The Critical Advantage (Hardback) | Released: 30 May 2017

In The Critical Advantage, noted scholar and early childhood expert William T. Gormley, Jr. takes a wide-ranging look at the important role of critical thinking in preparing students for college, careers, and civic life.

Drawing on research from psychology, philosophy, business, political science, neuroscience, and other disciplines, he offers a contemporary definition of critical thinking and its relationship to other forms of thinking, including creative thinking and problem solving. When defined broadly and taught early, he argues, critical thinking is a "potential cure for some of the biggest problems we face as a nation," including education deficits, employment deficits, and the recent surge of partisanship in democratic politics. While there are encouraging signs--the Common Core State Standards have drawn attention to the importance of critical thinking--recent efforts have been too narrowly focused on improving textual analysis in high school. Those who might benefit the most from curricula prioritizing critical thinking, including disadvantaged students, are less likely to be represented in courses and other activities that encourage this skill.

Gormley argues for prioritizing critical thinking skills in PreK-12. He takes readers into innovative classrooms around the country, including schools in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Virginia, and offers specific recommendations for promoting critical thinking and embedding it across the curriculum.

The Critical Advantage is an insightful and fascinating account of an intellectual journey culminating in a fresh vision for the future of US schooling.

About the Author: William T. Gormley Jr. is University Professor at Georgetown University. He is also a Professor of Public Policy and Government and co-director of the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. (CROCUS). Dr. Gormley is the author or coauthor of several books, including Everybody's Children: Child Care as a Public Problem (Brookings, 1995), Organizational Report Cards (Harvard University Press, 1999), and Bureaucracy and Democracy (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003, 2007, 2011). His book Voices for Children: Rhetoric and Public Policy was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2012. Dr. Gormley is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a past president of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association.

For the past fifteen years, Dr. Gormley has directed the Oklahoma pre-K project, which has evaluated the state-funded pre-K program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He and his research team have documented substantial gains in prereading, prewriting, and premath skills for children enrolled in the school-based pre-K program in Tulsa. These findings have appeared in the Journal of Human Resources, the Policy Studies Journal, Developmental Psychology, the Social Science Quarterly, Child Development, Science, and elsewhere. The successes of Tulsa's pre-K program have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, the PBS NewsHour, and the CBS Evening News.

At Georgetown, Dr. Gormley served as Interim Dean of Public Policy for two years and was one of the founding members of Georgetown's day-care center, Hoya Kids.