Movements Of Educational Reform

This innovative new handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the ways in which domestic education policy is framed and influenced by global institutions and actors. Surveys current debates about the role of education in a global polity, highlights key transnational policy actors, accessibly introduces research methodologies, and outlines global agendas for education reform Includes contributions from an international cast of established and emerging scholars at the forefront of the field thoughtfully edited and organized by a team of world-renowned global education policy experts Each section features a thorough introduction designed to facilitate readers’ understanding of the subsequent material and highlight links to interdisciplinary global policy scholarship Written in an accessible and engaging style that will appeal to domestic and international policy practitioners, social scientists, and education scholars alike

In a public education world of vast, multiple, rapid, and often colliding educational reforms, Movements of Educational Reform provides the novice as well as the veteran educator and administrator a sort of map of educational changes and processes. Movements of Educational Reform is intended to help the devoted and dedicated education professional and scholar make sense of the successes and the pitfalls of reforms by tracing the landscape through four movements. Movements promises to ignite and energize your passion for leading educational reform and to bring awareness of system strategies and its structural and cultural aspects, many of which continue to challenge theorists, practitioners, and leaders of educational change.

Education is threatened on a global scale by forces of neoliberalism, through high stakes accountability, privatization and a destructive language of learning. In all respects, a GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) has erupted from international benchmark rankings such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRL, causing inequity, narrowing of the curriculum and teacher deprofessionalization on a truly global scale. In this book, teachers from around the world and other educational experts such as Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Stephen Ball, Gert Biesta, Tom Bennett and many more, make the case to move away from this uneducational economic approach, to instead embrace a more humane, more democratic approach to education. This approach is called ‘flipping the system’, a move that places teachers exactly where they need to be - at the steering wheel of educational systems worldwide. This book will appeal to teachers and other education professionals around the world.

Berube analyzes the three great educational reform movements in the United States. He shows how they have been shaped by outside societal forces: Progressive Education was an offshoot of the Progressive Movement; Equity Reform in the 1960s was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement; Excellence Reform in the last decade was a response to foreign economic competition. Within each matrix, common characteristics of each movement emerge. Progressive Education with its emphasis on critical thinking and child-centered schools set the stage for what was to follow. Equity Reform sought to complete the unfinished agenda of Progressive Education in educating the poor. Excellence Reform repudiated both in the name of higher standards and content-specific curriculums. The emergence of sophisticated educational research since the 1960s has influenced educational policy to be more research-based. Berube provides a necessary overview of the great movements in school reform over the last century.

This book has been almost seven years in the making. Though the work has certainly not been continuous for all those years, it was a major focus of the three of us for most of them. It is a tribute to Paulo Freire, his courage, his humanity, and the timelessness and relevancy of his ideas that our work on this manuscript was never tedious, never dull, and never a burden, but rather a constant source of joy, inspiration, and discovery. Although the book was always intended to be a critical but friendly description and analysis of Freire's efforts as Secretary of Education, the need to disseminate information about this radical educational reform became even more urgent after the sad news of Paulo Freire's death in May 1997. Thus, while this text is the result of the scholarly efforts of three researchers, it is also a celebration of a revolutionary thinker who had the unique opportunity to make his ideas concrete and therefore affect the lives of countless young children in his native country. We dedicate our efforts on this volume to Paulo Freire and to the hundreds of educators in Sao Paulo whom he inspired to work tirelessly in creating a happy, democratic school dedicated to serving poor and working class children and their communities. It has been our pleasure and privilege to have worked with Paulo Freire and the many educators involved in educational reform in Sao Paulo. Their commitment, courage, political clarity and struggle for social justice and equality are a constant source of motivation and inspiration for us to renew and reinvigorate our own efforts in the fight for equal rights, decency and justice.

“It is now time to break down the ideology of exceptionalism in the United States and other Anglo-American nations if we are to develop reforms that will truly inspire our teachers to improve learning for all our students—especially those who struggle the most. In that essential quest, Pasi Sahlberg is undoubtedly one of the very best teachers of all.” —From the Foreword by Andy Hargreaves, Lynch School of Education, Boston College Finnish Lessons is a first-hand, comprehensive account of how Finland built a world-class education system during the past three decades. The author traces the evolution of education policies in Finland and highlights how they differ from the United States and other industrialized countries. He shows how rather than relying on competition, choice, and external testing of students, education reforms in Finland focus on professionalizing teachers’ work, developing instructional leadership in schools, and enhancing trust in teachers and schools. This book details the complexity of educational change and encourages educators and policymakers to develop effective solutions for their own districts and schools.

From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, Slaying Goliath is an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, and activists are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are trying to privatize America’s public schools. Diane Ravitch writes of a true grassroots movement sweeping the country, from cities and towns across America, a movement dedicated to protecting public schools from those who are funding privatization and who believe that America’s schools should be run like businesses and that children should be treated like customers or products. Slaying Goliath is about the power of democracy, about the dangers of plutocracy, and about the potential of ordinary people—armed like David with only a slingshot of ideas, energy, and dedication—to prevail against those who are trying to divert funding away from our historic system of democratically governed, nonsectarian public schools. Among the lessons learned from the global pandemic of 2020 is the importance of our public schools and their teachers and the fact that distance learning can never replace human interaction, the pesonal connection between teachers and students.

Education as a major social movement is coming to an end. The theoretical framework for this proposition derives from Thomas Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts of major movements and Hegel's 'end of history' thesis. The 'end of school reform' thesis blends Arthur Danto's 'end of art', John Horgan's 'end of science', and Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' theses. Including interviews of education historians and policy professors, The End of School Reform maintains that educational innovation may still continue, but only on a piecemeal basis.