Download or read book The Futures of School Reform written by Jal Mehta and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Futures of School Reform represents the culminating work of a three-year discussion among national education leaders convened by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Based on the recognition that current education reform efforts have reached their limits, the volume maps out a variety of bold visions that push the boundaries of our current thinking. Taken together, these visions identify the leverage points for generating dramatic change and highlight critical trade-offs among different courses of action. The goal of this book is not to present a menu of options. Rather, it is to surface contrasting assumptions, tensions, constraints, and opportunities, so that together we can better understand—and act on—the choices that lie before us.
Download or read book Creating the Future School written by Hedley Beare and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book is based on the changes to schooling that a five year-old, Angelica will see in her lifetime. It is divided into two parts: the first describes how schools are viewed by society; the second considers practical responses that schools can make to keep up with change. Creating the Future School predicts that the career of teaching will change and the work of the professional educator will differ significantly from what has been the traditional teaching role in schools of the twentieth century. The book addresses principals, senior members of school staff, teachers, governors and policy makers and aims to open up the reader's awareness to the profound shift in society and how society views its schools.
Download or read book Race to the Bottom written by Michael V. McGill and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2015-04-03 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the country that invented the moderm public school end up embracing policies that weaken it? What alternatives are there to current corporate reform policies? How can we give America's children an education that will truly prepare them and our nation for the challenges of tomorrow? In Race to the Bottom McGill successfully traces the emergence of corporate reform and describes how its tenets run counter to what he believes are the key elements of a high-quality education. McGill draws from a wealth of experience as a school superintendent for over 40 years, including his tenure in Scarsdale during the 2001 district-wide boycott of New York State standardized tests. Showing how strong leaders working with teachers and the community have been able to strengthen schools, the author offers a model of school reform that will prepare students for the 21st Century.
Download or read book The End of School Reform written by Maurice R. Berube and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education as a major social movement is coming to an end. The theoretical framework for this proposition derives from Thomas Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts of major movements and Hegel's 'end of history' thesis. The 'end of school reform' thesis blends Arthur Danto's 'end of art', John Horgan's 'end of science', and Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' theses. Including interviews of education historians and policy professors, The End of School Reform maintains that educational innovation may still continue, but only on a piecemeal basis.
Download or read book Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform written by Thomas S. Popkewitz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform, noted educationalist Thomas Popkewitz explores turn-of-the-century and contemporary pedagogical reforms while illuminating their complex relation to cosmopolitanism. Popkewitz highlights how policies that include "all children" and leave "no child behind" are rooted in a philosophy of cosmopolitanism—not just in salvation themes of human agency, freedom, and empowerment, but also in the processes of abjection and the differentiation of the disadvantaged, urban, and child left behind as "Other."
Download or read book The Allure of Order written by Jal Mehta and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-04 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores why reformers from both the left and right have repeatedly placed such high hopes in these reforms and why teachers and schools have been unable to resist these external reformers.
Download or read book Troublemaker written by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people have been more involved in shaping postwar U.S. education reforms--or dissented from some of them more effectively--than Chester Finn. Assistant secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, and an aide to politicians as different as Richard Nixon and Daniel Moynihan, Finn has also been a high school teacher, an education professor, a prolific and best-selling writer, a think-tank analyst, a nonprofit foundation president, and both a Democrat and Republican. This remarkably varied career has given him an extraordinary insider's view of every significant school-reform movement of the past four decades, from racial integration to No Child Left Behind. In Troublemaker, Finn has written a vivid history of postwar education reform that is also the personal story of one of the foremost players--and mavericks--in American education. Finn tells how his experiences have shaped his changing views of the three major strands of postwar school reform: standards-driven, choice-driven, and profession-driven. Of the three, Finn now believes that a combination of choice and standards has the greatest potential, but he favors this approach more on pragmatic than ideological grounds, arguing that parents should be given more options at the same time that schools are allowed more flexibility and held to higher performance norms. He also explains why education reforms of all kinds are so difficult to implement, and he draws valuable lessons from their frequent failure. Clear-eyed yet optimistic, Finn ultimately gives grounds for hope that the best of today's bold initiatives--from charter schools to technology to makeovers of school-system governance--are finally beginning to make a difference.
