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A Nation Reformed?
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| "School teachers, administrators, and community members who
want a better understanding of standards-based reform-of how we
got here and why-will benefit a great deal from this book. These
contributors, who have been at the forefront of national discussions
about improving schools, cogently lay out the complexities of educating
youth to high standards. They make a convincing and inspiring case
for why reform should focus on what counts the most: improving teaching
and learning. If you read one book on this important anniversary,
it should be A Nation Reformed?" -Ramon Cortines, former Chancellor, New York City Public Schools "A deep, insightful, balanced appraisal from an extraordinary
array of 'school reformers'-scholars, practitioners, and policy
analysts-who have stayed the course for 20+ years. What they have
learned and what they know about the barriers that still lie ahead
is a must read for anyone concerned about the future well-being
of our children, our schools, and yes, ultimately, 'our nation
at risk.'" |
On April 26, 1983, the blue-ribbon National Commission on Excellence in Education issued "an open letter to the American people" on the state of our nation's schools. "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" was one of many such reports that year, but its title and incendiary language set it apart almost immediately. We were warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools that imperiled the nation's future. The symbolic opening salvo in a two-decade-long struggle to improve schools, A Nation at Risk helped put education reform at the top of the national agenda.
A Nation Reformed? takes stock of twenty years of school reform. Was the nation really ever "at risk" and, if so, is it still? Which reforms have made a difference and which haven't? And where do we go from here? The leading education scholars and practitioners assembled here-Richard F. Elmore, Susan H. Fuhrman, Nathan Glazer, David T. Gordon, Patricia Albjerg Graham, Pam Grossman, Jeff Howard, Timothy Knowles, Kim Marshall, Robert B. Schwartz, and Maris A. Vinovskis-present a balanced, thoughtful look at the past, current, and future effects of school reform on our nation's students, teachers, and communities.
Foreword
Patricia Albjerg Graham
Introduction
David T. Gordon
Riding Waves, Trading Horses: The Twenty-Year Effort to Reform Education
Susan H. Fuhrman
Change and Improvement in Educational Reform
Richard F. Elmore
The Academic Imperative: New Challenges and Expectations Facing School Leaders
Timothy Knowles
A Principal Looks Back: Standards Matter
Kim Marshall
Click here to read the full-text of this chapter.
Teaching: From "A Nation at Risk" to a Profession at Risk?
Pam Grossman
Click here to read an excerpt from this chapter
Click here to listen to a recent discussion of A Nation Reformed? courtesy of WGBH Forum Network and the Askwith Education Forum.
Still at Risk: The Causes and Costs of Failure to Educate Poor and Minority
Children for the 21st Century
Jeff Howard
The Limits of Ideology: Curriculum and the Culture Wars
David T. Gordon
Missed Opportunities: Why the Federal Response to the Report Was Inadequate
Maris A. Vinovskis
The Emerging State Leadership Role in Education Reform: Notes of a Participant-Observer
Robert B. Schwartz
The American Way of School Reform
Nathan Glazer
A Nation At Risk
The National Commission On Excellence in Education
A Nation Reformed?
American Education Twenty Years after A Nation at Risk
Edited by David T. Gordon
© 2003
ISBN 1-891792-08-3 $21.95 paperback, ORDER
232 pages
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