable micropayments for intellectual property royalties in the university context, and the erosion of any sort of institutional or professional defense of "fair use" principles for nonprofit social goals (such as education). The genesis of his column was the press release that "Last week, the Copyright Clearance Center announced that it would integrate a 'Copyright Permissions Building Block' function directly into Blackboard’s course management tools. The service automates the process of clearing copyright for course materials by incorporating it directly into the Blackboard tool kit; instructors post materials into their course space, and then tell the application to send information about those materials to CCC for clearance." Gillespie goes on to explain the ramifications of this new technological environment:

Some have argued that fair use is a practical solution for the complex process of clearing permission. If I had to clear permission every single time I quoted someone else’s research or Xeroxed a newspaper article for my students — figuring out who owns the copyright and how to contact them, then gaining permission and (undoubtedly) negotiating a fee — I might be discouraged from doing so simply because it’s difficult and time-consuming. In the absence of an easy way to clear copyright, we have fair use as a way to “let it slide” when the economic impact is minimal and the social value is great.

Others argue that fair use is an affirmative protection designed to ensure that copyright owners don’t exploit their legal power to squelch the reuse of their work, especially when it might be critical of their ideas. If I want to include a quote in my classroom slides in order to demonstrate how derivative, how racist, or maybe just how incompetent the writer is, and copyright law compelled me to ask the writer’s permission to do it, he could simply say no, limiting my ability to powerfully critique the work. Since copyright veers dangerously close to a regulation of speech, fair use is a kind of First Amendment safety valve, such that speakers aren’t restricted by those they criticize by way of copyright.

This distinction was largely theoretical until organizations like CCC came along. With the help of new database technologies and the Internet, the CCC has made it much easier for people to clear copyright, solving some of the difficulty of locating owners and negotiating a fair price by doing it for us. The automatic mechanism being built into Blackboard goes one step further, making the process smooth, user-friendly, and automatic. So, if fair use is merely a way to account for how difficult clearing copyright can be, then the protection is growing less and less necessary. Fair use can finally be replaced by what Tom Bell called “fared use” — clear everything easily for a reasonable price.

If, on the other hand, fair use is a protection of free speech and academic freedom that deliberately allow certain uses without permission, then the CCC/Blackboard plan raises a significant problem.

Another set of questions emerges from a different direction, if in its zeal to lessen the risk of having to fight legal battles (or even answer legal questions) over fair use, universities compel faculty and staff to use particular courseware systems (or any other tools involving automatic rights-clearance modules -- web design tools next?) from particular vendors for their teaching and/or research. This restricts the pedagogical freedom of instructors but serves to homogenize and standardize course offerings into models which can more easily be sold to wider markets of students willing and able to pay higher prices for more technologically-mediated educational products. In short, the "politics" of courseware artifacts and systems that Gillespie points us to may have far-reaching effects.

Public libraries and Sunday labor (updated)

From the Capital Times today:

Sunday at the library popular, expensive
Mayor's budget cuts those hours

By Lee Sensenbrenner
October 18, 2005

Madison could be nearly the only city in Dane County not to have any Sunday library hours under the 2006 operating budget proposed by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

Cieslewicz's plan to save money by keeping the Central Library closed on Sundays instead of being open Sundays from October through April has become an early chafing point as the city moves toward adopting a budget next year.

Madison Public Library Director Barb Dimick told the Board of Estimates Monday that 1-5 p.m. period that the Central Library is open on Sunday sees higher traffic and use than most other four-hour periods in the schedule and is "a peak period during winter."

It's a popular time for family excursions, she said. And it's a time when downtown streets near the library, 201 W. Mifflin St., do not charge for parking.

But it's also a time when the staff is paid overtime, or one-and-a-half times their hourly rate, because of their contract. The Sunday hours were added in the late 1990s, Dimick said, and at the time that meant accepting overtime payments.

She said that the union contract with library staff is up for negotiation next year. As it stands, eliminating Sunday hours would mean a $60,000 savings in the $202 million budget.

Sun Prairie, Verona and Middleton all keep Sunday library hours.

I wonder how such a move would affect the effort to gain funding and legitimacy for a renovation of the Central Library building -- an effort which has been underway for years.

I wonder if this is a moment when those who want government to prioritize access to information (especially for those whose work schedules limit the hours that they can patronize libraries) should make their voices heard.

