Full Description
Few people have been more involved in shaping postwar U.S. education reforms--or dissented from some of them more effectively--than Chester Finn. Assistant secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, and an aide to politicians as different as Richard Nixon and Daniel Moynihan, Finn has also been a high school teacher, an education professor, a prolific and best-selling writer, a think-tank analyst, a nonprofit foundation president, and both a Democrat and Republican. This remarkably varied career has given him an extraordinary insider's view of every significant school-reform movement of the past four decades, from racial integration to No Child Left Behind. In Troublemaker, Finn has written a vivid history of postwar education reform that is also the personal story of one of the foremost players--and mavericks--in American education. Finn tells how his experiences have shaped his changing views of the three major strands of postwar school reform: standards-driven, choice-driven, and profession-driven.
Of the three, Finn now believes that a combination of choice and standards has the greatest potential, but he favors this approach more on pragmatic than ideological grounds, arguing that parents should be given more options at the same time that schools are allowed more flexibility and held to higher performance norms. He also explains why education reforms of all kinds are so difficult to implement, and he draws valuable lessons from their frequent failure. Clear-eyed yet optimistic, Finn ultimately gives grounds for hope that the best of today's bold initiatives--from charter schools to technology to makeovers of school-system governance--are finally beginning to make a difference.
Contents
Introduction ix Part I: Early Days 1 Chapter 1: Schoolkid in the Fifties 7 Chapter 2: Into the Sixties 14 Chapter 3: Becoming an Educator 26 Part II: The Seventies 33 Chapter 4: White House Days 41 Chapter 5: Out of Washington 56 Chapter 6: The Politics of Aiding Private Schools 66 Chapter 7: A Federal Department of Education? 77 Chapter 8: Becoming a Republican 87 Part III: The Eighties 95 Chapter 9: Quality Gains Traction 101 Chapter 10: Educators Awaken 108 Chapter 11: Professing in Tennessee 118 Chapter 12: Inside the Beast 125 Chapter 13: The Quest for Better Information 134 Chapter 14: Goals, Standards, and Markets 149 Part IV: The Nineties 165 Chapter 15: Bipartisan Reform in Action--and Inaction 169 Chapter 16: Charters and Vouchers 181 Chapter 17: International Alarums, Contentious Responses 187 Chapter 18: Whittling and Think- tanking 194 Chapter 19: Clinton, Goals, and Testing 204 Chapter 20: Priests, Professionals, and Politicians 211 Chapter 21: Choices and Summits 216 Chapter 22: Back to Dayton 224 Chapter 23: Leaving No Child Behind 237 Chapter 24: Shaky Tripods 246 Chapter 25: The Burden of Choice 261 Chapter 26: Technology and Governance 273 Chapter 27: Teachers, Time, and Money 283 Chapter 28: Still Learning 296 Epilogue: Two Little Girls 307 Glossary 313 Notes 319 Index 347
