Former high school teacher, school leader, activist, consultant, and now professor of education James Nehring combines vivid case studies with practical suggestions to describe how the system works to thwart good schools and what educators can do to improve them. In this book he paints the big picture of school reform in the United States, deftly distilling broad cultural patterns into useful advice for reform-minded educators. Bringing history alive through the carefully rendered stories of five schools past and present that have successfully swum against the mainstream, Nehring shows how educators can overcome the lie of the quick fix through mindful adaptation. The Practice of School Reform is a highly readable diagnosis of some of education’s deepest ills and provides practical prescriptions that can empower educators to remedy them.
Tabella dei contenuti
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Conspiracy Theory
1. The Manufacturing Metaphor
2. The Fear Factor
3. The View from the Top
4. The Grand Interlock
5. The Politics of Appeasement
6. The Failure of Generosity and Justice
7. The Mindful Practitioner
Notes
Index
Circa l’autore
James Nehring is Assistant Professor in the Leadership in Schooling Program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is the author of
The School within Us: The Creation of an Innovative Public School, also published by SUNY Press, and
Upstart Startup: Creating and Sustaining a Public Charter School.