I wonder if there is anything in the professional or academic literature on libraries and community about the costs and benefits -- not just in dollars and cents, but in community goodwill and social capital -- of keeping libraries open seven days a week.

UPDATE 18 Oct 2005: One of our smart SLIS students pointed me to an article which begins to answer these questions:

Greg,

Here's a good start:

Title: A Defense of Opening the Public Library on Sunday.
Subject(s): PUBLIC libraries; LIBRARY users
Author(s): Hennessy, Frank
Source: Library Journal, 05/01/85, Vol. 110 Issue 8, p25, 2p
Abstract: Proposes and defends the position that public libraries be
open on Sunday by discussing the concept of time allocation and its
implications for the cost of library service. Author's perception on
the value of time as a resource; Correlation between income, education
and time spent in library use; Implications of availability of time on
Sunday for library users; Recommendation of flexible week timings for
library staff.
AN: 7558839
ISSN: 0363-0277
Persistent link to this record: http://ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/login?
url=http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&an=7558839
Database: Academic Search Elite

Hennessy is CORRECT, simply calculating the cost of time + overtime is
an incomplete calculation.

The article by Hennessy makes some interesting arguments, all of which have to do with the social construction of time -- the idea that any given hour at the library for one person is not the same as the same hour at the library for another person. Rather, for different groups of users with different resources and needs, library availability at different times and days of the week has differing value. For example, "Education has a direct effect on individual library productivity. The higher the education level, the more adept a person is at using the library, resulting in a decrease in time spent" but an increase in the value of that time. Thus keeping the library open on Sunday needs to be considered, especially for economically disadvantaged and/or less educated users whose time in the library is not as "productive" as that of affluent or highly-educated users, as an "efficient allocation of resources which results in the lowering of time cost to the library user." Doesn't roll off the tounge for a soundbite in the local media, but these are the kind of careful and nuanced arguments that information managers need to make in order to advocate on behalf of their current and prospective patrons.

Information labor behind the new video iPod

A couple of articles today note the objections of several creative production labor unions -- including the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guilds of America (East and West) -- over the arrangements that ABC/Disney has made with Steve Jobs and Apple Computer to provide downloadable video content to iPods. When you purchase an episode of "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives" for $1.99, does a fair percentage of that fee flow back to the creative information labor that produced the content?

A Reuters/Hollywood Reporter story posted on Yahoo news [http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051017/media_nm/writers_ipod_dc] considers whether the "cable model" or the "DVD model" is the appropriate royalty example:

WGAW continues to believe that the proper formula is the existing one covering pay television. That entitles writers to 1.2% of the entire producers' gross. DGA has an identical formula, while SAG gets 3.6% and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) gets 5.4%.

The DVD formula, by contrast, is much less lucrative for all of these guilds because it pays a slightly higher percentage based on only 20% of the wholesale receipts. The remaining 80% is withheld by the studios to cover manufacturing, distribution and marketing costs.

Interestingly, a key point in the debate seems to be the commodity status of a download -- is it a transmission, like a cable TV signal, or a product, like a physical DVD? A further article in Variety [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117931052?categoryid=1066&cs=1&s=h&p=0] sheds some more light on this distinction:

All the guilds operate under a DVD residuals formula that has been in place for two decades. The rate -- which allows studios to exclude 80% of gross revenues prior to calculating residuals -- was tilted toward studios to help the fledgling videocassette technology at the time.

As a result, the credited writers of a moderately successful film selling 1 million DVDs and generating $15 million in wholesale revenues would split a payout of around $50,000, compared with an estimated $10 million profit for the studios.

At negotiations last year, all the guilds failed to budge studios from their resistance to changing the formula. The studios contended that DVDs were not ancillary income; they essentially kept studios afloat with only one in 10 features recouping costs from domestic box office and only four in 10 recouping after all revenues come in via foreign box office, TV and DVD.

With the battle over royalty rights in for-profit broadcast content heating up, we should not forget that much of the activity behind "video podcasts" actually comes from the free labor of activists, enthusiasts, and artists who currently provide their product/service for free. Ironically, Apple computer may be contributing to this side of the question as well, as it announced that its new consumer iMac models would now come preequipped with onboard video cameras -- ready out of the box for grassroots first-person podcasts of all sorts. Whether people consider such activities as labor or entertainment, at least such experimentation might remind audiences that crafting video productions takes time, effort, skill, and ... work.

