Reforming American Education: from the Bottom to the Top

"What kind of school would you run if you didn't have to worry about getting students into college?" Here, some of the nation's most respected and controversial theorists, policy makers, and practitioners offer their vision of how to prepare children for the "incalculable future" foreseen by editor Evans Clinchy. Their specific methods are diverse and provocative. But the basis for their arguments is the same: So long as our colleges and universities maintain their constrictive, authoritarian, and antidemocratic admissions policies and educational practices, elementary and secondary schools will necessarily be straightjacketed. Only through a thorough and collaborative reform-from kindergarten through graduate school-can meaningful change take place. The ramifications of such radical reform would be enormous, yet enticing: Deborah Meier suggests that progressive kindergartens-not the scholarly disciplines of higher academe-should be the model for reinvigorating American education. Susan Ohanian and Joe Nathan explore what elementary classrooms might be like if this happened. Nel Noddings weighs the pros and cons of a college-bound high school curriculum. Higher education specialists like William Coplin and Patrick Shannon speculate on how colleges and universities would change to serve the graduates of reformed elementary and secondary schools. Nona Lyons considers how teacher training would be transformed. And sociologist Alejandro Sanz de Santamaria looks at the impact of education reform on political life. These discussions touch every issue in American education today-from standardized testing to decentralization to inquiry learning and beyond.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 032500174X
• ISBN13: 9780325001746
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Heinemann
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.4" x 5.9"
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 12