Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School ReformFor over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices. In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to reinvent schooling? Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education. |
Contents
1 | |
1 Progress or Regress? | 12 |
2 Policy Cycles and Institutional Trends | 40 |
3 How Schools Change Reforms | 60 |
4 Why the Grammar of Schooling Persists | 85 |
5 Reinventing Schooling | 110 |
Other editions - View all
Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform David B. Tyack,Larry Cuban Limited preview - 1997 |
Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform David B. Tyack,Larry Cuban Limited preview - 1995 |
Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform David B. Tyack,Larry Cuban Limited preview - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
academic achievement administrative progressives advocates American Education Carnegie unit challenge Chicago Child Gardening cities citizens classes classroom Cohen common computers create curriculum Dalton Plan David Tyack decade Diane Ravitch educa Educational Administration Quarterly educational reform efficiency Eight-Year Study Elam elementary school Elisabeth Hansot experiment Falmer Falmer Press federal for-profit schools Foundation Gallup Polls goals governance graded school grammar of schooling groups History implementation improve innovations instruction John Dewey junior high schools kindergarten leaders learning merit pay Michael W Milbrey parents pedagogical percent Performance Contracting Phi Delta Kappan policy elites policy talk political practice problems programs Progressive era public education public schools pupils real school reinvent restructuring rural school boards school districts school reform school system secondary schools social society standard superintendents Susan Moore Teachers College teaching Technology Texarkana tion tional traditional U.S. Bureau University Press urban vocational Washington York