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The allure of order : high hopes, dashed expectations, and the troubled quest to remake American schooling / Jal Mehta.

By: Series: Studies in postwar American political developmentPublisher: New York : Oxford University Press, [2013]Description: viii, 396 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780199942060 (hardback)
  • 9780190231453
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 371.010973 23
LOC classification:
  • LA217.2 .M436 2013
Other classification:
  • EDU000000 | EDU001000 | EDU015000
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: -- Chapter One: The Allure of Order: Rationalizing Schools From the Progressive to the Present -- Chapter Two: The Cultural Struggle for Control Over Schooling: The Power of Ideas and the Weakness of the Educational Field -- Chapter Three: Taking Control from Above: The Rationalization of Schooling in the Progressive Era -- Chapter Four: The Forgotten Standards Movement: The Coleman Report, the Defense Department, and a Nascent Push for Educational Accountability -- Chapter Five: Setting the Problem: The Deep Roots and Long Shadows of A Nation at Risk -- Chapter Six: A Semi-Profession in an Era of Accountability -- Chapter Seven: E Pluribus Unum: How Standards and Accountability Became King -- Chapter Eight: Transforming Federal Policy: Ideas and the Triumph of Accountability Politics -- Chapter Nine: Rationalizing Schools: Patterns, Ironies, Contradictions -- Chapter Ten: Beyond Rationalization: Inverting the Pyramid, Remaking the Educational Sector -- Bibliography.
Summary: "In The Allure of Order, Jal Mehta recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. Not once, not twice, but three separate times-in the Progressive Era, the 1960s and '70s, and NCLB-reformers have hit upon the same idea for remaking schools. Over and over again, outsiders have been fascinated by the promise of scientific management and have attempted to apply principles of rational administration from above. Each of these movements started with high hopes and ambitious promises, but each gradually discovered that schooling is not easy to "order" from afar: policymakers are too far from schools to know what they need; teachers are resistant to top-down mandates; and the practice of good teaching is too complex for simple external standardization. The larger problem is that reformers have it backwards: they are trying to do on the back-end, through external accountability, what they should have done on the front-end: build a strong, skilled and expert profession. Our current pattern is to draw less than our most talented people into teaching, equip them with little relevant knowledge, train them minimally, put them in a weak welfare state, and then hold them accountable when they predictably do not achieve what we seek. What we want, Mehta argues, is the opposite approach which characterizes top-performing educational nations: attract strong candidates into teaching, develop relevant and usable knowledge, train teachers extensively in that knowledge, and support these efforts through a strong welfare state. This book boldly challenges conventional wisdom with a sweeping, empirically rich account of the last century of education reform, and offers a new path forward for the century to come"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Book Book NMC Library Stacks LA217.2 .M436 2013 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 33039001358844

"In The Allure of Order, Jal Mehta recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. Not once, not twice, but three separate times-in the Progressive Era, the 1960s and '70s, and NCLB-reformers have hit upon the same idea for remaking schools. Over and over again, outsiders have been fascinated by the promise of scientific management and have attempted to apply principles of rational administration from above. Each of these movements started with high hopes and ambitious promises, but each gradually discovered that schooling is not easy to "order" from afar: policymakers are too far from schools to know what they need; teachers are resistant to top-down mandates; and the practice of good teaching is too complex for simple external standardization. The larger problem is that reformers have it backwards: they are trying to do on the back-end, through external accountability, what they should have done on the front-end: build a strong, skilled and expert profession. Our current pattern is to draw less than our most talented people into teaching, equip them with little relevant knowledge, train them minimally, put them in a weak welfare state, and then hold them accountable when they predictably do not achieve what we seek. What we want, Mehta argues, is the opposite approach which characterizes top-performing educational nations: attract strong candidates into teaching, develop relevant and usable knowledge, train teachers extensively in that knowledge, and support these efforts through a strong welfare state. This book boldly challenges conventional wisdom with a sweeping, empirically rich account of the last century of education reform, and offers a new path forward for the century to come"-- Provided by publisher.

Machine generated contents note: -- Chapter One: The Allure of Order: Rationalizing Schools From the Progressive to the Present -- Chapter Two: The Cultural Struggle for Control Over Schooling: The Power of Ideas and the Weakness of the Educational Field -- Chapter Three: Taking Control from Above: The Rationalization of Schooling in the Progressive Era -- Chapter Four: The Forgotten Standards Movement: The Coleman Report, the Defense Department, and a Nascent Push for Educational Accountability -- Chapter Five: Setting the Problem: The Deep Roots and Long Shadows of A Nation at Risk -- Chapter Six: A Semi-Profession in an Era of Accountability -- Chapter Seven: E Pluribus Unum: How Standards and Accountability Became King -- Chapter Eight: Transforming Federal Policy: Ideas and the Triumph of Accountability Politics -- Chapter Nine: Rationalizing Schools: Patterns, Ironies, Contradictions -- Chapter Ten: Beyond Rationalization: Inverting the Pyramid, Remaking the Educational Sector -- Bibliography.

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