The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to

Description: The Allure of Order by Jal Mehta Explores why reformers from both the left and right have repeatedly placed such high hopes in these reforms and why teachers and schools have been unable to resist these external reformers. FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Worries about the quality of public schooling in America are not new. Present since the mid-nineteenth century, the issue became a perennial one after 1918, the year in which elementary school attendance became compulsory in every state. The Allure of Order traces the cyclical efforts to order American schooling over the course of the twentieth century, from 1920s reform efforts up through No Child Left Behind and the current school accountability movement. The book explores why reformers from both the left and right have repeatedly placed such high hopes in these reforms and why teachers and schools have been unable to resist these external reformers. As he shows, the measurable has repeatedly crowded out the educationally meaningful, and reforms have never realized the hopes placed in them. In each reform effort, higher-status professionals have drawn from policies outside the educational arena and ridden roughshod over the teaching profession, which has remained, as he puts it, under-professionalized. Outside reformers looked to fix schools using Taylorist principles in the 1920s, Department of Defense metrics in the 1960s, and maxims from management gurus in our own era. In each case, a largely male administrative elite dictated to a largely feminized teaching profession that had little say over policy.In fact, the whole American educational sector was put together backwards: we draw less than our most able people to teaching, underprofessionalize the field, equip teachers with a weak knowledge base, put them in a highly challenging situation because of a comparatively weak welfare state, and then, when they dont achieve the results we seek, impose increasingly stringent regimes of external accountability. Mehta proposes that we do the reverse: draw more talented people into teaching, train them well, support their efforts through a more robust welfare state, and stimulate a cycle of increased trust and lessening control. This is the strategy of a number of the countries that outpace the United States on international assessments, and it is essentially the opposite of Americas preferred strategy. Empirically rich and sweeping in scope, The Allure of Order will force anyone who cares about educational policy to re-examine his or her fundamental beliefs about the problems plaguing our schools. Author Biography Jal Mehta is Associate Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the co-author of Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (Basic Books, 2005). Table of Contents Chapter One: The Allure of Order: Rationalizing Schools From the Progressive to the Present ; Chapter Two: The Cultural Struggle for Control Over Schooling: The Power of Ideas and the Weakness of the Educational Field ; Chapter Three: Taking Control from Above: The Rationalization of Schooling in the Progressive Era ; Chapter Four: The Forgotten Standards Movement: The Coleman Report, the Defense Department, and a Nascent Push for Educational Accountability ; Chapter Five: Setting the Problem: The Deep Roots and Long Shadows of A Nation at Risk ; Chapter Six: A Semi-Profession in an Era of Accountability ; Chapter Seven: E Pluribus Unum: How Standards and Accountability Became King ; Chapter Eight: Transforming Federal Policy: Ideas and the Triumph of Accountability Politics ; Chapter Nine: Rationalizing Schools: Patterns, Ironies, Contradictions ; Chapter Ten: Beyond Rationalization: Inverting the Pyramid, Remaking the Educational Sector ; Bibliography Review It is a powerful academic treatise written lucidly which, being pleasingly free of jargon, deserves, nay demands, a wide readership in this country. * Michael Bassey, London School of Economics Blog * Promotional Why school reform never seems to work - and what will work Long Description Worries about the quality of public schooling in America are not new. Present since the mid-nineteenth century, the issue became a perennial one after 1918, the year in which elementary school attendance became compulsory in every state. The Allure of Order traces the cyclical efforts to order American schooling over the course of the twentieth century, from 1920s reform efforts up through No Child Left Behind and the current school accountabilitymovement. The book explores why reformers from both the left and right have repeatedly placed such high hopes in these reforms and why teachers and schools have been unable to resist these external reformers. As he shows, the measurable has repeatedly crowded out the educationally meaningful, and reforms have neverrealized the hopes placed in them. In each reform effort, higher-status professionals have drawn from policies outside the educational arena and ridden roughshod over the teaching profession, which has remained, as he puts it, under-professionalized. Outside reformers looked to fix schools using Taylorist principles in the 1920s, Department of Defense metrics in the 1960s, and maxims from management gurus in our own era. In each case, a largely male administrative elite dictated to a largelyfeminized teaching profession that had little say over policy. In fact, the whole American educational sector was put together backwards: we draw less than our most able people to teaching, underprofessionalize the field, equip teachers with a weak knowledge base, put them in a highly challenging situation because of a comparatively weak welfare state, and then, when they dont achieve the results we seek, impose increasingly stringent regimes of external accountability. Mehta proposes that we do the reverse: draw more talented people into teaching, trainthem well, support their efforts through a more robust welfare state, and stimulate a cycle of increased trust and lessening control. This is the strategy of a number of the countries that outpace the United States on international assessments, and it is essentially the opposite of Americaspreferred strategy. Empirically rich and sweeping in scope, The Allure of Order will force anyone who cares about educational policy to re-examine his or her fundamental beliefs about the problems plaguing our schools. Review Quote "The success of The Allure of Order is how it challenges anyone involved in education reform to reexamine their most closely held concepts. At this critical period when the only consensus among U.S. educators, reformers, and policymakers is the need for change, The Allure of Order is a major guide for the sweeping decisions that must be made during the next several years. While analyzing both the history and the common strands of education reform movements, Jal Mehta also puts forward meaningful proposals to avoid repeating the past while building a system that truly empowers educators to perform at their highest levels. Documenting that the current rationalization of schools has reached its limits, Dr. Mehta points us to an approach that produces greater learning outcomes by trusting educators, sharing ideas, and moving away from the concept of one best system." --Robert Wise, President, Alliance for Excellent Education "In this detailed historical and political reanalysis of Americas checkered history of school reform, Jal Mehta finds two major patterns: an impulse on the part of reformers and policymakers for the imposition of order and coherence on a set of institutions that lack the incentives and capacities to respond to these ideas, and a persistent lack of attention to the underlying problems of human values, knowledge, and skill that actually determine the value of schooling to individuals and society over time. His analysis leads to a vision of the future that will be harder to achieve but more likely to succeed, based on valuing human knowledge and skill over technical order in the learning sector." --Richard F. Elmore, Gregory Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education "A powerful academic treatise written lucidly which, being pleasingly free of jargon, deserves, nay demands, a wide readership...." --London School of Economics "Highly recommended." --CHOICE "Jal Mehta challenges our tendency to believe that every education reform effort is new and therefore holds fresh promise for improving student performance... Although the value of standards as a primary driver of educational improvement has generated a plethora of literature, Mehtas search for why this reform has persisted, despite frustration with student achievement gains, adds depth to an ongoing and urgent policy discussion about strategies to improve student performance." --Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Details ISBN0199942064 Author Jal Mehta Short Title ALLURE OF ORDER Series Studies in Postwar American Political Development Language English ISBN-10 0199942064 ISBN-13 9780199942060 Media Book Format Hardcover Year 2013 Subtitle High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling Imprint Oxford University Press Inc Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2013-05-02 NZ Release Date 2013-05-02 US Release Date 2013-05-02 UK Release Date 2013-05-02 Affiliation Dean, MBA and Corporate Training, Westford School of Management Position Department of Language and Linguistic Science Translator Jack Forstman Edited by Heina Kimmerle Birth 1930 Death 1986 Qualifications Ph.D. Publisher Oxford University Press Inc Publication Date 2013-05-02 Alternative 9780190231453 DEWEY 379.73 Illustrations 19 figures and tables Audience Tertiary & Higher Education Pages 406 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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