Changing American Education

Recapturing the Past or Inventing the Future?

Edited by Kathryn M. Borman & Nancy P. Greenman

Subjects: Education
Series: SUNY series, Teacher Preparation and Development
Paperback : 9780791416600, 416 pages, April 1994
Hardcover : 9780791416594, 416 pages, April 1994

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Table of contents

Introduction

I. Historical and Theoretical Background to Educational Change in the United States

1. Not All Caterpillars Become Butterflies: Reform and Restructuring as Educational Change
Nancy P Greenman

2. Certification to Credentialing: Reconstituting Control Mechanisms in Teacher Education
Thomas S. Popkewitz and Marie Brennan

3. Is Change Always Good for Teachers? Gender, Class, and Teaching in History
Michael W. Apple

4. Pathways to Institutional Change: From the Deans' Network to the Holmes Group
Barbara Schneider and Stafford Hood

5. The 1989 Education Summit as a Defining Moment in the Politics of Education
Susan R. Martin

6. It Was More than a Thirty Years' War, but Instruction Won: The Demise of Education in the Industrial Society
Erwin V. Johanningmeier

II Rhetoric versus Reform and Restructuring in the District and Community

7. Community Involvement and Staff Development in School Improvement
William T. Pink and Kathryn M Borman

8. Monitoring the Implementation of Radical Reform: Restructuring the Chicago Public Schools
G. Alfred Hess, Jr. and John Q. Easton

9. Educational Reform and the Urban School Superintendent: A Dilemma
Louis Castenell, Cornell Brooks, and Patricia Z. Timm

10. Improving Parent Involvement as School Reform: Rhetoric or Reality?
Marianne N. Bloch and B. Robert Tabachnick

III. Rhetoric versus Reform and Restructuring in the School and Classroom

11. Can Multicultural Education Foster Transcultural Identities?
Dorothy Angell

12. Using the Future to Create Community and Curricular Change
Julie Binko

13. Interdisciplinary Teaming: Can It Increase the Social Bonding of Middle Level Students?
Joanne M. Arhar

14. Beliefs, Symbols, and Realities: A Case Study of a School in Transition
W Wade Burley and Arthur S. Shapiro

15. Interactions among School and College Teachers: Toward Recognizing and Remaking Old Patterns
Chester H. Laine, Lucille M. Schultz, and M. Lynne Smith

Contributors

Index

Description

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.

Kathryn M. Borman is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the College of Education at the University of Cincinnati. Nancy P. Greenman is Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa.