The Politics of School Reform, 1870 - 1940

The Politics of School Reform, 1870 - 1940 PDF Author: Paul E. Peterson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226662954
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Was school reform in the decades following the Civil War an upper-middle-class effort to maintain control of the schools? Was public education simply a vehicle used by Protestant elites to impose their cultural ideas upon recalcitrant immigrants? In The Politics of School Reform, 1870-1940, Paul E. Peterson challenges such standard, revisionist interpretations of American educational history. Urban public schools, he argues, were part of a politically pluralistic society. Their growth—both in political power and in sheer numbers—had as much to do with the demands and influence of trade unions, immigrant groups, and the public more generally as it did with the actions of social and economic elites. Drawing upon rarely examined archival data, Peterson demonstrates that widespread public backing for the common school existed in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco. He finds little evidence of systematic discrimination against white immigrants, at least with respect to classroom crowding and teaching assignments. Instead, his research uncovers solid trade union and other working-class support for compulsory education, adequate school financing, and curricular modernization. Urban reformers campaigned assiduously for fiscally sound, politically strong public schools. Often they had at least as much support from trade unionists as from business elites. In fact it was the business-backed machine politicians—from San Francisco's William Buckley to Chicago's Edward Kelly—who deprived the schools of funds. At a time when public schools are being subjected to searching criticism and when new educational ideas are gaining political support, The Politics of School Reform, 1870-1940 is a timely reminder of the strength and breadth of those groups that have always supported "free" public schools.

The Politics of School Reform, 1870 - 1940

The Politics of School Reform, 1870 - 1940 PDF Author: Paul E. Peterson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226662954
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
Was school reform in the decades following the Civil War an upper-middle-class effort to maintain control of the schools? Was public education simply a vehicle used by Protestant elites to impose their cultural ideas upon recalcitrant immigrants? In The Politics of School Reform, 1870-1940, Paul E. Peterson challenges such standard, revisionist interpretations of American educational history. Urban public schools, he argues, were part of a politically pluralistic society. Their growth—both in political power and in sheer numbers—had as much to do with the demands and influence of trade unions, immigrant groups, and the public more generally as it did with the actions of social and economic elites. Drawing upon rarely examined archival data, Peterson demonstrates that widespread public backing for the common school existed in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco. He finds little evidence of systematic discrimination against white immigrants, at least with respect to classroom crowding and teaching assignments. Instead, his research uncovers solid trade union and other working-class support for compulsory education, adequate school financing, and curricular modernization. Urban reformers campaigned assiduously for fiscally sound, politically strong public schools. Often they had at least as much support from trade unionists as from business elites. In fact it was the business-backed machine politicians—from San Francisco's William Buckley to Chicago's Edward Kelly—who deprived the schools of funds. At a time when public schools are being subjected to searching criticism and when new educational ideas are gaining political support, The Politics of School Reform, 1870-1940 is a timely reminder of the strength and breadth of those groups that have always supported "free" public schools.

The Politics of Educational Reform in France

The Politics of Educational Reform in France PDF Author: John E. Talbott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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School Reform, Corporate Style

School Reform, Corporate Style PDF Author: Dorothy Shipps
Publisher: Studies in Government & Public
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Like other big city school systems, Chicago's has been repeatedly "reformed" over the last century. Yet its schools have fallen far short of citizens' expectations and left a gap between the performances of white and minority students. Many blame the educational establishment for resisting change. Other critics argue that reform occurs too often; still others claim it comes not often enough. Dorothy Shipps reappraises the tumultuous history of educational progress in Chicago, revealing that the persistent lack of improvement is due not to the extent but rather the type of reform. Throughout the twentieth century, managerial reorganizations initiated by the business community repeatedly altered the governance structure of schools—as well as the relationships of teachers to children and parents—but brought little improvement, while other more promising reform models were either resisted or crowded out. Shipps chronicles how Chicago's corporate actors led, abetted, or restrained nearly every attempt to transform the city's school system, then asks whether schools might be better reformed by others. To show why city schools have failed urban children so badly, she traces Chicago's reform history over four political eras, revealing how corporate power was instrumental in designing and revamping the system. Her narrative encompasses the formative era of 1880-1930, when teachers' unions moderated business plans; previously unexplored business activism from 1930 to 1980, when civil rights dominated school reform, and the decentralization of the 1980s. She also covers the uneasy cooperation among business associations in the 1990s to install the mayor as head of the school system, a governing regime now challenged by privatization advocates. Business people may be too wedded to a stunted view of educators to forge a productive partnership for change. Unionized teachers bridle at the second-class status accorded them by managers. If reform is to reach deeply into classrooms, Shipps concludes, it might well require a new coalition of teachers' unions and parents to create a fresh agenda that supersedes corporate interests. This study clearly shows that, in Chicago as elsewhere, urban schooling is intertwined with politics and power. By reviewing more than a century of corporate efforts to make education work, Shipps makes a strong case that it's high time to look elsewhere—perhaps to educators themselves—for new leadership.

