Children as Pawns: The Politics of Educational Reform

By Timothy A. Hacsi

Book Overview

Head Start. Bilingual education. Small class size. Social promotion. School funding. Virtually every school system in America has had to face these issues over the past 30 years. Advocates and dissenters have declared confidently that the research is on their side. But is it?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674007441
• ISBN13: 9780674007444
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

An Educational Reform Primer

Political leaders are not using evaluation evidence as a leading determinant in selecting educational policies, and we need to better evaluate school reform measures to intelligently apply our less-than-infinite school funding resources to improve our schools. Mr. Hacsi, with lucid writing and great intellect, lays out his primary arguments. In his well reasoned introduction and conclusion he states that most of the studies of existing programs are inconclusive or provide conflicting evidence. He asserts that advocates and opponents of education reform initiatives often misuse the available program evaluation information to support their positions. He then reviews five highly-controversial educational issues, Head Start, bilingual education, class size, social promotion, and public funding of education. For each of these he summarizes the positions of the proponents and opponents, reviews the evaluations that were done on each, the quality and reliability of these evaluations, and provides a brief history. All of this is done in an even-handed manner, and conclusions about particular issues are left to the reader.