Full Description
The great pendulum of educational reform recently has begun its inexorable swing toward a new understanding of education. The thirty-year dominance of the authoritarian approach, complete with standardized assessments, distended bureaucracies and school consolidation based on the business model, appears to be over. Capped by the recent departure of the No Child Left behind Act and replaced with a new congressional authorization - the Every Child Achieves Act - we are witnessing a distinct move toward a more democratic model of education. This book places the tension between these two broadly defined archetypes in the context of the central themes of American education. These include the structure and organization of American schools, the struggle for diversity, curriculum and instruction, classroom discipline, moral education, testing and assessment, and the rights and responsibilities of teachers and students. By organizing these themes into a more understandable and relevant thematic context, readers will be able to appreciate the changes in the field of education over the years as well as the cacophonous bickering over education policy - today and yesterday.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Authoritarian and Democratic Schools of Education
Chapter 2: The Structure and Organization of American Schools
Chapter 3: Consolidation and its Discontents: From Intimacy to Democracy
Chapter 4: The Struggle for Diversity
Chapter 5: The Curriculum: From Religious to Secular and Comprehensive
Chapter 6: Instruction: From Memorization to Comprehension
Chapter 7: Discipline in the Classroom: From Corporal Punishment to Preventative Techniques
Chapter 8: Moral Education: From Virtue Centered to Cognitive Moral Development
Chapter 9: Testing and Assessment: From Recitation to Standardized Assessment
Chapter 10: Rights and Responsibilities of Teachers and Students
Conclusion - The Complexity of Change in American Education
References
Index
