Failure Or Reform

Corporate school reforms, especially privatization, union busting, and high-stakes testing have been hailed as the last best hope for public education. Yet, as Kenneth Saltman powerfully argues in this new book, corporate school reforms have decisively failed to deliver on what their proponents have promised for two decades: higher test scores and lower costs. As Saltman illustrates, the failures of corporate school reform are far greater and more destructive than they seem. Left unchecked, corporate school reform fails to challenge and in fact worsens the most pressing problems facing public schooling, including radical funding inequalities, racial segregation, and anti-intellectualism. But it is not too late for change. Against both corporate school reformers and its liberal critics, this book argues for the expansion of democratic pedagogies and a new common school movement that will lead to broader social renewal.

Market reform promises more environmental protection and more profitable agriculture at lower financial cost. Too good to be true? This book examines numerous empirical examples of policy in action to identify principles for the successful application of market-based policy instruments. Where some market instruments are used to fix market failures by putting a value on environmental protection, others use market-like mechanisms to allocate financial incentives for environmental work. They are promoted as flexible, efficient and politically neutral solutions to the competing demands of social, economic and ecological sustainability. But they also attract criticism for rolling back environmental regulation and privatizing public goods. This book argues that while many market-based instruments have merit, decisions about responsibility cannot be left entirely to the market. Whichever instruments we use, decision-making needs to be embedded in a logic of democratization. Using case studies from around the world, this book investigates how instruments like eco-standards, payments for ecosystem services, pollution trading and community-based natural resource management perform in practice, and what can be learned about applying them more effectively. While the approach is primarily sociological, it is deliberately written to bridge the gap between sociology, economics, environmental sciences and the concerns of environmental policy makers.

Economists have moved in recent years beyond analyzing the manner in which the macroeconomies of different countries function and prescribing appropriate policies for dealing with domestic and external imbalances. Increasingly, they have sought to understand the complex interaction between political and economic phenomena. This book considers issues of economic reform in a broad range of settings: * developed countries * transition countries * developing countries Using country specific cases such as Uzbekistan, Burma and Haiti, it focuses on those territories which have encountered problems reforming, allowing the reader to gain an accurate understanding of the factors that inhibit the success of economic reform, the different context in which economic reform is attempted, and the different challenges that individual countries face. An international team of contributors including Bo Södersten, Deepak Lal and Ron Findlay have been brought together to analyze these topical issues, making this an informative and thought-provoking book, of interest to those involved in the field of development studies.

Today's school communities need a deeper understanding not only of what research says about school change, but also of the specifics about how to apply the rich treasure of research available to help in their own improvement process, and Rosalind's account addresses that need.

This frank and courageous book explores the persistence of failure in today's urban schools. At its heart is the argument that most education policy discussions are disconnected from the daily realities of urban schools, especially those in poor and beleaguered neighborhoods. Charles M. Payne argues that we have failed to account fully for the weakness of the social infrastructure and the often dysfunctional organizational environments of urban schools and school systems. The result is that liberals and conservatives alike have spent a great deal of time pursuing questions of limited practical value in the effort to improve city schools. Payne carefully delineates these stubborn and intertwined sources of failure in urban school reform efforts of the past two decades. Yet while his book is unsparing in its exploration of the troubled recent history of urban school reform, Payne also describes himself as "guardedly optimistic." He describes how, in the last decade, we have developed real insights into the roots of school failure, and into how some individual schools manage to improve. He also examines recent progress in understanding how particular urban districts have established successful reforms on a larger scale. Drawing on a striking array of sources--from the recent history of various urban school systems, to the growing sophistication of education research, to his own experience as a teacher, scholar, and participant in reform efforts--Payne paints a vivid and unmistakably realistic portrait of urban schools and reforms of the past few decades. So Much Reform, So Little Change will be required reading for everyone interested in the plight--and the future--of urban schools.

Market reform promises more environmental protection and more profitable agriculture at lower financial cost. Too good to be true? This book examines numerous empirical examples of policy in action to identify principles for the successful application of market-based policy instruments. Where some market instruments are used to fix market failures by putting a value on environmental protection, others use market-like mechanisms to allocate financial incentives for environmental work. They are promoted as flexible, efficient and politically neutral solutions to the competing demands of social, economic and ecological sustainability. But they also attract criticism for rolling back environmental regulation and privatizing public goods. This book argues that while many market-based instruments have merit, decisions about responsibility cannot be left entirely to the market. Whichever instruments we use, decision-making needs to be embedded in a logic of democratization. Using case studies from around the world, this book investigates how instruments like eco-standards, payments for ecosystem services, pollution trading and community-based natural resource management perform in practice, and what can be learned about applying them more effectively. While the approach is primarily sociological, it is deliberately written to bridge the gap between sociology, economics, environmental sciences and the concerns of environmental policy makers.

This title was first published in 2001.The victory of former lieutenant colonel Hugo Chavez in the Venezuelan presidential elections of 1998 was criticized as a blow against the country's deep-seated democratic tradition. It is claimed that this simplistic argument fails to recognize the extent of democratic deterioration in the country and the limitations imposed by discredited political actors on a meaningful democratic reform process. The book aims to break new ground in providing unseen evidence of electoral fraud and offers a fresh perspective on the nature of democratic development.

Iran is now at the center of political and social developments in the Middle East. This book examines the reform of the judicial system in 20th century Iran and is the first to relate state-building process with rule of law promotion and judicial reform in the region. This subject occupies the critical juncture of three developments in the contemporary study of Iranian society as an important and early case of social revolution and reform in the Middle East: the state-building process in a non-Western country throughout the 20th century, the incorporation of a non-Western Muslim country into the Western legal framework through codification and transplantation (1911-1979), and the Islamicization process after this critical social development and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This exceptional study furthers our understanding of Iranian modern history as well as the democratization process, human rights and rule of law issues in the Middle East.