The Business of Reforming American Schools

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SUNY Press, Oct 2, 1997 - Education - 329 pages
Focusing on the influence of the business community on schools, this book describes how popular business management theories and production processes have been imported into schools during periods of societal upheaval in order to create a sense of order and efficiency while meeting the objective of producing a workforce that meets the specifications set down by employers.

Unlike other books that say why schools need to be reformed or how that reform should proceed, this study takes a critical look at the latest call to restructure schools in light of the economic, social, and political forces that affect the education establishment and the children of our nation.

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Contents

The Tenor of the Times
9
The ProEfficiency Reforms Transplant Business Methods to the Schoolhouse
27
An Alternative Reform Agenda Education for Individual Development and Democracy
49
Challenges to the ProEfficiency Model of Education 19611995
67
The 1960s and the Challenge to the Schools
69
A Renewed Sense of Crisis and a New Management Model Spur Education Reform 19831995
109
The New Model for Efficient Education
141
Rochester New York a Laboratory for the New ProEfficiency Reforms
173
The Choices We Face
209
NOTES
247
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
307
INDEX
317
Copyright

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About the author (1997)

Denise Gelberg has been a classroom teacher for twenty years and currently teaches in the Ithaca City School District, Ithaca, New York.

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