Download or read book American School Reform written by Joseph P. McDonald and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dissecting twenty years of educational politics in our nation’s largest cities, American School Reform offers one of the clearest assessments of school reform as it has played out in our recent history. Joseph P. McDonald and his colleagues evaluate the half-billion-dollar Annenberg Challenge—launched in 1994—alongside other large-scale reform efforts that have taken place in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. They look deeply at what school reform really is, how it works, how it fails, and what differences it can make nonetheless. McDonald and his colleagues lay out several interrelated ideas in what they call a theory of action space. Frequently education policy gets so ambitious that implementing it becomes a near impossibility. Action space, however, is what takes shape when talented educators, leaders, and reformers guide the social capital of civic leaders and the financial capital of governments, foundations, corporations, and other backers toward true results. Exploring these extraordinary collaborations through their lifespans and their influences on future efforts, the authors provide political hope—that reform efforts can work, and that our schools can be made better.
Download or read book It s Time for a Change written by Matthew Lynch and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2012 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China, Japan, and South Korea understand that well-educated workers are crucial for survival in the competitive global economy. Thus, they are placing enormous emphasis on education, ensuring that their students receive instruction not only foundational reading and math, but are also taught to think creatively and solve problems. Their youth are poised to take on and conquer the world. The U.S., on the other hand, is losing the battle. School systems are using more money but have less to show for it. Test results, especially among the lower socioeconomic classes, are dismal. America has extraordinary natural resources, a solid, functioning democracy, and excellent infrastructure, but unless we can reform our educational system to produce students who are able to take advantage of new technologies and compete in the global economy, we will cede our position as world leader. Its Time for Change: School Reform provides a no nonsense blueprint for reforming The U. S.
Download or read book Facing the Challenges of Whole School Reform written by Mark Berends and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2002-04-03 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About a decade ago, New American Schools (NAS) set out to address theperceived lagging performance of American students and the lacklusterresults of school reform efforts. As a private nonprofit organization,NAS's mission was-and is-to help schools and districts raise studentachievement levels by using whole-school designs and design team assistanceduring implementation. Since its inception, NAS has engaged in adevelopment phase (1992-1993), a demonstration phase (1993-1995), and ascale-up phase (1995-present). Over the last ten years, RAND has been monitoring the progress of the NASinitiative. This book is a retrospective on NAS and draws together thefindings from RAND research. The book underscores the significantcontributions made by NAS to comprehensive school reform but also highlightsthe challenges of trying to reform schools through whole-school designs.Divided into sections on each research phase, the book concludes with anafterword by NAS updating its own strategy for the future. This book willinterest those who want to better understand comprehensive school reform andits effects on teaching and learning within high-stakes accountabilityenvironments.
Download or read book Critical Voices in School Reform written by Beth Rubin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School reform of one kind or another is a priority for education systems the world over. Yet the voices of students - those most affected by, and most pivotal to, the success or failure of any program of school reform - are rarely heard on this topic. This is the first book to look at school reform from the perspective of the students. The studies included in this collection focus on reform initiatives aimed at overcoming persistent patterns of racial, class and gender inequality. The authors combine the theoretical aspects of research with its practical applications, making this an invaluable resource for teacher educators, classroom practitioners, researchers and policymakers. Critical Voices in School Reform: Students Living Through Change is divided into two parts. Part one describes and analyses programs of reform that turned out contrary to the intentions of adult reformers, illustrating the - often unspoken - tension between adult and student perspectives on school change. Part two looks at reform initiatives that were able to harness student energies and thereby improve pupils' engagement with school life. These reforms, which are finely attuned to the needs and interests of students, offer clear, valuable guidance to those trying to create more equitable school experiences. A concluding chapter draws together the themes and insights gained from looking at school reform through a student-centred lens and offers suggestions for more relevant and lasting reform.
