Understanding Educational Reform

The only handbook of its kind to bring together materials from a wide range of authoritative works, providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of reform in American education. Crafted in ten skillfully written chapters, Educational Reform covers the history, politics, and processes of educational reform and addresses reforms in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Starting with a definition of educational reform and where its far-reaching results can lead, the work goes on to assess the role of the public in educational reform, the educational reform industry, and resistance to reform. Of interest to school boards and administrators and useful in graduate and undergraduate courses in education, it is written in a conversational tone that brings the subject out of the realm of dry analysis. Readers will benefit not only from the numerous case studies that intersperse the themes discussed, but also from the extensive bibliography of print and nonprint resources (including websites) listed for further study. There is little doubt that the classroom must change to meet the needs of the 21st century—read Educational Reform to learn just how.