Debating telework at a state university (long)

Here at my workplace, a big midwestern state research university, there's been a draft policy circulating dealing with "telecommuting" that I find quite interesting -- as does the local labor union (which I happen to belong to), United Faculty and Academic Staff:

Telecommuting Policy - University of Wisconsin - Madison

UW-Madison recognizes the value of telecommuting for both employee and
employer. Telecommuting is a cooperative arrangement* based on the needs
of the job, the department or unit, and the university. The following is
the telecommuting policy for academic staff, classified and limited
employees of the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus.

Definitions

• Telecommuting – Telecommuting is a voluntary* workplace alternative
where supervisors agree to allow an employee to regularly perform some
or all assigned duties at home or another location. This may involve the
use of telecommunications (cellular phones, faxes, calling cards,
pagers, etc.) or computer technologies. A telecommuting agreement
document detailing mutually agreed* upon work schedules, accessibility
levels, equipment purchases/loans-service purchases and any other
pertinent issues must be completed and signed before beginning
telecommuting. A telecommuting agreement is not required for occasional
situations in which the employee works at home.

• Telecommuting Agreement - a document that describes a specifically
approved telecommuting work arrangement, and any necessary
equipment/services needed.

Employee Selection Criteria and Conditions

The Supervisor, Department Chair, and Dean/Director will review the
telecommuting request taking into account the factors listed below.

• Needs of the department or unit
• Needs of the employee
• Employee's work duties and the ability to measure or assess work performed
• Availability and costs of needed equipment
• Employee's current and past job performance, as documented in
performance evaluations, including time management, organizational
skills, self motivation, and the ability to work independently
• Assessment of other employees (e.g., interest, skills, unit longevity,
etc.) in the immediate work unit performing similar responsibilities.
• Effect on service
• Effect on the rest of the work group, unit or department
• Measurable objectives and results mutually agreed to by the employee
and the supervisor
• Other items deemed necessary and appropriate

Telecommuting is a prerogative of the University, not an entitlement of
employees. It is approved on a case-by-case basis consistent with the
mission of the University and the respective department or unit.

Telecommuting is not a substitute for dependent or day care.

*If the employee accepts the telecommuting arrangement as a condition of
employment when hired into the position, the employee will not be able
to unilaterally terminate the agreement; it can only be terminated by
the employer.
Page 2 – Telecommuting Policy Cont.

Compensation and Benefits

Telecommuting is a management tool allowing for flexibility in work
options. It does not change the basic terms and conditions of
employment. Compensation and benefits will be set forth in University
policy or union contract, whichever applies. The telecommuter's salary,
job responsibilities, and University benefits do not change as a result
of telecommuting.

Telecommuting Agreement and Form

A completed Telecommuting Agreement Form (attached) is required and must
be signed by the Supervisor, Department Chair, Dean/Director’s Office
and the telecommuter. Copies of these documents should be kept in the
employee’s personnel file; and be forwarded to Risk Management if
University equipment is loaned to the employee. This agreement will be
reviewed and updated at least annually, and as the specifics or
equipment/services are modified.

Work Schedule and Overtime

The work schedule of the telecommuting employee will be determined by
the Supervisor and will be documented in the telecommuting agreement.

The working of overtime, accrual of compensatory time, accrual and
charging of leave time will be subject to the same rules and regulations
as are in place at the designated University work location.

With advance notice, an authorized University representative may make
on-site visits to the telecommuter's work location.

Equipment and Information Security

• University-provided equipment at home is not an entitlement of
telecommuting employees. Depending on the job, equipment needs for
telecommuters will vary and are determined by the supervisor.

• Telecommuting employees must abide by the University's policies
covering information security, software licensing and data privacy.

• Telecommuting employees must abide by University Purchasing and
Accounting policies for all purchases and expenditures incurred for
telecommuting equipment or services. The telecommuting agreement will be
required as documentation for purchases and expenditures related to
telecommuting and must be attached to all transactions.

• Maintenance on University-owned equipment will be performed only by a
University authorized technician. The employee will be responsible for
bringing the equipment to the employer-designated repair location.
Necessary maintenance and repairs on University-owned equipment will be
performed at the University's expense.

