In this volume, a group of scholars discuss a variety of approaches to urban school reform.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
New Schools for a New Century is a collection of 10 essays that examine educational reform from many different perspectives. There is, for example, the Edison Project, a for-profit venture that now operates in a dozen different locations. Edison Project schools emphasize the school as a community in which students and teachers remain together for several years, and teachers have time for teaching instead of being forced to shoulder administrative burdens. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Catholic school model. In her essay, Valerie E. Lee discusses why Catholic schools have a greater success rate, even with the poorest, most disadvantaged students, than their public-school counterparts. According to Lee, it comes down to a common vision of education and a definite moral code by which students are expected to live.
New Schools for a New Century suggests that school reform must happen from the outside, not from within. With such powerful insiders as the teachers' unions and local school boards fighting to maintain the status quo, it will take new ideas and determined advocates to affect real change. In examining some of these new ideas, New Changes for a New Century opens up some compelling, if uncomfortable, questions about the state of education today--and in the future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
" a good job...a useful introduction to what reformers are talking about." -- Washington Times, November 16, 1997
"Ravitch and Viteritti, both powerful figures in American education, analyze the perceived failure of public education in great cities" -- Times of London Educational Supplement, November 14, 1997
"a collection of well-written studies on redesigning urban schools." -- Urban Affairs Review, July 1998
"a series of significant contributions to the ongoing debate on urban school reform... a provocative and stimulating ride." -- American Political Science Review, March 1998
"threads the work of prominent scholars of school reform...and describes in detail a diversity of innovations now operating." -- Boston Book Review, October, 1997
"Ravitch and Viteritti, both powerful figures in American education, analyze the perceived failure of public education in great cities" -- Times of London Educational Supplement, November 14, 1997
"a collection of well-written studies on redesigning urban schools." -- Urban Affairs Review, July 1998
"a series of significant contributions to the ongoing debate on urban school reform... a provocative and stimulating ride." -- American Political Science Review, March 1998
"threads the work of prominent scholars of school reform...and describes in detail a diversity of innovations now operating." -- Boston Book Review, October, 1997
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good summary of structural educational reform,
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This review is from: New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education (Paperback)
One of the contributors to this book, Chester Finn, puts urban education in perspective with the fact that in 1995 nearly 25% of the furnaces in urban schools were still coal-fired. Ravitch and her contributors assess new political and educational policy initiatives from a positive, clear-headed point of view, toward the goal of understanding what works well, and how to make that happen elsewhere.The emphasis on school improvement, away from what Ravitch calls the "decrepit factory model of schooling," calls for a discussion of (i) the history of school improvement movements, (ii) the emergence of structural reforms in the early 1990s, including vouchers, contracting, charters, and deregulation, and (iii) specific examples of system-wide reforms from Chicago, the Milwaukee vouchers, and the Edison project. Good examples of deregulation include Texas Governor George W. Bush reducing state-imposed regulation on local districts from 490 to 230, and Michigan Governor John Engler a similar proportion. This book grew out of a seminar hosted at New York University from 1994-1996. There is newer information available, for example, on the Milwaukee charters, but these contributors are not dated and convey their hopes and ideals about education fully. Chester Finn is always a pungent writer and worth reading. I especially liked Valerie Lee's chapter on the promise and results of Catholic school education. I think Ravitch's contributions to educational reform are unique. Trained as a historian, she brings to the discussion of educational reform a new and refreshing viewpoint. You do not have to be a policy wonk to enjoy this book. END
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