Download or read book Changing American Education written by Kathryn M. Borman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1994-04-12 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School change and educational reform are discussed constantly by the media. Despite a decade of frenzied interest, there is little consensus on the most fundamental issues. The terminology of school reform remains unclear, obscured by ideological rhetoric. What is meant by terms such as "school restructuring," "site-based management," and "teacher education reform?" This book examines social changes affecting education; amplifies case studies of school change; and analyzes the gap between the rhetoric and reality of educational reform. Changing American Education examines both the nature of comprehensive, large-scale historical and social changes that contextualize educational reform, and amplifies the meaning of lessons learned by those who have assisted in change efforts. The authors draw upon rich case material that documents the possibilities and hazards awaiting those who undertake reform of educational practice and structures. They also examine how the rhetoric of educational change may fall short of the reality, as translated to processes and practices at different levels of the enterprise.
Download or read book Common Sense School Reform written by Frederick M. Hess and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2006-04-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget everything you think you know about school reform. Cutting through the cant, sentiment, and obfuscation characterizing the current school reform debate, Frederick M. Hess lacerates the conventional "status quo" reform efforts and exposes the naivete underlying reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. He explains that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms that create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work. He documents the scope of the challenges we face and then provides concrete recommendations for addressing them through reforms to promote accountability, competition, a 21st-century workforce, effective school leadership, and sensible reinvention. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.
Download or read book Education in Flux written by Mathias Decuypere and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to gain a better grasp of how education, both inside and outside school, is shaped by our understanding of time. Over the last decennia, both education and policymaking have undergone radical changes, transcending them far beyond the historical limits of the modern nation-state where their contemporary shape originated. The often-discussed shift from government to governance in education policy, together with the crystallization of newly emerging spaces of transnational education, are illustrative in this respect. The national grammar of schooling is set out to arrange time in class hours, schooldays and yearly cohorts. Its curricula establish what the past should teach to future generations. But when education shifts perspectives towards transnational, European or even global levels, this past increasingly seems to lose relevance when understood as continuity and as tradition. Instead, in education as in policymaking, the discontinuity expected to result from a future deemed open and undetermined becomes an endless resource for the development of new political and educational (re)forms. How are contemporary education and education policy creating and reacting to particular forms of presents, pasts or futures? How do specific forms of education (such as lifelong learning) relate to our shifting understandings of time? How are progress, acceleration and time related in educational reform processes? Through showing the contingency of time-making in educational practices, the contributions to this book seek to answer these questions and thus open avenues to think education and time anew. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.
Download or read book Tinkering toward Utopia written by David B. TYACK and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices. In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to reinvent schooling? Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.
Download or read book The Dimensions of Time and the Challenge of School Reform written by Patricia C. Gandara and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the education reform movement matures into its second decade, it is clear that many promising efforts have fallen short in their attempts to create real school change. One reason for this is that the process of school reform is much more complex than most reformers realized or were willing to acknowledge. The Dimensions of Time and the Challenge of School Reform points to another problem--the problem of time--and its role in both the success and failure of school reform efforts. The importance of understanding the role that time plays in both learning and instruction and finding ways to provide time for teachers grappling with change and students learning to accommodate a new language and culture are important themes in this book. This book is directed to policymakers and practitioners as well as to academics in that it combines theory with the "real world" experiences of many who have been active in the school reform movement and who have learned, through trial and error, how to think about time in innovative ways. -- Back cover.
Download or read book Physical Education Futures written by David Kirk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the dominant shift over the last century from an idea of physical education-as-gymnastics to an idea of physical-education-as-sport-technique, and outlines the contemporary processes of commodification and commercialiZation of physical culture and academicization of teaching that have already begun to make this emphasis on sport-related skills problematic.