• Maintenance and repair of employee-owned equipment is the
responsibility of the employee. The University is not liable for such
equipment even if the employee is engaged in University work at the time
of malfunction.

• Upon termination of the telecommuting agreement or employment, the
employee must return all University-owned equipment to the University.

Although my own salaried, exempt position means that I wouldn't be covered by the telecommuting agreement in question, I'd like to offer some thoughts on this very timely discussion of telecommuting policy for two reasons:

(a) as a faculty member split between two departments, I'm privileged to have a university-provided laptop computer and cell phone, along with the freedom to work remotely from home, from coffeeshops, etc. when performing various work-related tasks, and i would like to see the very real benefits of technology-enabled alternative work times and spaces brought out to more UW-Madison employees if possible; and

(b) I actually do research on the way new information technologies transform the time, space, and social relations of the workplace, so this discussion might be something I can contribute to. But please take my (rather long, sorry) comments as just a first-pass reaction to what I see as a constructive but flawed first-draft at a telecommuting policy ...

(1) “UW-Madison recognizes the value of telecommuting for both employee and employer.”

First of all, I would suggest that the agreement outline some of the possible benefits to employees and to the employer, to make clear both the purposes that telecommuting is intended to serve and the limits of telecommuting’s usefulness. For example, from the point of view of the employer, telecommuting can reduce the need for office space, parking space, and lighting/heating/electricity energy costs. But, telecommuting should not be thought of as an alternative to providing adequate equipment, workspace, transportation, childcare, work hours, supervisiory feedback, and opportunities for advancement to employees.

From the point of view of the employee, telecommuting can reduce the need for or time of travel from home to office, and subsequently reduce gasoline costs or other travel costs. But, telecommuting should not be an alternative to: (1) providing adequate work quality and/or work hours to an employee; (2) providing adequate office space and/or office equipment to an employee; (3) providing adequate parking or mass-transit options to an employee; and (4) as the document already states, “Telecommuting is not a substitute for dependent or day care.” (While this might seem obvious to some, a quick look through the management-oriented literature on telecommuting shows photo after photo of young mothers at home with small children on one hand and a computer/telephone on the other. Ridiculous, gender-biased assumptions are still pretty common.)

We should also recognize the potential (but not inevitable) urban-wide benefits of telework, such as possible overall reduction in travel, pollution, congestion, and energy use. (This is tricky, though, because home-based work has its own energy, pollution, and travel costs as well.)

(2) “Telecommuting is a cooperative arrangement* based on the needs of the job, the department or unit, and the university”; “Telecommuting is a voluntary* workplace alternative where supervisors agree to allow an employee to regularly perform some or all assigned duties at home or another location.”

It seems clear from the rest of the text that the proposed UW-Madison telecommuting policy makes telecommuting neither cooperative nor voluntary. As the document goes on to specify, “Telecommuting is a prerogative of the University, not an entitlement of employees.” Further, a footnote in the document states that “*If the employee accepts the telecommuting arrangement as a condition of employment when hired into the position, the employee will not be able to unilaterally terminate the agreement; it can only be terminated by the employer.” Thus telecommuting as defined by UW-Madison is an arrangement which may only be chosen by the employer, not the employee, and may even be mandated by the employer as a condition of continued employment. This is not cooperation, but coercion.

I would suggest that the policy make clear that upon entering into a “telecommuting agreement,” either the employee and/or the employer may terminate the agreement with adequate prior notice, and that such termination by either side should, by itself, in no way affect the continuation or definition of the employee’s job.

(3) “A telecommuting agreement is not required for occasional situations in which the employee works at home.”

I think this is a reasonable loophole. I would add “or at an alternate work location,” because not all telecommuting takes place at home.

(4) “The Supervisor, Department Chair, and Dean/Director will review the telecommuting request taking into account the factors listed below. [...]”

In addition to the factors listed, I would add “safety, security, and ergonomics of the proposed alternate work site,” both for the protection of the employer and for the protection of the employee.

(5) “With advance notice, an authorized University representative may make on-site visits to the telecommuter's work location.”

