The Roots Of Educational Change

ANDY HARGREAVES Department of Teacher Education, Curriculum and Instruction Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA, U.S.A. ANN LIEBERMAN Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stanford, CA, U.S.A. MICHAEL FULLAN Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada DAVID HOPKINS Department for Education and Skills, London, U.K. This set of four volumes on Educational Change brings together evidence and insights on educational change issues from leading writers and researchers in the field from across the world. Many of these writers, whose chapters have been specially written for these books, have been investigating, helping initiate and implementing educational change, for most or all of their lengthy careers. Others are working on the cutting edge of theory and practice in educational change, taking the field in new or even more challenging directions. And some are more skeptical about the literature of educational change and the assumptions on which it rests. They help us to approach projects of understanding or initiating educational change more deeply, reflectively and realistically. Educational change and reform have rarely had so much prominence within public policy, in so many different places. Educational change is ubiquitous. It figures large in Presidential and Prime Ministerial speeches. It is at or near the top of many National policy agendas. Everywhere, educational change is not only a policy priority but also major public news. Yet action to bring about educational change usually exceeds people's understanding of how to do so effectively.

Presenting an alternative view of where educational reform must begin, the contributors contend that we must begin with rethinking the nature of learning and with newer knowledge about how students learn. Only then can the conditions that support the type of learning that will create productive citizens for the 21st century be considered. The book begins with the need to redefine learning by increasing awareness of the relationship between how students learn and efforts to improve schools. The next seven chapters present examples of classroom research to provide a glimpse of what happens when teachers implement newer views of learning based on how students actively construct knowledge in meaningful and multi-connected networks. These examples serve to provide clues about what learning may look like in classrooms with these goals and to raise questions about factors that support and/or constrain teachers in providing opportunities for students to extend understanding to solve complex problems.

The Roots of Educational Inequality chronicles the transformation of one American high school over the course of the twentieth century to explore the larger political, economic, and social factors that have contributed to the escalation of educational inequality in modern America. In 1914, when Germantown High School officially opened, Martin G. Brumbaugh, the superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, told residents that they had one of the finest high schools in the nation. Located in a suburban neighborhood in Philadelphia's northwest corner, the school provided Germantown youth with a first-rate education and the necessary credentials to secure a prosperous future. In 2013, almost a century later, William Hite, the city's superintendent, announced that Germantown High was one of thirty-seven schools slated for closure due to low academic achievement. How is it that the school, like so many others that serve low-income students of color, transformed in this way? Erika M. Kitzmiller links the saga of a single high school to the history of its local community, its city, and the nation. Through a fresh, longitudinal examination that combines deep archival research and spatial analysis, Kitzmiller challenges conventional declension narratives that suggest American high schools have moved steadily from pillars of success to institutions of failures. Instead, this work demonstrates that educational inequality has been embedded in our nation's urban high schools since their founding. The book argues that urban schools were never funded adequately. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, urban school districts lacked the tax revenues needed to operate their schools. Rather than raising taxes, these school districts relied on private philanthropy from families and communities to subsidize a lack of government aid. Over time, this philanthropy disappeared leaving urban schools with inadequate funds and exacerbating the level of educational inequality.

The International Handbook of Educational Change is a state of the art collection of the most important ideas and evidence of educational change. The book brings together some of the most influential thinkers and writers on educational change. It deals with issues like educational innovation, reform, restructuring, culture-building, inspection, school-review, and change management. It asks why some people resist change and what their resistance means. It looks at how men and women, older teachers and younger teachers, experience change differently. It looks at the positive aspects of change but does not hesitate to raise uncomfortable questions about many aspects of educational change either. It looks critically and controversially at the social, economic, cultural and political forces that are driving educational change. School leaders, system administration, teacher leaders, consultants, facilitators, educational researchers, staff developers and change agents of all kinds will find this book an indispensable resource for guiding them to both classic and cutting-edge understandings of educational change, no other work provides as comprehensive coverage of the field of educational change.

Jean M. Bartunek, the 2001-2002 President of the Academy of Management, has written an excellent scholarly book on organizational and educational change. Using a joint insider/outsider approach, this book tells the story of a change agent group--a group of teachers--that was creating change in its organization setting, a Network of Independent Schools. The group's focus was on empowerment and professional development for teachers in the Network. The book describes virtually everything that happened in the group over its first seven years and summarizes what happened during its final two years. It explores the identity, work, and evolution of change agent groups in organizations, with particular emphasis on teachers and educational change. Through the book's extensive quotations and narrative account, the reader is enabled to enter into the world of the teacher group studied over the course of its nine-year history. In addition, the book includes analysis of the underlying processes involved in the change, focusing on the change agent group's identity, its actions and relationships with stakeholders as they jointly evolved over time, and their impacts on the vitality of the change effort. It contributes a new understanding of fundamental processes involved in organizational change, especially when viewed from the perspective of change agents. In addition, the book provides practical implications for change agents, specifically change agents in schools. As such, this account will be useful for graduate students and researchers in organizational change, educational leadership, and professional development. It is a part of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates growing series in organization management.

" ... presents a theoretical road map for teachers, professors, or administrators who seek guidance from the educational change literature ... brings together the research and practical applications in a practitioner's toolbox"--Back cover.

The New Imperatives of Educational Change is a clarion call to move beyond the standardized testing and marketplace competition that have become pervasive in school systems to focus instead on creating the conditions that will encourage all students to become critical and independent thinkers. Dennis Shirley presents five new imperatives to guide educators and policymakers towards a re-thinking of what it means to teach effectively and to learn in depth. The evidentiary imperative requires educators to attain a better grasp of what data actually reveal about international trends in student learning. The interpretive imperative encourages mindful deliberation before acting on evidence in order to promote the integrity of a school community. The professional imperative describes new international research findings on promising pedagogies and curricula that propel learning in new directions. The global imperative argues that we all must look beyond our national boundaries to improve the flourishing of all young people, wherever they may be found. Finally, the existential imperative reminds us that students look to their teachers as role models who can dignify learning with meaning and embellish life with joy. Visionary in its scope and practical in its details, The New Imperatives of Educational Change is an indispensable road map for all teachers, principals, and system leaders.

Educational Change and the Political Process brings together key ideas on both the system of educational policy and the policy process in the United States. It provides students with a broad, methodical understanding of educational policy. No other textbook offers as comprehensive a view of the U.S. educational policy procedure and political systems. Section I discusses the actors and systems that create and implement policy on both the federal and the local level; Section II walks students through the policy process from idea to implementation to evaluation; and Section III delves into three major forces driving the creation of educational policies in the current era—accountability, equity, and market-driven reforms. Each chapter provides case studies, discussion questions, and classroom activities to scaffold learning, as well as a bibliography for further reading to deepen exploration of these topics.

A pioneering socio-historical analysis of change and development in secondary education in England, France, and Germany during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.