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Why is it so difficult to design and implement fundamental educational reform in large city schools in spite of broad popular support for change? How does the politics of race complicate the challenge of building and sustaining coalitions for improving urban schools? These questions have provoked a great deal of theorizing, but this is the first book to explore the issues on the basis of extensive, solid evidence. Here a group of political scientists examines education reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., where local governmental authority has passed from white to black leaders. The authors show that black administrative control of big-city school systems has not translated into broad improvements in the quality of public education within black-led cities. Race can be crucial, however, in fostering the broad civic involvement perhaps most needed for school reform.
In each city examined, reform efforts often arise but collapse, partly because leaders are unable to craft effective political coalitions that would commit community resources to a concrete policy agenda. What undermines the leadership, according to the authors, is the complex role of race in each city. First, public authority does not guarantee access to private resources, usually still controlled by white economic elites. Second, local authorities must interact with external actors, at the state and national levels, who remain predominantly white. Finally, issues of race divide the African American community itself and often place limits on what leaders can and cannot do. Filled with insightful explanations together with recommendations for policy change, this book is an important component of the debate now being waged among researchers, education activists, and the community as a whole.
Winner of the 2000 Best Book Award, Urban Politics Section of the American Political Science Association "[The authors] have plainly done their homework. They have reviewed thousands of news clips and official reports, conducted scores of interviews and surveyed a wide array of influential actors... Although the authors are plainly sympathetic to the aspirations of the reformers, they have checked their dreams at the door. That they do not shy away from telling inconvenient truths ... gives them greater credence to their account."--David L. Kirp, The Nation "This substantial volume does not leave the reader with great optimism. Rather, The Color of School Reform extends our understanding of the roots of urban school failure and broadens our focus on the political and social requisites for successful reform. At this stage of the big city school wars, that's a more important contribution."--Michael F. Addonizio, Qualitative Studies in Education
| List of Figures | p. ix |
| List of Tables | p. xi |
| Acknowledgments | p. xiii |
| Civic Capacity, Race, and Education in Black-Led Cities | p. 3 |
| The Challenge of Urban Education | p. 9 |
| Reforms That Go Nowhere | p. 12 |
| Civic Capacity: Organizing Communities to Get Things Done | p. 14 |
| A Tough Task: Why Human Development May Be More Difficult than Economic Development | p. 15 |
| Competing Views of Race and School Politics | p. 17 |
| Research Design | p. 22 |
| The Plan of the Book | p. 26 |
| Racial Change and the Politics of Transition | p. 30 |
| Patterns of Racial Turnover in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and D.C. | p. 31 |
| Racial Transition and Political Change: The Rise of Black Political Power | p. 33 |
| Managing School Desegregation | p. 41 |
| Political Compromise and Transition: The Evolution of Black-led School Districts | p. 50 |
| The Political Landscape in Black-Led Cities: From Formal to Informal Power | p. 55 |
| Conclusion: Historical Legacies and Racial Politics | p. 61 |
| The Elusiveness of Education Reform | p. 63 |
| The Condition of Education: Poor Performance and Even Poorer Conditions | p. 65 |
| Local Problem Definitions: A Favorable Foundation for Reform | p. 71 |
| An Array of Reform Efforts | p. 74 |
| The Frustration of Reform | p. 82 |
| Why Is Reform So Difficult? | p. 113 |
| Race and the Political Economy of Big-City Schools: Teachers and Preachers | p. 115 |
| Race, jobs, and Politics | p. 118 |
| Unions and Reform | p. 127 |
| Black Ministers and School Affairs: 1960-1980 | p. 137 |
| Reform with Teachers and jobs in Mind | p. 152 |
| Parental and Community Participation in Education Reform | p. 155 |
| What Kind of Participation and on Whose Terms? | p. 158 |
| Patterns of Participation in Black-Led Cities | p. 164 |
| The Dog That Hasn't Barked: Accounting for the Absence of a Stronger Community-Based Movement | p. 189 |
| Fizzled Expectations | p. 207 |
| Black Leaders, White Businesses: Racial Tensions and the Construction of Public-Private Partnerships in Education | p. 209 |
| Business-School Partnerships: The Rallying Cry | p. 212 |
| Some Cautionary Notes | p. 217 |
| Business and School Reform in Black-Led Cities | p. 220 |
| Race As an Inhibiting Factor to Business Involvement | p. 235 |
| Partnerships and Racial Politics in Black-Led Cities | p. 243 |
| The Role of External Actors | p. 247 |
| Traditional Roles of External Actors | p. 249 |
| Growing Regulatory Assertiveness of External Actors | p. 252 |
| The Changing Role of the Courts | p. 255 |
| Current Issues and Interventions | p. 257 |
| Variations in State Policy | p. 266 |
| Local Capacity and External Actors | p. 271 |
| School Reform As If Politics and Race Matter | p. 273 |
| Race As a Complicating Factor in the Politics of School Reform | p. 275 |
| Education Policy As If Politics and Race Matter | p. 279 |
| Prospects for a Human Capital Regime | p. 290 |
| Index | p. 293 |
| Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780691088976
ISBN-10: 0691088977
Audience:
Tertiary; University or College
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 320
Published: 11th February 2001
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 23.39 x 15.6
x 1.68
Weight (kg): 0.45
Edition Number: 2
