The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling (Studies in Postwar American Political Development)

In The Allure of Order, Mehta recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. 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. 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.

Jal Mehta is Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research explores the underlying structures which shape American schooling, the cultural assumptions which underpin these approaches to education, and the consequences of those decisions for schools, teachers, and students. He is the co-editor of The Futures of School Reform. Mehta received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University.