The End of School Reform - Softcover

Berube, Maurice R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742539474 ISBN 13: 9780742539471

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006

Synopsis

Education as a major social movement is coming to an end. The End of School Reform derives its theoretical framework from the ideas of Hegel, who perceived an end to history, and Thomas Kuhn, who theorized that history does not follow a linear path but that the scientific landscape changes through large-scale movements called 'paradigm shifts'. This book examines the partial successes of history's three major educational reform movements (the Progressive Education movement at the beginning of the 20th century, the Equity Reform movement of the 1960's-1970's, and the Excellence Reform movement from 1983 to the present) and contends that such major movements in education will never be seen again. Blending Arthur Danto's 'end of art', John Horgan's 'end of science', and Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' theses_all of which argue that only minor reforms will occur in the future_and drawing on interviews of education historians and policy professors, the 'end of school reform' thesis maintains that educational innovation may still continue, but only on a piecemeal basis.

About this title

About the Author

Maurice R. Berube is Eminent Scholar Emeritus from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. He has published eleven other books, including American School Reform: Progressive, Equity and Excellence Movements 1893-1993 and American Presidents and Education. Clair T. Berube is assistant professor education at St. Xavier University in Chicago. She has published in academic and public intellectual magazines.

Review

A challenging provocation. (Future Survey, August 2007)

Mindful of the varied factors that have shaped and continue to shape American educational reform, Maurice and Clair Berube have written one of the most insightful well-researched and interesting works on the nature of education reform, past, present and future. Based, in part, from interviews with the most critical observers in the field (Giroux, Ravitch, Apple, among others), the authors have not only placed current debates about the achievement gap and effects of poverty in historical perspective, but have raised provocative questions about the very future of American education. Echoing Boyd Bode's astute obsevation that the 'problem of education is a problem of direction,' the authors offer readers some guideposts. (Jeffrey Glanz, Wagner College)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0742539474
• ISBN 13: 9780742539471
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112