From the Campus: Perspectives on the School Reform Movement

This book assembles prominent school-of-education faculty researchers to provide perspectives on the school reform or excellence movement. The contributors represent a wide variety of disciplines including comparative and international education, history, sociology, political science, curriculum theory, testing and evaluation, school administration and special education. They confront the most controversial issues in education of our time; equity and excellence, at-risk children, the education of language-minority students, the governance of education, parental choice, and the importance of home, family and of elementary and pre-school education. This book broadens the scope of the debate over school reform to include concerns that the current enthusiasm for excellence will erode earlier gains for equality, and that the reform movement is not paying enough attention to at-risk and disadvantaged children. The contributors examine the need for radical restructuring of schools in order to combine excellence with equality.