For 160 years, North American children have been subject to compulsory schooling. Formal education has evolved some over that time, but the end result of said evolution is an educational system which is dysfunctional, inefficient, and ultimately incapable of delivering on its professed mandates. Frank Pace is an educator with years of diverse experience. In System vs. Culture: North American Education and Society in the Balance, he looks at the current state of compulsory North American education and sees a system in crisis. He examines the history of modern education and dissects the root causes of its profound dysfunction. System vs. Culture: North American Education and Society in the Balance offers some insight into how an alternative model of education might operate and how it would better serve the needs of a changing society and better achieve its purported goals. Frank Pace has many important things to say about the state of North American education. His arguments are persuasive and lucid and backed up by solid scholarship. While the topic is complicated he does a good job breaking it down in a way that is readable and compelling for both education professionals and anyone interested in education and learning.