This is a tough one. When the alternate work location is the employee’s home, I think the employee should hold a right of privacy and be able to prohibit visits from the employer or the employer’s representatives. However, in order to ensure workplace safety, security, and ergonomics, or to install, maintain, and upgrade equipment, or even perhaps to drop off and pick up work in physical printed form, some contact with representatives from the workplace seems not only desirable, but inevitable.

I would suggest specifying some specific reasons that such visits might be required and/or requested, and specifiying some specific rules about what should happen if employees refuse such visits. For example, if an employee is not willing to have workplace representatives visit the site to perform equipment installation, maintenance, or upgrade, then perhaps that employee would not be able to have university equipment on site.

In any case, the ultimate right of refusal of any visit must rest with the employee if the alternate work site is the home. But at the same time, if the employer deems such visits crucial to the telecommuting arrangement, then it would seem that this would be grounds for terminating the telecommuting arrangement.

(6) “University-provided equipment at home is not an entitlement of telecommuting employees. Depending on the job, equipment needs for telecommuters will vary and are determined by the supervisor”; “I understand that costs related to remodeling and/or furnishing the work space shall be non-reimbursable/non-payable by the UW.”

The risk with these provisions as currently stated is that only those employees who supply their own telecommuting equipment (whether that is a computer, a printer, or a high-speed internet connection) will be allowed to enter into telecommuting agreements.

I would suggest that the language change to indicate that if the university decides a telecommuting arragement is warranted, and if the employee does not possess or does not wish to use personal equipment in support of the arrangement, then the university should pay to install all necessary equipment for the arrangement at the employee’s site (including any site modifications which might be necessary).

(7) “The employee will be responsible for bringing the equipment to the employer-designated repair location. Necessary maintenance and repairs on University-owned equipment will be performed at the University's expense.”

I think the transport of equipment to and from the alternate work site should be the responsibility of the employer, but at the very least, this should be something that is negotiated and specified within each individual telecommuting contract, and not assumed to be the employee’s responsibility.

(8) Finally, I would suggest some added language to protect the telecommuting employee:

Make sure that telecommuting employees receive adequate information about what is going on in the “physical” office, adequate information about job opportunities which might otherwise be relayed through physical bulletin board postings, casual conversation, and the like, and reasonable accomodations to be present in the decision-making processes of the unit in which they are employed. This might mean making sure that information gets communicated by email as well as by an announcement in a physical meeting, or by email as well as by printed memo. But from what I’ve seen in the research on telecommuting, the social and occupational disconnect from office life and further career opportunities is a great risk to telecommuters themselves.

Make sure that performance reviews of telecommuting employees take into account the difficult nature of working under conditions of self-supervision and “out of sight, out of mind” of fellow employees, which may be a negative effect on, say, employee peer reviews of performance.

Talk about telecommuting -- or, as I prefer, “teleworking” -- as part of a general strategy to not only provide flexibilty in the location of work, but in the time of work. In other words, combine with programs for time-shifting work, starting early or leaving late to avoid commuting bottlenecks, flexible work hours and work schedules for both employer and employee efficiency, and job sharing.

For people interested in some background reading on research pertaining to home-based-work, telecommuting, and the more general category of “telework,” I’d suggest the following references:

Sheila Allen and Carol Wolkowitz, Homeworking: Myths and Realities (London: Macmillan, 1987).

Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels, eds., Homework: historical and contemporary perspectives on paid labor at home (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).

Andrew Gillespie and Ronald Richardson, “Teleworking and the city: Myths of workplace transcendence and travel reduction,” in James O. Wheeler, Yuko Aoyama and Barney Warf, eds., Cities in the telecommunications age: The fracturing of geographies (New York: Routledge, 2000), 228-248.

Ursula Huws, Werner B. Korte and Simon Robinson, Telework: Towards the elusive office (Chichester ; New York: Wiley, 1990).

Patricia L Mokhtarian, Gustavo O Collantes, and Carsten Gertz, “Telecommuting, residential location, and commute-distance traveled: Evidence from State of California employees,” Environment and Planning A 36:10 (2004), 1877 - 1897.

Book review: Levy and Murnane, The New Division of Labor (2004)

I wrote a review of Frank Levy and Richard Murnane's new book _The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market_ (2004) for the _International Review of Social History_ and thought I'd post an excerpt below, since I haven't had time to blog on much else this week.

Economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane have written an engaging and accessible introduction to the political economy of a very specific but very important type of ‘‘information labor’’: that subset of work which is amenable to ‘‘computerization,’’ which in some cases means outright substitution of computer algorithms for human labor (a classic ‘‘deskilling’’ argument), and in other cases means careful augmentation of human labor through interactive software (a classic ‘‘upskilling’’ argument). The main point that the authors make is that these two simultaneous paths to what might be called the ‘‘digitalization of labor’’ are quite distinct, in both the kinds of tasks they encompass and the kinds of workers they affect. As computers colonize more and more industries and occupations, Levy and Murnane present a detailed analysis of what these electronic tools can and can’t do to predict that certain workers will continue to benefit while others will increasingly suffer in a ‘‘hollowing-out of the occupational structure’’ (p. 4) – a nuanced ‘‘digital-divide’’ scenario which can only be addressed, the authors conclude, through state intervention and educational reform.

Levy and Murnane begin by noting that, although ‘‘all human work involves the cognitive processing of information’’ (p. 5) there are many different kinds of information processing, only some of which are easily and affordably coded as computer algorithms. For example, the pattern-recognition (and consequent tactile dexterity) performed by even the most low-wage service workers remains uncomputable – don’t expect to see robot janitors any time soon. Similarly, complex communication tasks, such as those used by middle-income salespersons and educators, remain out of the computer’s reach. And finally, tasks that require novel and open-ended problem-solving, often called ‘‘symbolic analysis,’’ are restricted to human creativity (though computers are often used as productive tools by such high-wage workers). But any task which may be broken down into a discrete and finite set of steps and ‘‘rules’’ is potentially computable, and thus jobs which consist in whole or in part of such tasks will be increasingly endangered as the capital cost of computing power continues to fall. And crucially, ‘‘A task, once computerized, is potentially easy to replicate and so invites intense competition’’ (p. 54) with such information technology penetrating quickly through whole industries and occupations.

Levy and Murnane then move from a consideration of what kind of tasks favor computer substitution vs computer complementarity to what kind of workers will see their jobs eliminated by computers vs enhanced by computers. Not surprisingly, education is the key intervening variable. ‘‘Rapid job change raises the value of verbal and quantitative literacy’’ (p. 101), the authors argue, because reading and mathematics skills are ‘‘enabling skills’’: skills that are ‘‘necessary but not sufficient for economic success’’ (p. 103), especially in an increasingly information-based economy. Thus labor-market entrants who have had the opportunity to hone these enabling skills (e.g. college graduates) should fare much better than labor-market entrants without such skills (secondary-school dropouts or, sadly, even many secondary-school graduates, according to the authors).

Levy and Murnane back up these claims using historical labor market data from the United States. ‘‘In 1979, the average thirty-year-old man with a bachelor’s degree earned just 17 per cent more than a thirty-year-old man with a high school diploma. Today, the equivalent college–high-school wage gap exceeds 50 per cent, and the gap for women is larger’’ (p. 6). Similarly, they point out, while only 24 per cent of US workers used a computer on the job in 1984, now over 50 per cent of US workers do so (p. 105). These parallels represent a causal link, argue the authors – though they leave many of the details out of this book, instead referring readers to a 2003 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, written with David Autor, which details the quantitative data and formulae that ground these assertions.

Given this increasing divide in ‘‘enabling skills,’’ wages, and occupational choices, what is to be done? Limiting their prescriptions to the US context, Levy and Murnane do not shy away from the obvious policy questions here, but instead assert that ‘‘the nation cannot rely on for-profit firms as the primary institutions responsible for teaching the enabling skills needed to excel at complex communications and expert thinking tasks’’. Instead, ‘‘America’s schools will continue to be the critical institutions responsible for teaching American children the enabling skills’’ (p. 130). While Levy and Murnane in general recommend a social policy where ‘‘the better-off pay compensation through taxes or charity’’ (‘‘[c]ompensation will not come through the market since the market is creating the winners and losers in the first place’’ (p. 155)), their most specific proposal revolves around a vision of ‘‘standards-based education’’ – setting clear goals for student progress, standardizing instruction to meet these goals, and measuring student progress toward these goals ‘‘frequently’’ enough to make sure they are attained (pp. 134–135).

The rest of the review critiques their final recommendations a bit, but I'll save that for folks who want to search out the original. It's a good book.