Full of enthusiasm, young English schoolmaster Mr. Chipping came to teach at Brookfield in 1870. It was a time when dignity and a generosity of spirit still existed, and the dedicated new schoolmaster expressed these beliefs to his rowdy students. Nicknamed Mr. Chips, this gentle and caring man helped shape the lives of generation after generation of boys. He became a legend at Brookfield, as enduring as the institution itself. And sad but grateful...

An explosive new look at the pressures on today's teachers and the pitfalls of school reform, Confessions of a Bad Teacher presents a passionate appeal to save public schools, before it's too late.

Kent Greenawalt is University Professor teaching at the Columbia University School of Law, and a former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He is the author of Religious Convictions and Political Choice, Private Consciences and Public Reasons, Fighting Words (Princeton), and Religion and the Constitution: Volume 1: Free Exercise and Fairness (also Princeton). Controversial Supreme Court decisions have barred organized school prayer, but...