The Transformation of Great American School Districts

In The Transformation of Great American School Districts, William Lowe Boyd, Charles Taylor Kerchner, and Mark Blyth argue that urban education reform can best be understood as a long process of institutional change, rather than as a series of failed projects. They examine the core assumptions that underlay the Progressive Era model of public educationapolitical governance, local control, professional hierarchy, and the logic of confidenceand show that recent developments in school governance have challenged virtually all of these assumptions. Drawing on case studies of five urban districtsPhiladelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angelesthey trace the rise of new ideas and trends that are reshaping the institution of public education: mayoral control, shifting civic coalitions, federal and state involvement, standards-based accountability, and the role of educational outsiders in district administration. Although each city has evolved along a different path, the editors argue that a set of new underlying ideas is being auditioned in the transition to a new institutional model and describe the process by which institutional change occurs.