This valuable book examines the historical developments and contemporary factors that have resulted in the unenviable status of American schools of education-often portrayed as intellectual wastelands, impractical and irrelevant-and it offers valuable insights into the problems of these beleaguered institutions. "[Labaree] is very good at laying out all the considerations that contribute to the low repute of the ed school within the university, despite the acknowledged importance of the area of practice with which it deals...[a] sophisticated analysis."-Nathan Glazer, Education Next "An interesting sociological and historical analysis of schools of education in the U.S."-Choice DAVID F. LABAREE is professor in the School of Education at Stanford University. He is the author of How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education and The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1938-1939, both published by Yale University Press.