Reforming Schools in the 1980s

Reforming Schools in the 1980s PDF Author: A. Harry Passow
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description

Reforming Schools in the 1980s

Reforming Schools in the 1980s PDF Author: A. Harry Passow
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 114

Get Book Here

Book Description


Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change"

Revisiting Author: Seymour B. Sarason
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807776475
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 697

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Book Description
Revisiting “The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change” provocatively and seamlessly joins Seymour Sarason’s classic, landmark text on school change with his own insightful re?ections on those same issues in the face of today’s crisis in public schools. This is an extensive, monograph–length revisiting. Part I of this book reproduces the second edition of Sarason’s ground–breaking work, The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change, in which he detailed how change can affect a school’s culturally diverse environment—either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. Throughout, many of the major assumptions about change in institutions are challenged. Speci?c events and examples demonstrate that any attempt to implement change involves some existing regularity within the school. Dr. Sarason also takes a close look at government involvement in change efforts in schooling—and includes a detailed examination of current efforts to implement PL 94–142 into public schools. He presents compelling evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has largely been a failure. Also included are investigations into the purposes of schooling and how these purposes can be affected by change, and the process by which educators and administrators formulate intended outcomes of change efforts. In Part II, Dr. Sarason “revisits” the text and the issues 25 years after the original publication. As he explains in his preface, to him the word crisis means “a point in time when a dangerous situation contains con?icting forces of an intensity or seriousness that in the near term will be dramatically altered depending on which forces win out. When I wrote the book a quarter century ago, I did not regard our schools as in crisis...[though] my intuition . . . was that a crisis would come sooner or later. It has, in my opinion, come.” Believing that “what happens in our cities and our schools will determine the fate of our society,” Dr. Sarason is deeply concerned that the reform arena is being manipulated by forces that are at best untroubled by and at worst intent on the dismantling of the public school system. That, coupled with his fear that even the system’s defenders are not focusing on the real issues, has infused Dr. Sarason’s return to the topic of educational change with a great sense of urgency. The important things he has to say will be welcomed by all who truly care about the state of the public schools that America’s children attend.

Tinkering toward Utopia

Tinkering toward Utopia PDF Author: David B. TYACK
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674044525
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
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.

Reforming Schools

Reforming Schools PDF Author: Kimberly Kinsler
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847144268
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
"Reforming Schools" will transform the study of school reform, development and improvement. It not only provides an overview of research findings, professional and political issues and policy developments and their history; it also relates such thinking to practice through a rich and multi-faceted case study of school reform. Particular emphasis is given to urban schooling, with a candid look at what can be learnt not only from successful school reforms but also from failure. The authors provide questions and exercises throughout to help readers interact with case-study material. "Reforming Schools" enables the readers to experience what it is like to work in the field in a way that no other book on school reform does.

A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools

A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309209390
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The District of Columbia (DC) has struggled for decades to improve its public education system. In 2007 the DC government made a bold change in the way it governs public education with the goal of shaking up the system and bringing new energy to efforts to improve outcomes for students. The Public Education Reform Amendment Act (PERAA) shifted control of the city's public schools from an elected school board to the mayor, developed a new state department of education, created the position of chancellor, and made other significant management changes. A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools offers a framework for evaluating the effects of PERAA on DC's public schools. The book recommends an evaluation program that includes a systematic yearly public reporting of key data as well as in-depth studies of high-priority issues including: quality of teachers, principals, and other personnel; quality of classroom teaching and learning; capacity to serve vulnerable children and youth; promotion of family and community engagement; and quality and equity of operations, management, and facilities. As part of the evaluation program, the Mayor's Office should produce an annual report to the city on the status of the public schools, including an analysis of trends and all the underlying data. A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools suggests that D.C. engage local universities, philanthropic organizations, and other institutions to develop and sustain an infrastructure for ongoing research and evaluation of its public schools. Any effective evaluation program must be independent of school and city leaders and responsive to the needs of all stakeholders. Additionally, its research should meet the highest standards for technical quality.

U.S. Education Reform and National Security

U.S. Education Reform and National Security PDF Author: Joel I. Klein
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations
ISBN: 087609521X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.

Reforming Schools

Reforming Schools PDF Author: Jesse Goodman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791481530
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
In Reforming Schools, Jesse Goodman discusses the possibilities, struggles, and complexities involved in reforming today's schools. Drawing from his own experiences at the Harmony Education Center—a progressive educational center he helped establish in 1990—Goodman offers a vision of how to persevere at a time when many progressive educators are feeling discouraged. He focuses on practical ideas for reform, such as establishing school autonomy; creating democratic structures, rituals, and values upon which school reform discourse can be generated; and by addressing the current conservative agenda, how to influence what happens in our nation's public schools. By situating school reform within a progressive history of Western society, the author offers valuable insights and ideas that are alternatives to both the conservative and the radical left analyses of schools and society.

Finnish Lessons

Finnish Lessons PDF Author: Pasi Sahlberg
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807770884
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
“It is now time to break down the ideology of exceptionalism in the United States and other Anglo-American nations if we are to develop reforms that will truly inspire our teachers to improve learning for all our students—especially those who struggle the most. In that essential quest, Pasi Sahlberg is undoubtedly one of the very best teachers of all.” —From the Foreword by Andy Hargreaves, Lynch School of Education, Boston College Finnish Lessons is a first-hand, comprehensive account of how Finland built a world-class education system during the past three decades. The author traces the evolution of education policies in Finland and highlights how they differ from the United States and other industrialized countries. He shows how rather than relying on competition, choice, and external testing of students, education reforms in Finland focus on professionalizing teachers’ work, developing instructional leadership in schools, and enhancing trust in teachers and schools. This book details the complexity of educational change and encourages educators and policymakers to develop effective solutions for their own districts and schools.

Handbook of Education Policy Studies

Handbook of Education Policy Studies PDF Author: Guorui Fan
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811383472
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
This open access handbook brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods for contemporary education policy, and illustrates the educational policies and educational reform practices that various countries have introduced to meet the challenges of continuous change. Based on an analysis of the nature of education policy and education reform, this volume focuses on education reform and the concept of education quality. Adopting a historical and comparative perspective, it examines the dialectical relationship between education policy and education reform in various countries, assesses theoretical and practical issues in the process of moving from regulation to multiple governance in contemporary education administration, and explores the impact of globalization on national education reform and the interdependence between countries. In addition, it presents studies addressing educational policy research methodology from multiple perspectives. Highlighting the changes in national education macro policies, this volume comprehensively reveals the complex relationship between contemporary education reform and social change, and explores the links between contemporary social, political and economic systems and educational policy research and practice, offering a holistic portrait of macro trends in contemporary education reform.

Slaying Goliath

Slaying Goliath PDF Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525655387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, Slaying Goliath is an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, and activists are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are trying to privatize America’s public schools. Diane Ravitch writes of a true grassroots movement sweeping the country, from cities and towns across America, a movement dedicated to protecting public schools from those who are funding privatization and who believe that America’s schools should be run like businesses and that children should be treated like customers or products. Slaying Goliath is about the power of democracy, about the dangers of plutocracy, and about the potential of ordinary people—armed like David with only a slingshot of ideas, energy, and dedication—to prevail against those who are trying to divert funding away from our historic system of democratically governed, nonsectarian public schools. Among the lessons learned from the global pandemic of 2020 is the importance of our public schools and their teachers and the fact that distance learning can never replace human interaction, the pesonal connection between teachers and students.