A critical look at the influence of the business community on the school reform movement, specifically how popular business management theories have been used as "tools" to produce a "workforce" for the 21st century.

With critical issues like desegregation and funding facing our schools, dissatisfaction with public education has reached a new high. Teachers decry inadequate resources while critics claim educators are more concerned with job security than effective teaching. Though urban education has reached crisis proportions, contending players have difficulty agreeing on a common program of action. This book tells why. Changing Urban Education confronts the prevailing naivete in school reform by examining the factors that shape, reinforce, or undermine reform efforts. Edited by one of the nation's leading urban scholars, it examines forces for change and resistance in urban education and proposes that the barrier to reform can only be overcome by understanding how schools fit into the broader political contexts of their cities. Much of the problem with our schools lies with the reluctance of educators to recognize the profoundly political character of public education. The contributors show how urban political contexts vary widely with factors like racial composition, the role of the teachers' union, and relations between cities and surrounding metropolitan areas. Presenting case studies of original field research in Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, and six other urban areas, they consider how resistance to desegregation and the concentration of the poor in central urban areas affect education, and they suggest how cities can build support for reform through the involvement of business and other community players. By demonstrating the complex interrelationship between urban education and politics, this book shows schools to be not just places for educating children, but also major employers and large spenders of tax dollars. It also introduces the concept of civic capacity—the ability of educators and non-educators to work together on common goals—and suggests that this key issue must be addressed before education can be improved. Changing Urban Education makes it clear to educators that the outcome of reform efforts depends heavily on their political context as it reminds political scientists that education is a major part of the urban mix. While its prognosis is not entirely optimistic, it sets forth important guidelines that cannot be ignored if our schools are to successfully prepare children for the future.

Argues against the "tougher standards" rhetoric and the current practice of teaching to standarized tests in favor of helping students become more critical, creative thinkers.

Here, Robert Brower counters the misdirection of the present reform movement in education. This book details the errors of the present movement and gives a prescription for how to do it right.

Class, culture, and race have influenced the educational experiences of children for centuries. As a new wave of Latin American and Asian peoples enters the United States, public schools are faced with the challenge of educating children from a culture of poverty, and who have varying racial and cultural backgrounds. This reference work employs historical, anthropological, sociological, and theoretical perspectives to overview current information on class, culture, and race in U.S. schools. The volume is organized systematically, with broad sections on class, culture, race, and prospects for the future. Each section begins with an introductory chapter that defines the theme of the section and places it within a larger context. The chapters that follow then examine the impact of class, culture, or race on schooling, with special regard to particular groups. The volume focuses primarily on Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians, as they struggle to survive and prosper in the United States. Because of its approach, the book is also a guide to the effects of poverty, language, and race on the educational experiences of children.