"In this bold new book, the result of a three-and-a-half-year study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles E. Silberman examines the problems that beset American education with the same intelligence, compassion, and uncompromising honesty that marked his award-winning best seller Crisis in Black and White." "Anyone who is concerned with the nation's public schools and with its colleges and universities will be disturbed by the picture of current practice which Mr. Silberman paints in vivid and painful detail. Many will agree with his insistence that it is not enough merely to ask, "How can we bring the worst institutions up to the level of the best?"--For all too often, the best is simply not good enough."--Jacket