Reinterpreting Urban School Reform

Reinterpreting Urban School Reform PDF Author: Louis F. Miron
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791486923
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A critical look at urban school reform efforts.

The Color of School Reform

The Color of School Reform PDF Author: Jeffrey R. Henig
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823293
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Why is it so difficult to design and implement fundamental educational reform in large city schools in spite of broad popular support for change? How does the politics of race complicate the challenge of building and sustaining coalitions for improving urban schools? These questions have provoked a great deal of theorizing, but this is the first book to explore the issues on the basis of extensive, solid evidence. Here a group of political scientists examines education reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., where local governmental authority has passed from white to black leaders. The authors show that black administrative control of big-city school systems has not translated into broad improvements in the quality of public education within black-led cities. Race can be crucial, however, in fostering the broad civic involvement perhaps most needed for school reform. In each city examined, reform efforts often arise but collapse, partly because leaders are unable to craft effective political coalitions that would commit community resources to a concrete policy agenda. What undermines the leadership, according to the authors, is the complex role of race in each city. First, public authority does not guarantee access to private resources, usually still controlled by white economic elites. Second, local authorities must interact with external actors, at the state and national levels, who remain predominantly white. Finally, issues of race divide the African American community itself and often place limits on what leaders can and cannot do. Filled with insightful explanations together with recommendations for policy change, this book is an important component of the debate now being waged among researchers, education activists, and the community as a whole.

21st Century Education: A Reference Handbook

21st Century Education: A Reference Handbook PDF Author: Thomas L Good
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412950112
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1031

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Book Description
Via 100 entries or 'mini-chapters,' the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on Education will highlight the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in the field of education ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st Century.

Race and Educational Reform in the American Metropolis

Race and Educational Reform in the American Metropolis PDF Author: Dan A. Lewis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 9781438410760
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Research and Education Reform

Research and Education Reform PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309047293
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education has a mandate for expanding knowledge of teaching and learning and for improving education in this country. This book focuses on how OERI can better fulfill that mission in light of what is known about why prior education reforms have often failed, what is needed to enhance the effectiveness of such efforts, and what education research and development can contribute to better schools. The history, mission, governance, organization, functions, operations, and budgets of OERI are analyzed. Recommendations are made for restructuring OERI, expanding funding, involving scholars from many fields, and engaging teachers and school principals in improvement efforts.

Improving Poor People

Improving Poor People PDF Author: Michael B. Katz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821703
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
"There are places where history feels irrelevant, and America's inner cities are among them," acknowledges Michael Katz, in expressing the tensions between activism and scholarship. But this major historian of urban poverty realizes that the pain in these cities has its origins in the American past. To understand contemporary poverty, he looks particularly at an old attitude: because many nineteenth-century reformers traced extreme poverty to drink, laziness, and other forms of bad behavior, they tried to use public policy and philanthropy to improve the character of poor people, rather than to attack the structural causes of their misery. Showing how this misdiagnosis has afflicted today's welfare and educational systems, Katz draws on his own experiences to introduce each of four topics--the welfare state, the "underclass" debate, urban school reform, and the strategies of survival used by the urban poor. Uniquely informed by his personal involvement, each chapter also illustrates the interpretive power of history by focusing on a strand of social policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: social welfare from the poorhouse era through the New Deal, ideas about urban poverty from the undeserving poor to the "underclass," and the emergence of public education through the radical school reform movement now at work in Chicago. Why have American governments proved unable to redesign a welfare system that will satisfy anyone? Why has public policy proved unable to eradicate poverty and prevent the deterioration of major cities? What strategies have helped poor people survive the poverty endemic to urban history? How did urban schools become unresponsive bureaucracies that fail to educate most of their students? Are there fresh, constructive ways to think about welfare, poverty, and public education? Throughout the book Katz shows how interpretations of the past, grounded in analytic history, can free us of comforting myths and help us to reframe discussions of these great public issues.

The Study Of Educational Politics

The Study Of Educational Politics PDF Author: Jay D. Scribner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135718490
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This text is intended to be of use as a guide for students, scholars and researchers of the politics of education and of educational policy studies. The comprehensive work surveys major trends between 1969 and 1994, with chapters synthesising political and policy developments at local, national and state levels in the US as well as in the international arena. The text contains in-depth examinations of the emerging micropolitics of the field of education as well as policy analysis and cultural and feminist studies, and bibliographies are provided at the end of each chapter.; Designed as both a text and a reference volume, this special yearbook was planned in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Politics of Education Association in 1994.